- What challenges have you experienced developing the feedback report in three different forms? I felt quite lucky with this assignment as I was creating a lot of communications for my project across the division. I am a bit of an over communicator, I would much rather overshare, than not share enough, so I was using multiple types of communications, forums, strategies, and platforms. I carefully and strategically thought about my audience for each of these communications and made decisions accordingly. For example, I knew my senior leadership team for this project was a fan of Mural boards, affinization, and I knew that they also liked memo style communications. I have had a lot of success with the strategy BLOT – Bottom Line On Top (often used in the military) where you provide a summary statement of a sentence or two. Below BLOT you provide the details and give the details. The leader has enough information from BLOT to know the update, but they have the details below, should they want to learn more.
Differentiating communications is also very important and was for my project. What I shared with a leader, was slightly different than what I would share with a crew/contractor. Ensuring that the basic objectives, the why, solutions, and next steps were similar, but the level of details varied. I challenged myself to think about the receiving end of the communication. What is my perspective as the receiver? What do I care about it and how does it affect ME – I did this for all 3 of these communications, adjusting accordingly.
- What skills do you need to further develop to expediate the process?Communication is an area that we can always be learning – always. I am a fan of asking for communication feedback – did that memo land for you and the team? Did the information resonate with you and was it clear? I often checked in with recipients to continue to hone my communication craft, and this is something I will continue to do with future work. I am a big fan of podcasts as well and there are some excellent ones about communication. One of my favorites is Think Fast Talk Smart. I definitely have a growth mindset and love learning from the host and his guests.
Share lessons learned from this activity. The biggest lesson that I have learned from my communications is that you must know your audience. Ask from day one of your sponsor or leadership team, how they prefer their communications. Also ask this of your stakeholders – perhaps they would like a weekly touchpoint rather than an email – you never know if you don’t ask. Also, check with your communications team (if you have one) on their lessons learned with communication in a certain division. What works well? What has fallen short in the past? My company has some great folks in this area and they were a strong ally for me.