You have finished your strategic plan and you are ready to get started. But wait! Have you already thought about how to communicate the strategy to your employees? Here is the 8-step process to ensure that you effectively communicate the strategy to your employees.
8 Steps to Effective Communication
- Be clear about the purpose of the communication
- Know your audience
- Plan your messages
- Choose how to communicate
- Prepare your story and visual aids
- Deliver the communication
- Check for understanding
- Review and learn
Creating understanding and buy-in about the strategic direction of the business is critical to success. Thinking through these 8 steps allows you to plan your messages and communicate with confidence and impact. When it comes to strategy, clarity is paramount. Read on to learn more about these 8 practical steps to effective communication and scroll down to download our preparation template.
Effective strategy communication
Before jumping into the 8 steps it is worth describing why effective strategy communication is so essential.
People are the engine behind your business. It’s the people that move your business forward, achieve your objectives and implement your strategy. It is therefore critical that your people understand the direction of the business and what is expected of them. Unfortunately, the reality is that in many organizations the strategy is not clear.
Numerous studies have shown that lack of clarity about the strategy and lack of communication are among the top reasons why strategies fail during implementation. Having a clear strategy is not good enough. It is important that the strategy is clear to employees and other stakeholders. Only then can you effectively move your business towards its destination.
So how exactly can you ensure that your team is clear about the business strategy? Communication, communication, communication.
In my experience, it is most beneficial to involve the employees throughout the strategy process. However, depending on the size of your organization, it may not be realistic to involve everyone. Besides, there is a business to run, customers to attend to, and products to deliver. So keeping an open line of communication throughout the process keeps the team engaged and updated on progress.
I like to say that when it comes to strategy, you cannot over-communicate. Since the topic of strategy can be daunting, it makes sense to plan your communication in order to have the desired impact.
An effective communication plan has 8 steps.
Following these 8 steps will put you on route to effective communication and successful strategy implementation. We will now go into the details of each of these 8 steps
1. Purpose
Communication is a tool to inform, influence, and socialize and communication happens between people. It can therefore be used in different ways and can be perceived differently by different people. In order to have the desired impact, it is important to first think about why you communicate. How you plan your communication and how you deliver it will differ based on your purpose.
The first step when you begin planning is to describe the purpose of your communication. What are the reasons and goals of the communication? What is the desired impact you wish to have on your target audience?
The key question is: what do you aim to achieve?
Be deliberate about this step and don’t gloss over it. Write down your reasons or purpose as specific as possible. This is really important! But why?
During the communication, people will decide in the first few seconds whether what they are about to hear or see is relevant to them. That’s right! Just a few seconds in, they will decide whether to pay attention to what you have to say or whether to tune out. That means you have one chance right in the beginning, possibly even before the communication begins, to generate interest and capture your audience’s minds and hearts.
If you are not clear about your purpose and its relevance in those first seconds, you will lose people or at least part of their mental and emotional capacity. For people to really listen and pay attention, you have to make an emotional connection with your audience.
Communication happens between people and people are emotional. The messages you send are not only the words you speak or the graphs on your Powerpoints. Your audience receives much more than that. Your audience uses all its human senses to receive your communication, especially when the communication itself or the topic you communicate about is deemed to have significant personal impact.
When you communicate, especially when holding in-person communication, the content of your communication has the smallest impact. The largest impact is made by how you communicate. In fact, content only accounts for about 10% of the impression you make. About 40% of the perception of your audience is influenced by your voice, i.e. how you articulate yourself, the pitch, the volume, the tempo. And 50% of your impression depends on your body language, which means your posture, your gestures, your facial expressions, and your eye contact.
This is important to consider. When you start with why you communicate and what you aim to achieve, you allow yourself to plan for all aspects of your communication in order to have the desired impact on your audience.
So be clear about your purpose and reasons and then plan your communication accordingly. The reasons why we communicate can be numerous. Here are common reasons for communication in the workplace:
Why we communicate
- To share information
- To ask questions
- To make decisions
- To receive or give feedback
- To establish or deepen relationships
- To motivate people
- To express emotions
- To entertain
In regards to strategy communication, here are a few examples of reasons and goals of communication related to strategy.
Examples of purposes
- To inform the team about the new strategic direction, to explain why the change is necessary, and to make sure everyone understands how they can help.
- To share information about the organizational change to build confidence in the team, to help people deal with uncertainty and to prevent the spreading of rumors.
- To make the decision to invest in a new product line
- To update senior management on progress with strategic initiative 3 and to receive additional funding for the next phase of the initiative.
- To ask for support of the employees for adoption of a new company policy.
Notice that all of these reasons address very emotional topics. Strategy communication typically touches on topics that go very near and dear to people’s personal state of being. Strategy communication therefore needs to be carefully prepared and executed.
Briefly looking ahead to later steps and the actual delivery of the communication, it can actually be quite helpful to state in the beginning of your communication what you aim to accomplish. Stating your purpose makes clear to your audience why you are there and why they need to listen. But more about that later…
In summary, be specific about what you aim to achieve with your communication so that you can plan to capture your audience’ attention. Speaking of the audience, let’s look into that aspect of communication next.
2. Audience
The audience is the target group of your communication. These are the individuals or the group of people who you wish to address your communication to.
Communication is all about the audience. In communication it’s not about what you send and it’s everything about what is received. In order to communicate effectively then, it is important to understand who is going to receive your communication and how it will be understood and interpreted. That means the communication is most effective when it is customized to the target audience.
The second step of the process is to identify the target audience and to learn about their situation and needs. Let’s spend a bit more time here as this is so important.
The key questions are: (i) who do I aim to reach? (ii) What is their situation? (iii) What are their needs?
First, start by listing who your primary audience is. Is it the entire company? A specific organization or team? Are you communicating publicly towards certain stakeholders such as customers or investors? Write down the audience you primarily wish to address.
Then think about the secondary audience. What does that mean? Keep in mind that when you communicate to your primary audience that your message could also be picked up by people for whom the communication was not initially intended. What impact could the communication have on them? Consider the following example.
Example of primary and secondary audiences
Andy speaks at a trade fair about Florian’s Fastener Solutions’ new product line. He outlines the market need, introduces the new offering, describes its unique value proposition and compares it to competitive offerings. Andy closes with a call to action.
Andy’s primary audience is potential customers who attend the trade show. However, in this public forum also employees of Florian’s Fastener Solutions can hear the messages. It’s an opportunity for Andy to be a role model for his colleagues and to praise his team’s work on creating this new offering. His team may feel pride and motivation being praised by their leader so publicly.
At the same time, competitors could of course also be present at the trade fair and could also be in the secondary audience. Andy has to assume that his speech is also attended by competitors. He needs to account for that in the messages he sends and the information he shares. He must not divulge confidential information or trade secrets that could harm his company or his competitive situation.
In this example the primary audience is potential customers. The secondary audience includes colleagues/employees and competitors.
(Note: there could of course be additional members of the secondary audience such as business partners, government representatives, investors etc. but I have excluded them for sake of simplicity of the example.)
Secondly, for each identified target group, describe what the audiences’ situation is. Each communication has a context, an environment in which it is received. And it is worthwhile to think about the situation in a micro-environment, i.e. the immediate surroundings, and a macro-environment, i.e. the larger, external context. Think about the specific situation for each of the target audiences.
Situation Analysis
| Micro-environment | Immediate, internal surroundings, incl. location, time of day, atmosphere, mood |
| Macro-environment | Larger, external context, incl. political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal/regulatory situation |
For the trade show example above, the situation includes the immediate environment of the trade show. It is a public forum with many attendees. Imagine Andy’s communication takes place in the late morning just before lunch. His audience may be tired, jet-lagged or hungry or all of the above. Andy should consider all of these aspects in the micro-environment.
In addition, the trade show takes place in the macro-environment of the economic situation, the industry cycle, the time of year etc. If potential customers in Andy’s audience are currently experiencing economic hardship, they will receive his messages differently than when they are experiencing times of rapid growth and prosperity.
For each of your primary and secondary audiences, write down their specific micro- and macro-situations. Capture only what is relevant to your communication, i.e. what you need to plan for. Remember that you are not writing a PhD thesis on the political era or the economic epoch. A few bullet points may suffice.
Thirdly, capture the specific needs of your target audience. The needs describe the expectations your audience may have of you. Given their situation, what is it that your audience needs from you? Do they need information? Do they need the solution to a problem? Do they need assurance? Do they need entertainment? Do they need empathy and understanding?
Remember that the emotional state of your audience will influence the audience’s understanding and perception of your message. And this will ultimately determine your audience’s response. Depending on the impact you aim to have or the response you wish to trigger, you must appeal to the specific needs of the audience in their specific situation.
For example, if your audience needs information about the performance of a product to make a purchase decision, then actual performance data and reference cases or proof points might be very effective. If however your audience needs assurance that during the announced organizational change no one will lose their jobs, then a communication with data and timeline about the change will not be effective in addressing the audience’s concerns.
In regards to needs of the audience, consider that
- Emotional needs must be addressed with an emotional message
- Factual needs must be addressed with a factual and an emotional message.
On your list of target audiences and their situation, write down the specific needs each audience has given who they are and what situation they are in.
You can summarize your insights in a table that looks like this:
| Audience (Primary & Secondary) | Situation (Micro- & Macro-situation) | Needs |
| Primary audience 1 | … | … |
| Secondary audience 2 | … | … |
| Secondary audience 3 | … | … |
When you are clear about the purpose of your communication and your primary and secondary target group, you can then proceed to craft your key messages.
3. Message
The message is the key content and core idea of your communication. The message describes the essence of the information you want your audience to hear, understand and walk away with.
The third step of the process is about working out clearly and concisely the key messages of your communication.
Why the message is critical becomes apparent with a simple example. Have you been in a conversation with another person and after the other person is finished speaking you are wondering what it was he or she tried to say? He or she may have spoken a lot but said very little? In such a situation, the message did not come across. The person failed to deliver a clear and concise message that you could understand and retain.
Being specific about your key messages is critical and not as easy as it seems. So dive in and take the time you need to get this right.
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” – Leonardo Da Vinci
What are the hallmarks of key messages? Key messages are:
- Concise: short and crisp summary of the most important information
- Relevant: customized to audience’s situation and needs
- Simple: easy to understand, in simple language
- Memorable: easy to retain and repeat
- Believable: real and imaginable, not far-fetched
- Meaningful: carry significance for your target group
Thereby, key messages are no more than 2-3 clear and concise bullet points. And in that lies both the art and the difficulty.
Creating key messages is a 5-step process in itself. Go about it as follows:
- Brainstorm: collect the key ideas and information you plan to convey
- Draft: write out your messages taking into consideration your target audience, their situation and needs.
- Trim: reduce the messages to their essence. Review each sentence so that each word carries meaning. Delete fluff or ambiguous terms.
- Test: try the message on a confidant or trusted person. Check whether your key messages come across the way you intend and whether they have the desired impact.
- Refine: review and refine your key messages based on the feedback you receive.
Note that you customize your key messages to your target audience. If you are addressing different stakeholders, I suggest you repeat this process for each target audience. That way you ensure that your communication is tailored to the needs of the respective group.
Once you have crafted your key messages, it’s time to choose your communication channel.
4. Media
Media refers to the communication channel. This is the means by which you conduct your communication and deliver your message. The choice of media must align with your purpose, your target audience and your message.
In step 4 of the process you choose your communication channel.
The key question in step 4 is: what is the most effective way to reach your target audience so that your key messages are heard and understood?
The choice of communication channel is an important decision. It either helps to effectively deliver your message or to undermine your impact. When choosing your channel, consider how many people you aim to reach and whether you aim to deliver your message one-way or seek feedback and interaction.
Additionally, especially if you have a larger team with multiple locations or if some employees work remotely, consider whether in-person communication is important. This can be of particular significance when sensitive and emotional information needs to be conveyed. Whenever possible, I prefer to communicate matters related to strategy face-to-face. So in your channel choices, take into consideration how best to reach colleagues who are not in the same location.
Choose your communication channel by asking 4 questions:
- Do you plan to reach one, few, or many people?
- Do you plan to communicate one-way, two-way or multiple-way (i.e. are you seeking feedback and/or interaction)?
- What channel options do you have and what are pros and cons of each option?
- Which channel option best suits your purpose, audience, and message?
Gartner, the research and advisory company, provides an excellent overview of channel options for internal communication in the following graphic.
Note that channel choice is not a binary decision. I have beaten the drum enough by now that communicating your strategy or important aspects of your strategy is all about being heard and being understood. So when making channel choices, it’s more about your audience than about you and your message. Therefore, consider using multiple channels to convey your messages to ensure reaching each member of your organization.
Tip: Effective communication might not be achieved by choosing the right communication channel but by making the right combination of channel choices.
Consider our B2B strategy example Florian’s Fastener Solutions (read Florian’s story here). When communicating the company’s new strategy, Andy, the general manager of Florian’s, used multiple channels to communicate with Florian’s employees, customers, owners, and investors. After working out their strategy among the leadership team and several functional experts, Andy used the following channels for communication.
- Andy conducted one-on-one meetings with each owner and major investor.
- Andy announced the essence of the strategy by email to all employees.
- On the same day, Andy called a town hall meeting to communicate the strategy to all employees. In the town hall, Andy provided more background about the need for change, his personal thoughts and motivations, and opened up for questions.
- Andy and his leadership team used team meetings to communicate more detailed aspects of the strategy related to each function and team.
- Finally, Andy and his leadership team used formal and informal one-on-one meetings to check in with important members of the team and those they felt weren’t clear or committed yet.
- For external communication, Andy personally emailed key customers and suppliers to inform them of the new strategic direction. The sales team received talking points for individual communication with customers.
By using multiple communication channels, Andy was sure to reach every member of his organization. He invested additional efforts to be available for questions and feedback. And he followed up to ensure the new strategy was understood and people were clear how they could help.
Think about which communication channels are most effective for your communication and you are well on your way towards your delivery. And the preparation for the actual communication is next.
5. Preparation
You are almost ready to deliver your communication. Now it’s time to put it all together.
Step five of the process is about the concrete preparation to deliver your communication. This is when you write that email, prepare your full remarks, create the PowerPoint presentation, and rehearse your delivery.
The key questions are: what is my story? And what visual aids or supporting materials do I need to tell that story most effectively?
So before you open PowerPoint or Outlook and jump right in, review once more your purpose, your target audience, your messages and your communication channel. Then think about the story you are going to tell.
In order for your communication to be effective, you need to build an emotional connection with your audience right away. You need to make the audience interested and you want to keep your audience engaged throughout your communication. What does that mean for your story? Think about your communication as having 3 parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. Set up a storyboard and work through those 3 parts.
| Beginning | In the beginning, you need a hook to make your audience interested. When you begin, your audience will consciously or subconsciously go through the following questions: what is this about? Is this relevant to me? Should I pay attention? Is this worth my time? Don’t think just because you are the boss that your team will listen to you or read all your emails attentively. You first need to earn their trust and their attention. Consider starting with a personal anecdote or a meaningful fact and then continue with the purpose of the communication. As my speech mentor once said, “tell them what you’re going to tell them”. |
| Middle | The middle part carries the main information or key messages. This is the meat of the communication. Keep this part interesting and engaging. Just like in this article, keep paragraphs or remarks short and digestible. Use simple language that is easily understandable. Stick to your messages and make sure not to stray off topic. Consider to enrich the middle part with examples, illustrations and personal stories. This will make the content relatable and better yet personable. |
| End | At the end of the communication, two things are important: summarize your key messages or take-aways so that the audience will remember them. And include a call to action. What do you want your audience to do with the information you have shared? Do you want them to simply understand and retain the information? Or do you want to move your audience to action? Be clear about that at the end. Finish with what will happen next. |
When you have your story mapped out, check what visual aids could support your message and enhance your delivery? Studies have shown that many of us are visual learners who benefit from seeing what they are hearing. Tap into that to increase your communication effectiveness.
Examples of visual aids could include
- A graph with information in the text of your email
- A set of PowerPoint slides to accompany your verbal remarks
- A handout or sample of what you are discussing
Especially this last item, a sample or object, could be very powerful. Haptics are an incredibly important sense for humans. Seeing is believing? Try seeing, touching, smelling, etc. It’ll make your story come to life. Just don’t make it too fancy to distract from your story and messages!
Important not on PowerPoint slides: your slides are not your presentation. Your messages and your delivery are your presentation. The slides are just there to support the delivery of your message. If you have spent more than 10 minutes in a large corporation, you know what I’m talking about.
Ok, once your storyboard is ready, go ahead and open your email program, your word processing or your slideshow software and write your story and create your visual aids.
When you are finished, let it sit and take a break. Not only do you deserve a break after all that heavy lifting. It’s good to get some distance from your story so that when you come back to it, your eyes are fresh and you can critically review it one more time.
The last step of preparation is to rehearse your communication. Don’t take this step lightly. Practice your delivery. People say Steve Jobs planned and practiced his speeches meticulously to the last detail. Do it like the master himself. Ask a colleague or friend to help you with this. Having a live audience is helpful during practice. The feedback will help you refine and improve. Trust me on this one!
If your communication is in writing, have it reviewed and edited by a trusted friend or advisor. It’s amazing what a different pair eyes can see.
Tip: if you plan to speak in front of your organization and you are not used to doing so, practice your remarks in front of the mirror or better yet on video. Record yourself or ask someone to record for you. With a smartphone this is easily done these days. Review the video to see how you come across. Do several takes if you have to until you are satisfied. if this is an important communication, then your efforts will pay off!
One more thing: I have written this entire process from the point of view of the business leader. Many of us are fortunate enough, however, to have expert colleagues who help us with writing the concrete communication piece or who put the PowerPoint slides together. You may of course consider outsourcing this step if you have the resources to do so.
When you do outsource, make sure to walk your colleagues through the first 4 steps to make sure they fully understand the intent, the situation and the needed tone of the delivery. Make sure this remains your communication. It must fit your style and your choice of words. Authenticity is critical in communication – especially when communicating important or sensitive information like the business strategy.
Therefore, plan to invest time to edit the email, rewrite parts of the speech, and modify the PowerPoint slides. If necessary, ensure your colleague who created the text doesn’t feel hurt by your changes. But it is important that you are 100% comfortable with the communication. If not, the delivery may seem awkward or phony to the audience – or worse the audience might feel that this is not your communication and that you are not fully behind it. And when it comes to strategy, that would be the worst case scenario.
So get ready, make it yours, and move to action.
6. Delivery
Delivery refers to the act of communicating. After the previous six steps were about planning and preparation, step 6 is about implementation.
Before you go ahead to turn your plan into action, consider carefully when, where and how to deliver your message. You want to be fully in control of your delivery so as to have the planned impact on your audience.
Depending on your purpose, audience, message and media, you may have a number of options at your disposal. Think about these options in very practical terms. Then while considering your purpose, put your audience, its situation and its needs first.
Plan your communication at a time when you expect the highest amount of focus and concentration and the least amount of distractions and noise.
For example, for communication about your strategy, which month and day would be best? Would it be more effective for your business to kick things off on a Monday or close out the week on a Friday? Would the delivery be more effective first thing in the morning or in the afternoon? Do you have people in different time zones you need to include? Be deliberate about these choices.
Here’s what has worked well for me. When communicating important information, I try to communicate in person whenever I can. You have much greater control of your message and its delivery when you can use all your personal tools such as voice, body language, and eye contact. In-person communication allows me to connect better with my target audience on an emotional level and ensure that they are open to receive my message.
Should personal communication not be possible for any reason such as different locations and an inability to travel, then I’d prefer the next best alternative: video-conferencing. It’s not exactly in-person, but at least via video you can see each other and observe body language.
Having said that, whether in person, via video conference or in writing, when it comes to timing, I try to avoid times of distraction. My experience is that first thing in the morning, shortly before lunch, right after lunch and shortly before the end of the day are poor times for communicating important information.
This certainly depends on your work culture and norms in your business. My experience is that early in the morning people are not yet fully present. Some people might not be awake yet or might lack the needed level of caffeine. Others need the chat with colleagues to get up to speed or work their way through the email inbox before being ready to engage.
Lunch time is a similarly difficult time. Before lunch, people may be planning their lunch arrangements or their hungry stomachs may prevent them from focusing. After lunch, blood rushes to the stomach to help with digestion and the onset of “food-coma” makes the early afternoon an equally ineffective time.
In my experience, the best times for communicating important information are mid-morning (e.g. 10 am) and mid-afternoon (e.g. 2pm). People tend to be most present and most attentive at those times.
If you are working in a shift system, allow people to clock in and then communicate with them before their shift.
I want to re-emphasize one point I already mentioned above in passing, which is critical for effective communication: when delivering in-person communication, build an emotional connection with the audience first. It’s like the right pitch for a home-run or the perfect set for a spike. An emotional connection “opens up” the audience to receive your message. On the other hand, when the audience is not ready, the message will roll off like water from Teflon. So invest first in that personal, emotional connection, and then tell your story.
Lastly, remember for personal communication, your impact depends only 10% on the content, and 40% on voice and 50% on body language. Use all those tools in congruence with your messages.
Now, go get’em!
7. Check
Most communication literature ends here. Communication delivered – done. Well, I disagree. Having emphasized a lot how important it is to be heard and understood, I think it is important to check whether your communication was indeed received the way you intended. After all, success with your strategy starts with everyone being clear about your strategy.
Step 7 of the process is about checking with your target audience whether the communication has been received and understood.
The key questions in this step therefore are: have the key messages been understood? Has my purpose been achieved?
Let’s first understand why your communication may not be understood as intended. The reasons could be numerous:
- Communication was missed: didn’t receive or open the email, didn’t attend the meeting, etc
- Communication received but not understood: didn’t read/listen carefully, didn’t understand the meaning of the words, there was a language barrier, etc.
- Communication received, but misunderstood: didn’t understand the jargon, associated different meaning to the words used, had a different point of view, etc.
- Communication received and understood, but not convinced: didn’t think messages were realistic, had a different point of view, didn’t understand the why, etc.
- Communication received, understood, and convinced, but didn’t know what’s expected next: didn’t know what to do with the information, didn’t understand the call to action, felt uncertain or unmoved.
Note that all these reasons, as different as they are, will lead to the same or very similar outcomes: the original purpose will be missed.
How to check whether your communication was effective? There is no right or wrong way to go about this. The easiest way is to be available for questions and ask for feedback.
For example, if you are speaking to your team in a town hall or team meeting, open up for questions immediately after finishing your remarks. If you communicate in writing, include directly in the text where, when and how people can ask you questions.
It is important to be patient with your audience. Let the information sink in and give people time to formulate their thoughts and questions.
Consider that not everyone may dare to speak up in public. Yes, it can be intimidating to many to raise their hand and ask what’s on their mind. So in addition to being available for questions in public, also follow up in private.
Make yourself available for smaller group discussions or one-on-one meetings. In those follow up sessions, seek to listen and understand. These are valuable opportunities to reinforce your messages and bring clarity to your purpose.
Here are example questions you can ask in order to trigger questions or feedback and gauge your communication effectiveness:
- Do you have any questions?
- Was anything unclear?
- What were your main take-aways from the communication?
- What can you do next?
If your audience has understood your messages and your purpose has been fulfilled – mission accomplished. There is only one last step.
8. Review
Having gone through the entire process, there is only one last step to take. What can you learn from this communication?
Step 8 of the process is about learning and improving for future communication.
Key questions of this final step are: what went well? What didn’t go well? What can I do differently to be more effective next time?
Ok, this is not rocket science. Simply sit down after you have completed the communication and reflect on how it went. Answer the key questions above and write down your insights. Learning from your experience is a great way to develop and improve yourself.
Think about how you approached the overall communication. You may want to reflect on the following types of questions:
- Were you clear on your purpose?
- Had you identified the target audience and their needs correctly?
- Were your messages on point or did you have to reiterate during the communication?
- Were the channels you chose effective in reaching your audience?
- Would you change the channel mix if you were to start over?
- What kind of questions did you receive during the communication?
- Could you have prepared for the communication and the questions more effectively?
- …
This list is just to start your brainstorm and certainly not exhaustive. Think about your own questions to reflect on based on your experience.
You can use the following table to write down your reflections.
| Reflective Question | Your Notes |
| What went well? | |
| What didn’t go well? | |
| What can I do differently to be more effective next time? |
If you have worked on this communication in a team, feel free to individually and jointly review your learnings and provide feedback to each other. Thereby you can all learn from this experience.
And next time you need to communicate, you will be even more effective in reaching your team and being understood.
Creative ways to communicate with employees
So what are effective ways to communicate with employees? We have put together a list of different communication channels to get the word out as follows.
- Team meeting
- Townhall
- Video conference
- One-on-one meeting
- Informal conversations
- Regular strategy newsletter
- Using a strategy framework
Read more about these and other ways to communicate with employees, in our article about 12 creative ways to communicate your strategy to employees.
There is no one, single best channel to communicate your strategy. Every organization and every individual is different. The key to effective communication is to use combinations of channels and to reiterate your key messages in different ways.
Remember that in the end it is not about what you want to say and it is everything about what your team hears and understands.
Preparation Template
Wow, this was a long article. I wanted to include everything I have learned and experienced to make this as helpful and practical as possible.
Are you ready to get started? We have created a one-page template that takes you through the 8 steps to effective communication. You can download the 8-step communication planner here.
Looking for more tools and templates? Check out our template page below.
Conclusion
Effective communication is critical to successful business strategy implementation. And communication is not only about being heard, but more importantly it’s about being understood. Taking the time to plan your communication deliberately ensures that you have the desired impact. Our 8 step process to effective communication helps you rally your team and deliver results.
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