How to make messages stick...

Listen now - 6 minutes

Once you have the right team in place things should be easy, right? You set the vision, make sure everyone knows their part and how to play it and off you go.

In reality, things can change daily, and they do. Decisions need to be made, priorities need to be set and messages need to be communicated.

Something I hear a lot, and I used to see in my corporate career was frustration when messages didn't stick. Decisions, priorities, tasks, strategy, logical things that should be easy to understand and implement that then simply don't get done, or get done, but not in the way that was expected.

It causes friction and slows the business down and ultimately leaves you the leader, thinking that you might as well do things yourself.

So what's happening?

Well, even the clearest messages sometimes land on deaf ears, even when the message you’re landing is the most important thing you might be communicating that day. The person receiving it might be mentally writing their shopping list recounting the row they just had with their girlfriend or just remembered it's their mum's birthday.

Even if they are listening, they might not be able to fully contextualise what they're hearing or be able to relate to what it means to them. Even if they do, they might not really realise exactly what they do or don't understand until they step back into the day to day and try to act on what they've heard.

That's a lot for you to contend with! So how do you make messages, land and stick?

Well, first of all you need to clear framework.

You need to do the groundwork, you need to have created the clarity of vision, and the direction of travel in enough detail that when you do share messages that they just slot into place. That way people know how those messages fit with where they're heading and they're able to easily see how doing that piece of work gets them closer to where they're going.

The key messages and that clear framework along with the vision, the mission and the roadmap needs to be on repeat - bordering on obsession. Your team need to have that direction of travel that roadmap, those milestones, really, really clear in their head, so that when you're talking to them about where you're heading, and what they need to do, they're able to really easily work out how all those things fit together, and that makes it much more likely that those messages will stick.

Secondly, you need to make it relevant to them. It's really tough to do this piece of work, but making things relevant to your team and relatable will ultimately mean better buy-in.

Really put yourself in their shoes and think about what they need to do and what they might need to know in order to give them the best chance.

This is a case of needing to slow down to speed up. I know it feels as though slowing down is, well, slowing you down, but if you take the time at the beginning to really think about what your team needs to hear, and how they need to hear it, what they might need in terms of resources what barriers they might come up against, then you can really set them up for success right from the beginning.

Ultimately, if you don't do that piece of work, you'll get slowed down further down the line when either they haven't understood fully what you needed them to do or they haven't got to grips with it quickly enough.

Doing all of this allows you to create clarity that transcends through the organisation. I don't know if you've ever seen the Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance (if you haven’t you really should) but he is obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with making that team the best it possibly can be. He talks about creating clarity that transcends - distilling all of the key messages down into one phrase, and repeat that over and over again.

“When I was playing, my vision and my tunnel vision was my craft. I was a professional basketball player. And I tried to do that the best I could.”

Okay, so what does that mean practically speaking?

It means that you need to define the messages that bear repeating. Remember that point about obsession. You need to find things that you need to have on repeat, and your team need to have on repeat. So that when you are giving them priorities, you're giving them decisions made, you're shifting things around and you're asking them to do things. There is something for that to stick to - a broad understanding of where they're heading.

Secondly, that means spending time at the start that slowing down to speed up.

Thirdly, practically speaking, it's really contracting with your team, and giving them permission to ask questions. It’s helping them to understand that asking questions doesn't mean they're stupid, it means that they have understood what you've told them, and want to understand the next layer down. It's really, really important because by doing this you can build a culture of listening and questioning,

This last one is double bubble - as you start to listen to their questions, it helps you to make things more relevant going forward. When you take notice of the questions you're being asked, you understand the context your team are working in. You understand the gaps in their understanding, and also the gaps in your communication. You can understand where your team are at when they're consistently missing the point on certain elements. If that is a trend across the board that probably means that there's a gap in your communication, not a gap in that understanding so really spend time assessing where those points are so you can adjust, amend course correct and so on is time really well spent.

I hope this helps you to think about how to make your important messages stick. If it has helped, I’d love you to get in touch and let me know what you’ve implemented. If you think you might need help with any of the points outlined do drop me a line and we can see how I may be able to support you.

As always, have a great week and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Rebecca