Tag Archives: Communication

Business

What is communication?

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Communication breakdown is not always the same. ✎ By Wayne K. Spear

It is the hardest simple thing you will ever do.

That is why communication failure is at the root of many ills.

And, yet, in our hearts and minds we human beings believe that communication is an ordinary, ever-day act—as natural to us as breathing.

Well, what if your communication strategy has emphysema?

Think about this: homo sapiens is older than words, by many thousands of years. We evolved to communicate without a verbal language.

Emotion, gesture, posture, and facial expression trump verbal communication. We need these so much that in the age of social media we have found ways to interpolate them.

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Every face is an open book.

Our communication styles vary. We each have a language of our own. Asperger syndrome is a communication style. The language of poetry is another.

Understand, and be understood. This, in a phrase, is the goal of all communication.

Relationships, marriages, and politics all depend upon effective communication.

Businesses fail when their internal and external communications are shoddy.

The work of managing internal communication is Organizational Development.

The work of managing the effective, bi-directional flow of information is Public Relations.

The work of understanding your audience’s needs and perceptions is Marketing.

Figure 1: the three modes of communication

Figure 1

Do you understand yourself and your communication style? Do you understand the audience? Are you a seller speaking the language of sellers, when you should be speaking the language of buyers? Do you have the right message for the wrong audience, or the wrong message for the right audience?

What does communication mean to you, and to your business?

Business

A story teller must be tenacious

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Pitch, pitch, pitching at Heaven’s door. ✎ By Wayne K. Spear

What’s the story?

An account and a message and a performance and a bond. The most powerful stories communicate values, identity, and purpose.

Pitches, vision statements, business plans, novels, movies, and cultures are made of story.

Stories matter, and so we care for and communicate them.

There are many theories about communication that say a message has to be heard multiple times before it sinks in.

Some say three—others, more.

Thomas Smith’s 1885 book Successful Advertising says 20.

Rarely is it once.

Book browsers are much more likely to buy when they’ve heard of the author, even when they can’t recall what they’ve heard.

When I was in college I had two room mates. One of them (I didn’t know which) had bottles of near-empty shampoo cluttering up the shower.

I decided to send a message.

Each week I bought a bottle of shampoo and put it in the shower. In two months, I had eight bottles of shampoo cluttering the shower.

That’s when my room mates started to get the message.

Here is what the television and film producer Lisa Meeches said to me about her grandfather:

He told me that not everything I thought of would be successful, but to continue trying, and to persevere. He used to use the word tenacious. To be tenacious and to have tenacity as a story teller.

Lisa Meeches
Photo: Lisa Meeches, by Fred Cattroll

Tenacity means to hold on, to retain, to have firmness of purpose.

Know your story, and never compromise its integrity. Be respectful, and don’t beat your audience over the head.

But also be open to finding new ways to tell your story when your message doesn’t get through. Persevere and adapt, without losing site of your values, identity, and purpose.

A story teller must be tenacious.