It takes earning stakeholders’ trust for an organisation to influence their actions and dispositions. Communication is not measured by what you intended to say, but by what your interlocutor actually heard. For understanding to catch up with intent, organisations must reduce the distance between what people need to know and what they are trying to tell them.
In public relations, consistency creates credibility. Credibility creates trust. Trust creates influence. Influence creates opportunities.
One of the most effective ways to build trust is through shared understanding. Communication lands when the message reaches the recipient’s doorstep, not when the sender and receiver merely meet halfway.
Going the whole hog is required of the sender because every brand is competing for the same limited resource: audience attention. Between receiving a message and acting on it, audiences interpret meaning, evaluate credibility, draw on personal experiences and decide whether the message deserves their trust. When a brand builds trust, people are more likely to buy into what it is offering.
Less is more in today’s information world
The UK-based Civil Service College conducted a survey during a webinar asking participants: “Why do messages fail to land?” According to the findings, 70 percent attributed the failure of messaging to resonate to information overload (28 percent), competing priorities (24 percent) and unclear actions (18 percent).
In a digital world where professionals are inundated with notifications, emails, messages and social media updates, messaging must be compelling at first glance. This is achieved not by trying to answer every conceivable question, but by answering the right question first: “What is the one thing people actually need to understand?”
The problem is not a paucity of information, but a dearth of mutual meaning. That is the culprit when public authorities announce well-designed policies that struggle to gain public acceptance; when development agencies invest heavily in awareness campaigns but achieve limited behavioural change; or when companies clearly communicate strategic decisions, yet doubts and resistance persist.
This raises a fundamental question: Are we informing people, or are we overwhelming them?
When faced with change, uncertainty or public scrutiny, organisations instinctively resort to saying more. They issue press releases, publish FAQs, hold town hall meetings, send more emails and make more presentations. Yet these efforts can simply increase the decibel level of the noise.
Effective communication is not about piling on more information or repeating the same message. It is about reducing friction.
Audiences are not comparing your newsletter only with that of your competitors. They are comparing it with LinkedIn, Substack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, podcasts, webinars and industry blogs. AI-generated summaries now allow people to consume even more information in less time.
This makes brevity and precision increasingly important. Adding more slides to a presentation can bury the key message, leaving people with different interpretations of the same conversation.
From informing people to influencing outcomes
Communication is not complete with the delivery of a message. It is complete when understanding is established, trust is strengthened and people are empowered to make informed decisions.
Today’s digital platforms make it easier than ever to publish content, but publishing more does not automatically create influence. Organisations must therefore become more concerned with providing insight than simply providing information.
Institutions routinely communicate policies that are misunderstood. Public health initiatives struggle for traction despite widespread campaigns and substantial budgets. Communities reject projects supposedly designed for their benefit. Organisations invest heavily in communication strategies, yet remain deficient in stakeholder trust.
It is counterintuitive to assume that people will understand the value of what you are proposing simply because it is obvious to you. Communication is not merely about expressing yourself; it is about meeting people at their level.
A policy update may sound straightforward to executives but become convoluted when it reaches a store team trying to apply it to customers. Sustainable outcomes are achieved when people feel both informed and involved.
If citizens understand a policy, they are more likely to support it. If communities can see the benefits of a development initiative, they are more likely to take ownership of it. If employees receive enough information about organisational change, they are more likely to help drive it.
Clarity chaos, clothed in communication
Communication is often ignored not because people lack access to information, but because they cannot readily identify the kernel of the message or what is expected of them.
If people leave a meeting with 10 different interpretations of the same message, communication has occurred — but understanding has not.
Consider a company telling employees to embrace a new modus operandi while managers continue rewarding the old way of working. That amounts to issuing two conflicting messages. One is contained in the training manual; the other is communicated through behaviour.
The unspoken code will almost always be more audible than the spoken message.
When employees are required to change how they work while old reward standards remain intact, company culture — not avowed values — will carry the day. In such circumstances, the memo becomes little more than noise.
Clarity will always triumph over chaos.
Other scenarios in which communication becomes the scapegoat include:
– Priorities changing without explanation.
– Leaders operating from different assumptions about the same priority.
– Ownership not being clearly defined.
– Decisions being assumed rather than made.
– People leaving the same meeting with different interpretations of the resolution.
– Business objectives being set once and never revisited.
Whether developing a narrative, writing a press release, advising executives or preparing a presentation, the communicator must begin with purpose — not content.
Uncover the one idea the audience needs to understand, and everything else should flow from it. Determine the desired outcome first, then articulate what matters most.
Communicators should ask five fundamental questions:
- What belongs in the message?
- What should be left out?
- How much context is needed?
- What do we want the audience to do?
- What tone best serves the objective?
Final thoughts
Communication is often viewed as a process of transmitting information when, in reality, it is about creating mutual meaning.
Messaging lands when people understand it, trust it and act on it. Trust remains the fulcrum on which information becomes influence. When audiences understand the purpose behind a message, communication moves from information to influence. This is why communicators should think about outcomes, not information.
Every communication should contain one clear idea that audiences can remember long after they have encountered the copy or content. That central idea, encapsulated in a single sentence, becomes the signal audiences can trust without wrestling with every intricacy.
The most compelling message is not necessarily the most comprehensive or polished. It is the one that decisively dispels doubt, dissonance and dithering.
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