Good Communication starts with Digging
Whether in your personal or working life, communication is at the heart of all of our personal and business relationships.
WE CANNOT NOT COMMUNICATE
The question that we need to ask ourselves, is the extent to which we control the message that we communicate.
Building from the ground up
No-one would begin a house building project by starting with the windows and the doors, or the roof. You build from the ground up, by laying good solid foundations.
And yet with communications, organisations often do this very thing by looking at the external demonstrations of communications such as websites and newsletters without paying enough attention to their foundations. They move to the WHAT of communications before answering the WHY questions.
Hard work, but worth it the long term
There are two certainties about working on foundations. It can be really hard work to dig deep enough into the ground and then once you start to lay them it is slow painstaking work and it can take a long time before visible progress is to be seen. It is no surprise then that organisations start with the more visible 'end products' because they appear to show quick results ... and give off good vibrations. However, without a solid strategy underlying things, the 'vehicles' of communication can lose their way and end up in noman's land without a blueprint to refer back to.
There is a lot of talk in the corporate world about the need to have short-term wins, to impress clients and boards with immediate improvements in the situation. There is no need to 'hang about' but the presenting need or problem when you enter a situation is rarely the one that will make the biggest difference in the long-term if resolved.
Whether in our personal or working relationships, or in getting a corporate message across, its worth it in the long run to roll our sleeves up and dig some good foundations instead of relying on the short-term gains of good vibrations.
WE CANNOT NOT COMMUNICATE
The question that we need to ask ourselves, is the extent to which we control the message that we communicate.
Building from the ground up
No-one would begin a house building project by starting with the windows and the doors, or the roof. You build from the ground up, by laying good solid foundations.
And yet with communications, organisations often do this very thing by looking at the external demonstrations of communications such as websites and newsletters without paying enough attention to their foundations. They move to the WHAT of communications before answering the WHY questions.
Hard work, but worth it the long term
There are two certainties about working on foundations. It can be really hard work to dig deep enough into the ground and then once you start to lay them it is slow painstaking work and it can take a long time before visible progress is to be seen. It is no surprise then that organisations start with the more visible 'end products' because they appear to show quick results ... and give off good vibrations. However, without a solid strategy underlying things, the 'vehicles' of communication can lose their way and end up in noman's land without a blueprint to refer back to.
There is a lot of talk in the corporate world about the need to have short-term wins, to impress clients and boards with immediate improvements in the situation. There is no need to 'hang about' but the presenting need or problem when you enter a situation is rarely the one that will make the biggest difference in the long-term if resolved.
Whether in our personal or working relationships, or in getting a corporate message across, its worth it in the long run to roll our sleeves up and dig some good foundations instead of relying on the short-term gains of good vibrations.
