Everything communicates – everything you say and do and don’t say and don’t do. We all know this. And we all take it for granted and either don’t remember it or don’t pay enough attention sometimes. Just this past week we saw people all the way up to the President of The United States miss-communicating. And miss-communication can cause all sorts of problems, even changing the course of your career or the course of history.
By the time you read this, there will have been innumerable pieces written about the June 2024 Biden-Trump debate, how President Biden’s style and delivery overwhelmed the substance of his points, and how former President Trump’s misrepresentations shone through his style and delivery. And then there will be debriefs of the UK and French elections and what went right and wrong there. And, we will have seen editors and publishers (communication professionals) destroy their careers with personal communication missteps.
Follow this basic three-step framework.
- Begin with your objective – the impact you want to make on those with whom you are communicating directly and indirectly in terms of moving them from their current state to the desired state on the unaware – aware – understanding – believing – acting continuum (the destination X.) And, consider how you want them to feel about you (the hidden X.)
- Think through your approach, message and communication points. Choose what to communicate to bridge the gap between the current reality and the destination X. Think through what people need to be aware of, understand (rationally,) believe, and feel (emotionally) to bridge that gap. This spawns your approach (strategy,) message (headline words,) and three communication points.
- Deliver. Implement with the best vehicles in the optimum combination with the best timing – in-person or virtual, synchronous or asynchronous in everything you do or say and don’t do and don’t say.
President Biden
While different people will have different feelings about Biden’s content in the June 2024 debate, almost everyone will accept that he failed to deliver on his hidden X. As Jill Biden said, to him, “You answered every question. You knew all the facts.” But he did not give the audience confidence in his ability to lead. This was a result of how he looked, the way he presented, in how he carried himself while Trump was talking, in how he put those facts together into stories others could relate to, or not. Everything communicates.
Washington Post Editor Will Lewis
In other news this past week, Scotland Yard raised questions about Washington Post Editor, Will Lewis’ “help” with a phone hacking investigation ten years ago. He said he was helping while actually deleting key emails. The New York Times dug into this but Lewis ‘declined an interview request. “Any allegations of wrongdoing are untrue,” he said in a statement. “I have no further comment to make.”’ Everything communicates – including his declining the interview.
Executive Onboarding
One executive was hired into a business development role to help the organization identify and acquire other companies. He was having a hard time finding temporary housing and went to his boss to complain about the relocation company. Everything communicates. If he couldn’t manage the acquisition of his own housing, how could anyone believe he could manage the acquisition of another company.
There are a gazillion other examples. We’ve all said and done things that had unintended consequences. We’re all going to say and do it again. Hopefully remembering that everything communicates, a phrase I originally learned from then Coca-Cola Chief Marketing Officer Sergio Zyman, and the framework above will help you eliminate some of those mistakes.
Effective Apologies
Finally, everything communicates – including how you apologize. When you fail:
- Own it. Don’t deflect blame. Don’t make excuses. Accept your own responsibility.
- Fix it. Repair the damage.
- Apologize for it sincerely. As part of that, go beyond just getting the injured party back to where they would have been had you not failed. If you gave them dinner late, buy them desert.
- Ensure it never happens again.
