Perception and Reality in Communications
Here’s a news flash: Things aren’t always what they seem.
This reality gap is especially true in communications. As business people and communicators, we have messages to distribute and stories to tell. The goal of our messages is to create change in a target audience… to get them to believe, buy, understand, act or learn.
So if we tell them what we want them to know, why don’t they listen? Why don’t they act? Because what we think we said isn’t always the reality of what our audience heard.
The sad story is that the wizard may have spoken, but he hasn’t really communicated. Communication requires a sender and a receiver. The best way to make sure your message gets through is to look at the process from the receiver’s point of view.
Sometimes it’s hard for leaders to realize that communication isn’t about all the things we want to say. It’s about delivering a message that causes the target audience to behave or act the way we want them to. So how do we do that? Address their needs, not yours.
An audience-centric approach to communication always yields better results. It may be harder to convince your CEO, and it may require a bit of research into the target audience, but it will always deliver more successful, cost-effective communication.
For example, it’s now campaign season. The candidates have flooded the airways with all the reasons to “vote for me.” “I’m better, I’m smarter, I’m more experienced, more trustworthy, the other guy’s a boob.” Are these reasons strong enough to get people out to vote? I don’t think so, or we wouldn’t be hovering at 30 percent turnout.
It always comes back to the same thing. You can study communications theory, consult marketing gurus or search the internet for answers, but you still have to answer the audience’s question: Why should I care?
If politicians talked about how they can help me instead of what they could do for the country (or school district or township), I might be more inclined to listen and act. If they explained how their grand ideas would impact me – how my life would be better – I might go out and vote for them. But my perception of politics is that it’s all about them. It’s not about me or the things I face every day.
The same holds true in business and marketing communications. Why should anyone care what we have to say? Well, if we can frame our messages to show how the audience’s lives will be easier, better or simpler – or how we can help employees do their jobs – we can get them to listen to us and take the actions we want them to take.
Real communication – not just the perception of it – comes from paying attention to the needs of the receiver as well as the needs of the sender.