7 Things you Need to Know to be An Effective Communicator

1. The Trinity — Audience, Message and Messenger.

In all communications, there are three elements that must exist — the person who communicates the message (messenger), the message to be communicated, and the person that is the target of the message (audience). Effective communications is the interplay between these three elements, and communications fail when the communicator fails to account for the three elements and neglects to adjust for how they interact with each other.

Audience

2. All communications is personal. At its essence, all communication is personal as unless the message appeals to the concerns of the stakeholder, there will be no motivation to act. The different levels of success of surrender appeals in Gulf War I and Gulf War II is a good example. In the former, Iraqi troops were in the field for months and were tired, hungry and stressed from constant bombardment. Hence, when the option to surrender (and to escape this condition) was made, they were motivated to act. In the latter, no such condition existed and the surrender appeal fell on deaf ears. This same principle…