The art of effective communication is grounded in understanding your reason for communicating (the purpose) and your audience. And feedback.
I cover this, in great depth, in the Super Power Workshop.
The idea of Purpose and Audience (and Context) is a foundational building block of what I teach in the course, and it’s the foundations of effective communication.
When we are clear about our purpose, we can hone in on it and ensure we do our best to achieve this purpose. We will know when we have succeeded (or not) in communicating with purpose - we'll get feedback.
When we are clear about whom we would like to affect, we can hone in and try our best to make our communication land with the right person/people. We will know if we achieve our purpose (or not) - through feedback.
Communication without feedback is essentially broadcasting.
A clear way to think about this is related to our technology enabled world.
With the rise of remote working and the ever growing reliance on technology as a medium for communication, we are sending and receiving messages digitally a lot more than we ever used to. Probably too much if you ask me.
But sent, does not mean received.
With all communication we need feedback. But, there are different levels of feedback.
It’s important to break the word “feedback” down here into four important categories of "received".
Category 1 – Not even received it - no feedback
When we send something digitally we assume that it will reach it’s destination. But, this may not be true.
So even though we say “You should have received an email from me”, it doesn’t mean that it was indeed received.
We assume reception of messages – and this is a giant cause of ineffective communication in the workplace.
The email didn’t land in their inbox, their signal on their phone is sketchy, it got caught in the spam filter, it didn’t arrive in the post (old school).
It just simply did not arrive so they could never have received it.
We often jump to conclusions that someone is ignoring our messages, or playing silent via email after they received our message. When we don't get feedback, we assume someone is ignoring us. The reality is, the message may simply have never even arrived.
Category 2 – It was delivered - some feedback
Building on the above is the assumption that our message did indeed get delivered.
It was received in the other person’s inbox. The first green tick on WhatsApp tells us it arrived. We get a “signed for” confirmation if you’re posting something.
But, this does not mean that they actually read the message, or did something with the communication, or understood it. And in this regard, we’ve probably failed to communicate if we think "receiving" something is communication - it is not.
Knowing the message was "delivered" is a form of feedback, but it's not complete.
They may have physically received the message but mentally, emotionally and cognitively may not have actually received it.
Category 3 – They opened it and read it (or listened or watched) - partial feedback
They opened and read the email. The second green tick tells you they opened and read the message. Outlook tells you they opened it. We assume from this that we have communicated because the other person opened it and read it.
Not true.
Even here we’re not sure they actually digested our message but at least we know they opened it and looked at it.
And even now, after peeling back the layers of “receiving” messages and getting feedback, we still do not know for sure that they digested the message, understood it and did something with it.
We have more feedback - they received it AND opened it, but we don't know whether our message (communication) landed.
We still, at least in my view, have not communicated yet, as we don’t know for sure we have achieved our purpose.
Category 4 – Full Feedback
They received it because they gave us some form of full feedback.
They have closed the loop. This is the ultimate confirmation that the other person did indeed receive our communication.
It doesn't mean we achieved our purpose, but we have information, data and insights that confirm the other person received our message - and did something with it.
We have communicated….to some extent.
Full feedback, as I define it, means the other person has digested and done something with the message. In order to know we have been successful at reaching the other person, we need this level of feedback.
Feedback is the closing (and opening) loop in communication. It’s the confirmation we have communicated. We may not land the message right (purpose), but we know it’s been communicated: the other person has truly received the message and has responded.
We need feedback to ensure we’ve communicated.
Sent, opened, read – none of these increments of feedback mean they truly received the message and did something with it. The only time we know for sure is when we get full feedback.
- It could be that they respond with confirmation. “Got it, will do, thanks”.
- It could be that they send us the response we asked for. “Here’s the report you’ve just asked for.”
- It could be that they change their behaviours or do some action that we can see.
- It could be they reopen the loop back to us – for us to now receive their communication. “Thanks for your message but it’s not clear what you mean when you say X, Y or Z”
- It could be they confirm they have received the message and are clear.
Full feedback is the signal that the other person has received our communication. Until we get that confirmation we cannot be sure.
It still doesn't mean we have achieved our purpose but we have tried - and the feedback we do receive gives us clues on how to communicate more effectively next time.
Feedback is essential - to close the loop, or re-open a new loop and to confirm whether we have achieved our purpose or not.
In the workplace this requires effort to get that feedback. It may require multiple messages, or better phrased emails, or chasing up. And many people don’t do it.
They “assume” reception of messages. But sent, and delivered, does not equal communication.
Here’s Aristotle’s model with a feedback loop added.
I like this model because I like how he:
- “Discovers” something (a message worth communicating)
- “Arranges” it (choosing the most appropriate structure, format, order)
- “Clothes” it (style, medium, language patterns, supporting visuals, stories)
- “Delivers” it (sends the message)
It feels really neat to explain it this way.
Back then he was stood on the side of a hill shouting to people – hence there was no feedback mechanism involved. It was more broadcast than communication.
Add feedback though, and you have a communication model that makes sense for the curious mind.
Received does not mean we have communicated. Full and explicit feedback is what we need to ascertain whether we've achieved our purpose or not. Without feedback I think it's safe to assume we have NOT communicated effectively.
