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Leaders often lament that their messages do not get down to the last man in their organization. They give a speech, or send an email, and expect the message to be heard and understood by everyone. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this way.
Although there are no official numbers, several studies have shown that the average person encounters an average of 8,000 messages a day. If we assume that a person is awake 16 hours a day, this works out to 500 an hour or 8 messages a minute. To deal with this information overload, the brain filters out messages that are “irrelevant.” Hence, unless a message has a direct and immediate impact on the employee, chances are they will not see it.
As a communicator, I advocate the use of a 1–3–3 model for more effective message dissemination — 1 message, repeated no less than 3 times via 3 different modalities. Assuming a leader wants to communicate the implementation of a new policy, the 1–3–3- model dictates that the leader communicates the same (or variations of the same) message on three separate occasions over a period of time (not too far apart for synergy of messaging) via a townhall, eDMs, and posters in the pantry. While the 1–3–3 model does not guarantee that the message will get to everyone or that everyone will accept it, it does increase the probability of awareness and understanding of the message.
I believe all management is change management, and effecting change requires effective communications. Change takes time and deliberate and consistent messaging is key.
