Reverse Engineering Communication

Something we have been doing our entire lives should be easy and instinctual. Right? What if that thing is communicating? If it’s so natural, why are we always complaining that someone misunderstood what we said, or that meeting could have been an email, but nobody read the email!? This is particularly common in remote work situations where you aren’t nose-to-nose with the other party. One way to increase the chance of our communication being understood and acted on is to do it backwards.

Okay, let me explain.

One of the key tenets here at the Kevin Eikenberry Group is that there are four stages of communication. All must happen for a particular message to be successful: 

1. Message Sent. That email went out, voicemail got left, or you stopped them on the way to the coffee machine and the right words left your mouth in the right way.
2. Message Received. They heard you. They read your email (or at least it arrived in their inbox.) They nodded when you spoke.
3. Message Understood. Just because they received your message, doesn’t mean they “got” it. Was it delivered in a clear, appropriate way so that the receiver understands what you said or wanted? Jargon, weasel-words, or even sending it in an ineffective way (like leaving a voicemail when an email is easier to go back and refer to) can reduce the odds of being understood.
4. Feedback Received/Message Acted On. The person learned what you wanted them to learn, or took the action that you wanted them to take.

If all four of those things happen, there’s a pretty good chance that your communication (presentation, email, Teams chat message) was successful. So why is this so difficult?

It can feel like once we’ve sent the message (“Hey, I sent the email, it’s up to them to read it”) it’s out of our control. That’s technically true, but what if we could increase the odds of success?

One way to do that is look at that list and work from the bottom up. What if we started with the end in mind? 

1. Feedback Received/Message Acted On. Ask yourself, what does successful communication look like. Do you want them to acknowledge that they read it? Do you have a clear call to action that is observable? (They did it, or they didn’t.) The successful outcome of the message should be clear to both the reader and the sender. Burying the action you want them to take in the fourth paragraph of an email is unlikely to be successful. The more obvious the action or feedback you want, the more likely it will occur.
2. Message Understood. Now that you know what you want to achieve, can you identify barriers to understanding? Are you using too much jargon? Does the person have the context and knowledge to understand the message and take the action you requested? Audience analysis is crucial to successful messaging.
3. Message Received. This can be frustrating. If you have crafted a clear, targeted message, it will only succeed if the person receives it. That doesn’t just mean, “did it make it through their spam filter?” Or “did they even hear what I said?” It also means sending that communication in the most effective way.  A complicated message might not make a great text message. Conversely, if time is of the essence a text message might be more effective than a voicemail (assuming you can get that person to ever check their @#%$$% voicemail.) Did you have their attention before they got your message? Are they physically able to focus on the communication or will distractions reduce the odds of successful messaging?
4. Message Sent. If you have found the absolute most effective way to craft your message, sent it in a way that doesn’t allow for misinterpretation, and matched the message to the medium, you’re ready to hit send, or call them in for that meeting.

By reverse engineering communication—starting with the end in mind—you are more likely to be successful.

Who knows, maybe that meeting really can be an email.