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Competency Coordinates: Communication

Communication

Presenting in public, aligning content with the audience’s concerns, summarising complex matters into essential points, and adapting the approach to the audience’s background, writing documents using professionally appropriate language and adapting the writing style to the objectives and target group, being aware of non-verbal behaviours signaling the understanding and relevance of messages.

The fear of presenting in public

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• In the Book of Fears, speaking in front of a crowd comes up as the number one fear of the average person.Do you want to know number two? Death. Jerry Seinfeld has a joke on this where he says that if you are at a funeral you would rather be dead than doing the eulogy. Not so sure about the credibility of the Book of Fears, but recent research by Chapman University shows that people are indeed more fearful of public speaking than of being murdered by a stranger!

• From doing a public presentation to submitting a writing report for review, you can probably recognize this fear of exposure in some of your colleagues and maybe even in yourself. People often devote much time and effort in preparing these elements of communication, in making them as clear and rigorous as possible,so it is only natural that they feel at least some form of anticipation about how well this communication is received.

• Many people believe that you either “got it or you don’t” in doing good public presentations and written reports. It is like being praised for good communication is something that is reserved just for a handful of people. However, this is far from true! Some people might be more natural than others, but it is much like with anything else (from cooking to playing soccer). Overcoming communication fears and delivering sound messages is a competency that can (and should) be trained by anyone.

The balancing act between rigor and clarity!

• Many people believe that rigorous communication means technical communication. On top of this many also believe that people’s distrust on a topic is often a matter of information deficit and, consequently,providing technical information is the road to granting trust. Technical information is pivotal to good decisions, but technical information is not pivotal to good communication and trust.

• At the other end of the spectrum are people who believe that to reach audiences with a non-technical background it is necessary to hide all technicalities and present the very basics and at a slow pace. This over correction can become very unproductive, seen as patronizing, and hinder trust as much as sticking to the rigorous technical jargon!

• Balancing the act between rigor and clarity can be accomplished using different communication tools. We provide 4 proven examples that can easily be accommodated to your communication style:
  • Metaphors. Technical information is often in a scale that has little practical meaning. For instance, saying that a super-wind turbine has the installed capacity of 10 megawatts means very little to most people beyond energy and wind engineers. Alternatively, saying that a turbine the size a cruise ship can provide energy to 8000 households is likely to reach every audience.
  • Humor. Research shows that when people laugh at new information, they are more likely to memorize it. Approaching an audience or a report with joy, curiosity and humor will easily bring you closer to your audience.
  • Framing. You might believe that because you invest time and effort in preparing your communication that people will (and should) listen to you. However, attention is a resource that must be earned!People must be brought to your world of ideas and relate with it so they can find the relevance in your message. Stories, personal messages, and concrete examples are some of the ways you can grab their hands and make people come along with you.
  • Warmth. People often assume that communication should mirror competence and expertise. They’re right! However, people often sacrifice that at the expense of warmth and trustworthiness. Conveying benevolence (concern for the needs of others) and ethics (an orientation to do what is right) goes a great way into turning a competent and cold communication into a competent, warm, and trustworthy one!

The road to master communication

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Things you should never do in a public communication

1. Talk and write to a crowd you don’t know. Rule number one of communication – know your audience!Speaking about expropriation to lawyers is different to speaking to municipality leaders, and different tos peaking to landowners. Many people think that if the message is important and if the presenter is skilled,people will listen to it. However, as much as people can listen, they will only understand the message if it is properly “encoded”! Knowing the audience can range from something operational, like answering the questions “Who am I communicating with? What is their background and interest?”, to something more experiential, like getting to know representatives of the crowds you will be addressing.
2. Present a collection of ideas (no matter how good they look). As obvious as this might be, many oral and written contents lack a clear structure with an introduction (e.g., who you are and what are your objectives with the communication), development (e.g., background, new information, implications), and conclusion (e.g., main takeaways, limitations, next steps). A good presentation should be structured around one clear and sound message, make sure you understand yours and put it to work in your communication.
3. Talk or write to a crowd without testing. Most people consider that a presentation or a report is completed once you write the last sentence. That is only finishing the message! Sound communication requires further testing, namely, presenting to colleagues or asking for a preliminary reviews and feedback. Try answering the following questions before delivering a speech or a report: “How long will it take for people to listen/read what I have prepared?”, “What will people perceive as the ‘main message’?”; “Is there any sensitive content?”.
4. Consider attention as a gift. Simon Weill, a French philosopher, devoted much of her writings to this intuitive but often forgotten idea. In her “First and Last Notebooks”, she says that attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity! If this idea catches you, consider reading her notebook, check here.
5. Do not take trust for granted. Not all information is trustworthy, so it is worth learning what trust is made of.The prominent data storyteller R.J. Andrews has a very compelling and simple perspective on this – to make information trustworthy you need to humanize data! Check his award winning website, infowetrust.com, and consider reading his book, “Info we trust”, check here.
6. Learn what it takes to speak in way that people will listen. Julian Treasure is a sound expert and has an extraordinarily popular TED talk depicting a set of easy practical steps you can follow to make your voice heard. Check his TED here, it is worth your 9 minutes.