The Two Concepts Executives Must Always Communicate - Part 1

Executives spend a great deal of their time communicating. But think about it: did you ever get training on how to communicate? Ever get really good training on not just how to communicate but what to communicate? We would guess not. While it’s unlikely that you can get promoted to an exec position without being a good communicator, only excellent communicators will excel as leaders and executives. To become an excellent communicator, you’ve got to learn the fundamentals of presenting persuasively. That means understanding what your audience expects from executive communications.

And you can’t do it by email.

We’ve said it many times: say something seven times and half of your audience will tell you that they’ve heard it once. It really is that hard to get your message across. A big part of executives’ effectiveness hinges on your ability to communicate to your part of the organization. And most of us do a horrible job of it.

A big part of that miss is that we forget that communication is what the listener does. Most of us execs are thinking about what we want to say about what we are doing and what we want and what we need. But if we’re don’t tell them what they want to hear, they won’t hear what we want them to hear. It’s as simple as that. Satisfy their needs, and they’ll start hearing yours.