Sandy Linver suggests five stages of communication: from unaware to aware to understand to believe to action. It’s a terrific model that has been helpful to a lot of people over the years as they’ve onboarded into new roles or just tried to make their communication more impactful in general. It’s even more useful if you add another component, engage.
Here’s the logic.
1) Create awareness.
There’s no way anyone is going to act on your communication until they are exposed to it. This may seem basic, but don’t assume your communication is received just because it’s sent. True for emails. True for voicemails. True for face to face, live communication. If it doesn’t arrive, isn’t delivered to the right person, or doesn’t register, it won’t have any impact.
2) Build understanding.
Just because someone is aware of your communication, doesn’t mean they’ve understood it. It your responsibility to make sure the people you communicate with understand what you want them to understand.
3) Drive belief.
The next level up is belief. Just because they understand you doesn’t mean they agree with you or believe you. And without those, they are not going to act.
4) Ensure engagement.
This is about caring. They can become aware of, understand, and believe your message without thinking it applies to them. For your message to make an impact on anyone, that person has to care about what you’re saying and engage with your ideas.
5) Compel action.
This is the highest purpose of communication. In an onboarding situation, the hoped for actions generally revolve around working together towards a shared purpose. This will only happen if others are aware of, understand, believe and engage with your message first.
George Bradt – PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding and Transition Acceleration
