Less Chatter, More Matter: The Communications Podcast

#79 Busting common communication myths

• Season 1 • Episode 79

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Welcome back to another episode of the Less Chatter, More Matter podcast!

This week, we debunk five prevalent myths around communication. Myths like the misconception that there's no such thing as over-communication, the belief that one's audience is always everyone, the assumption that people should already know certain information, the conflation of communication and change management skills, and the idea that natural communicators exist.

We talk about all the ways that these are in fact, not correct, and we look into ways to fix these common misconceptions. Most importantly, we look at the why these myths came to fruition and what it has meant for comms over time, and overall.

Join us and put your mythbusting hat on for this week's episode!

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Did you know that we only use about 10 percent of our brains and that some people use more of their left brain than their right and vice versa? Or did you know that it takes seven years to digest chewing gum if you eat it? And did you know all of those three facts are in fact, False. That's right. Common as they are, they are myths. Our brain, well, we pretty much use every part of our brain and it is active most of the time. In terms of the left versus right brain myth, the human brain actually does not favour one side more than the other. They just work differently and both sides work together. And gum? Well, good news is it will pass through your digestive system in about seven days. So how do myths like these end up making the rounds? Well, basically our brains love things that are new or interesting. So that helps to save facts like these, in inverted commas, in our memories. Also, we have an innate truth bias where we tend to believe what we hear. And we only have to hear something twice to start to believe it, no matter how crazy or who the source is. But it's not just fun, false facts about the brain. There's also a bunch of myths about communication you've probably heard over the years. And today we're going to bust a few of them. Music and actually April, when you add the Hi everyone, and welcome to Less Chatter, More Matter, the communications podcast. If you're here for the first time, welcome. My name's Mel and I'll be your host. And as I said in the intro today is all about busting some myths. Now some of these you might already know not to be true. But others might surprise you. And perhaps after listening to this episode, you may want to share this episode with a few people in your own circle. But before we get into it, I do want to make the point that believing something that turns out to be a myth does not make you stupid. It makes you human. We have so much going on in our worlds, so much information thrown at us that it's impossible to check everything all of the time. And our brain is doing its best by making mental shortcuts, but that can often be problematic too. So don't feel bad if you've heard some of these things before and you've taken them with you into your work. And now speaking of those myths, let's get stuck into it. Myth number one, there is no such thing as too much communication. That is false. There is absolutely such a thing as too much communication. Let's think about all the noise a team member encounters just in one day alone. We know the average office worker sends about 40 emails per day, but they receive 121 multiply that by five working days, then by four weeks, then by 12 months. And you get the picture and that's just the emails. Then there's the text messages, apps like teams and chat and intranet articles, videos, social media, and so on and so on. The average person now consumes the equivalent of about 16 movies worth of data every day. Our brains were never meant to take in this much information at once, let alone via multiple channels. Now layer onto that the noise of change. Every organisation I'm working with or have worked with in recent times is experiencing constant change. And that means constant noise in a business. Maybe it's just small changes like process change, or maybe it's huge transformational strategic digital change or anything in between, but whatever it is, it results in more noise. And more messages competing for attention. And then there's just the daily business as usual operational noise, the messages about team meetings and leave and learning requirements and training, etc, etc. I mean, I'm just overwhelmed, just listing all of that out. And yet people still think that There's no such thing as too much communication. So where does that stem from? I think it comes from times where people have said they didn't know about something or didn't feel well informed and the solution in inverted commas, again, has just been to keep yelling about stuff. But apart from not cutting through all the noise of all those other messages, more communication usually has no further value to add. And so it just ends up becoming white noise. Essentially people ignore you. So next time, instead of repeating the same message, the same way in the same channel, what we should think about doing is. Looking at what other messages are going out at the same time, and then see if you can find space where yours will have breathing room to cut through. And that makes sense given the topic, and then repackage the same message in different ways for different audiences. Which leads us to the second myth, which is my audience is everyone. I have heard this many times when I've been taking a brief and I've asked who the audience is. The response of everyone... is usually not true. If we start to break down who really needs to know about this, who needs to take action, then we discover that it's really not for everyone; or sometimes we find out there's actually nothing to say. Maybe it's a tiny inconsequential change that nobody will care about. We often see this with project teams, because when you're in a project, it's easy to forget that there's stacks of other things going on for people because you are focused on one thing. All of the time. And it's easy to think that your one thing is the most important thing that everyone needs to know about. And again, it's super rare that this is the case, unless it fundamentally changes the way your business operates. So if you're on a project and you're thinking you need to do some comms, firstly, ask if it's communication or if it's stakeholder engagement that you need to do. Now stakeholder engagement is different. This is where the project manager needs to have conversations with different people to help remove roadblocks, get action happening, and make sure the sponsor feels involved. Communication is where you share the outputs of the project with people who need to know it, but aren't involved in the project itself. So for example, maybe you are in a project team that's installing a new piece of software, and your stakeholders could be some representatives from different teams, as well as some key leaders, etc. So you'd be talking to them constantly as part of your engagement effort. When the software is ready to roll out to the whole business, that's when you'd start to communicate to different audiences. So remember that your audience is really everyone. Think about who needs to take action or who might be impacted. And they're your audience. Nobody else needs to know. And I guarantee nobody else cares. Also, remember, there is a difference between stakeholder engagement and communication. And when it comes to the latter, you still need to tailor your communication for different audiences. There's absolutely no one size fits all approach. Okay. Myth number three, people should know this already. This my friend is the curse of knowledge in action. When we assume that people have context or background, or we assume that they understand an instruction or know how to do something, we're usually wrong. So for example, people might need to reset their passwords and there's probably going to be people who just assume others will know how to do this. And all they'll simply say in their comms is: you need to reset your password. There will be others who say, Oh, they just need to do these three things to reset their password. And it turns out it's actually 10 things. And when you ask for the why behind the need to reset the passwords, perhaps the response is people should know that already - it was hidden in that sixth paragraph of that obscure intranet article six weeks ago. Does that sound familiar? The fact is, people won't know this already. Perhaps they never saw the original message. Perhaps there was no original message. Maybe they're not digitally savvy, and they struggle to do simple tasks with new software. Maybe their first language isn't English, so they struggle to make sense of your instructions. You can never assume people know what you know, especially when it's your area of expertise, not theirs. So what can you do? Number one, write it as if you're explaining it to someone for the very first time in their entire lives, which leads us to the second tip, which is write it simply. Think about what we call the barbecue chat. If someone asked you about this at a barbecue and they didn't know anything about it, what you do, what your company does, how would you explain it? And this helps you keep the jargon out of it. Also, according to the Australian government style guide, by communicating at a level of a, say 14 year old, your message will make sense to about 80 percent of people - that's pretty big. So keep it simple. And thirdly, test it with your intended audience. Find a few people and share the message with them. Ask them what makes sense and what doesn't and what questions they still have. There's nothing better than testing, especially when there's technical aspects involved or instructions to be followed. Okay. The fourth myth is if you can do communication, you can do change. And vice versa. Now, if you follow me on LinkedIn, or you've read my book, or you've been listening to this podcast for a while, I'm pretty sure you can guess my feelings on this. But basically expecting a communications pro to do change management is like asking a change manager to be a comms pro. They are two different jobs with two different skill sets and two different focus areas. So sure, you might come across the odd unicorn change manager who was a comms manager in their former life and vice versa; but there aren't too many of those and there's a reason they change careers. Also change managers and comms managers have enough to do on a project without loading them up with another set of responsibilities that they're not equipped for. Communication is a very broad sector, which is partly what makes it so interesting. There's so many different areas. There's PR, media, government relations, investor relations, crisis management, advocacy, internal comms, and so on. And I certainly wouldn't expect somebody who is an external comms specialist to be able to do change management, let alone change communication. I wouldn't even expect an internal comms person to be able to do either of those jobs. Internal comms is a specialisation of its own, as is change comms. They're two distinct things. Now I banged on about that in a previous episode, which you can go back and listen to if you want more info on the differences between those two roles. But the point is that by asking a change manager to do comms or a comms manager to do change, you are setting that person up to fail. And you're not going to get the best quality output either. People don't know what they don't know. So they might just be blindly following a comms plan template. Someone else gave them or just making it up. But if they don't know what good looks like, then they won't produce great. So instead, particularly on big, tricky, sticky change, make sure you're resourcing those two roles separately. Have a change manager, and have a change comms manager. Okay. The final myth is that some people are just natural communicators. It's a myth because it's not true. Nobody is born a natural communicator. There's no gene for that. At least as far as I'm aware, it's something we learn and we continue to refine throughout our entire lives. And just because someone talks a lot and loudly and often. Doesn't mean there'll be a good public speaker. If they can't be succinct and get their point across clearly and effectively, then they fail to communicate. And oftentimes people who talk a lot, aren't actually saying much. And similarly, just because somebody can write, you know, they're good at grammar and spelling doesn't mean they're a good writer. I've seen someone who is excellent at grammar and spelling, et cetera, write up a bunch of process documents. And they were all terrible. They were basically just a stream of consciousness. And to be an effective piece of communication, those process documents needed to be short, sharp, step by step guides, not long winded explanations. The challenge is that because people aren't natural communicators, we're often not good at it and layer on top of that another challenge, which is many people aren't aware they're not good at it. So what can we do?

Number one:

just never assume you know everything let alone about communication. I certainly don't, I'm still learning all the time and I'm always trying to get better and when you take that mindset you're more likely to look at how you can improve bit by bit. Maybe it's proactively getting feedback, listening to more podcasts like this one, enrolling in training, getting a coach or whatever you need to make sure your message gets across in the right way and gets the right result. Okay. It is time for your episode recap. So today we busted five big myths of communication. Number one was there's no such thing as too much communication. That's a myth because with so much noise in our workplaces, and our world in general and so much change - it's not about the volume of communication. It should be about tailored, thoughtful approaches. Myth number two was my audience is everyone. And again, very doubtful that your audience is actually most likely the people who need to take a specific action or who are impacted in some way. And remember, there's a difference between stakeholder engagement and communication on a project. Myth number three was that people should know this already. This is the curse of knowledge at work. It's that tendency to forget that others don't have the context or the depth of knowledge that we have. So put your audience hat on and think about their context and experience before you put pen to paper, so to speak. Then test your comms with representatives from your audience. Myth number four, If you can do communications, you can do change and vice versa. Change management and communication management are two different roles with different skillsets and different focus areas. Asking a comms manager to manage change is setting them up to fail as is asking a change manager to do comms and you won't get a quality outcome. Instead resource, both of those roles separately. And number five was some people are just natural communicators. Again, it's not true. There's no communication gene. I'm sorry. It's all learned behavior, but they are skills we can focus on and get really good at like any other skill, like knitting or riding a bike. But it takes dedication and a growth mindset and a willingness to be wrong and get back up and try again. Okay, folks, that's all we have time for today. Thank you for tuning into another episode. And if you enjoyed this episode and think someone else would value it too, please pass it on. In the meantime, you can keep up to date with me over on LinkedIn or sign up to my fortnightly email, where I share heaps of news and resources from around the world every two weeks, along with a big list of upcoming events. Oh, and by the way, on my website, you can now buy a bunch of template packs that I've pulled together. Just go to HeyMelComms.com.au/shop. And there's toolkits on there with everything you need to get you started. Don't reinvent the wheel. I've got you covered. Check that out over at the website. In the meantime, keep doing amazing things and bye for now.