Communication is the Job

We are always communicating. Try as we might, we cannot help it. Saying nothing can often be even more damaging than saying the wrong thing. People around us are so eager to understand the world that in absence of true communication, they will attempt to find signal in noise. None of us gets to control what others are hearing or how they are interpreting things. We can only control what we contribute to that milieu. Given that we cannot prevent communication, we must embrace it. While perfect communication is impossible, Boz's goal is to get most people most of the information most of the time.

Layer your message. Communication is important and unavoidable. Structure matters. The larger the audience, the more this becomes important as variance in interest levels only grows. People have to be able to engage at their level of interest and get value, progressively learn whether or not they want to invest more, so it can't be all or nothing. Consider the second order audience. You aren't just communicating to those who attend your meeting or read your posts. You are also communicating to the set of people that everyone in your audience talks to subsequently. Focusing your message into format that is readily repeatable by others with high fidelity can be huge advantage, especially if you can distill it down to short memorable phrases. Communicate defensively. You need to consider the most cynical interpretation of your message before you say anything. For audiences of any reasonable size there will be someone inclined to take the most critical possible interpretation of your words. If you give them enough space, that person will build a logical but incorrect interpretation. If they then share it with others that becomes a de facto communication that you are responsible for even if you never said it or intended it.

Repetition is key. Advertisers have known for a long time that ensuring someone hears a critical message several times is key to them retaining it. Use multiple channels. People absorb information differently through different media so if you want to ensure you've really reached everyone it is wise to get your message out many different ways. Maintain channels. All the right text is worthless if nobody reads it. Building and maintaining strong channels of communication is critical to being able to communicate effectively. If you wait until you need such channels, you are already too late. Important thing with broadcast channels is that people know if something important happens, they will read about it there. Channels also have to be used frequently enough to stay well ranked in peoples inboxes and feeds, so investing in regular high-quality content production is important.

Communicate early and often. Most common mistake is leaders waiting to say anything until they are certain what they are communicating is absolutely correct. That sounds laudable but in practice it tends to slow down communication dramatically and gives space for rumor mill to run amok. In Boz's experience, people would rather hear about the current state of our understanding and have it revised as we learn more than hear nothing at all. People can deal with imperfect information but they cannot stand information insecurity. Debug miscommunication. When doing poor job of communicating it can feel like pushing with rope. You have some clear vision and people just aren't doing what you expect. It can be tempting to blame the audience for not understanding. But make no mistake, when this happens, it is your fault. You have to sit down and ask questions from place of humility to hear what they took away from what you said. Take full responsibility for any discrepancy from what you intended and make corrections with entire audience. We are all leaders to someone whether we like it or not. People are looking to us. We don't have the capacity not to communicate. So invest to do it well.