Clear Away the Mist: Focus on the Clarity of Your Message

"If there is a mist in the pulpit, it's a fog in the pew."  
                                                                                               Theologian Howard Hendricks

The idea of communications is to share a thought or a message from one person to another.  Sometimes we do this one on one in a conversation; sometimes the message gets amplified through media or circumstance and becomes one to many communication.  Sometimes the message is delivered TO the audience, other times it is part of a dialogue.

Regardless of the size of the audience, the media used, the goal of the communications (making a sale, presenting a point of view, finding out if you should pick up milk or orange juice) clarity of the message is the key.  If your message is clear, you stand a better chance of your audience receiving it as you intended.

The thing about message clarity is that it is ALL in the eye, or ears, of the beholder.  Just like customer service, it is the perception of the receiver that matters.  Good intentions don't score points in football or in communications.  Your message has to be clear to the receiver of the message for it to be a clear message.

This is where Mr. Hendricks' quote becomes relevant.  One of the things that speakers CAN do is to be clear about the message they want to deliver.  If there is confusion in the mind of the speaker as to what the message is, you can be guaranteed that confusion will be multiplied by the time it gets to the listener.  Think of the children's game of Operator.  As a message gets passed from child to child, it becomes more and more divorced from the reality of the original message.

There are many other things that a communicator can do to improve the chances that his or her message will be received with clarity.  Those will be topics of future blog posts.  For today, for the purposes of clarity, I am focusing on just one piece of advise:  Be clear about the message you want to deliver and you increase the chances that you actually will!

The Missteps of Komen

There has been a lot written about the Susan G. Komen for the Cure decision to discontinue funding of programs with Planned Parenthood. If you somehow missed this story, here is an article from Reuters that seems as good a summary as any.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-usa-healthcare-komen-idUSTRE8111WA20120202

This story generated a lot of opinions.  Most of the marketing/PR based opinions I have read about this incident seem to feel that Komen did something wrong, but they vary widely in their analysis of the facts, or even what they feel the facts are.  One perspective that I haven't seen discussed much is the lack of openness and honesty that Komen used when they first unveiled their decision to no longer work with Planned Parenthood.

When Komen spokespeople announced the decision to no longer fund Planned Parenthood, they said it was because they "had a new strategy that barred money from going to groups that were under investigation by US authorities."  They said their decision "reflected a new strategy aimed at using donation money more effectively by eliminating duplicate grants and tightening eligibility rules."  Regardless of if this was a genuine reason or a canard designed to deflect criticism, the justification rang hollow.  That was in part because Planned Parenthood was the only organization that was impacted by their new criteria.

It is clear that the Komen organization spent a great deal of time discussing their decision to change their funding process.  There were reports of heated internal debates and at least one person quitting in protest.  I suspect that since this was a controversial decision internally, they were trying to avoid additional controversy when they went public.

One of the basic goals in crisis communications is to try to keep the story in as few news cycles as possible. The best way that you can accomplish this is to be honest and forthright with information.  Don't leave anything for a reporter to "discover."  Rather, tell the whole story, especially if it is a story that does not reflect well on your organization.  It is better to have one day of really bad news but with your organization being open and upfront than to have the story drag out over days or weeks, making headline after headline, as new facts emerge.  That  is what happened to Komen.

To make matters worse, as the issue became more and more controversial, the explanations kept changing at Komen.  This led to mistrust of their message, their messengers and their veracity.  It also kept them in the headlines for weeks.

I can't help but wonder if things would have gone smoother if Komen, an organization that had an excellent reputation and thousands and thousands of deeply dedicated supporters and volunteers, had simply told the truth.  If they had come out and said:

• "We share a mission of women's health with the Planned Parenthood organization.  Nevertheless, Susan G. Komen and Planned Parenthood each approach women's health issues from different directions.  Recently, given the media and political attention that certain aspects of Planned Parenthood's operation have been getting, we are uncomfortable continuing our relationship.  Fortunately, in most areas, there are other options for mammograms and other services we support.  We will be switching our funding to some of those other options."

or

•  "We are a women's health organization, not a political one.   Increasingly, an organizations we fund has become increasingly political.  While we don't fund anything related to abortions or family planning, Planned Parenthood does get involved in these things.  We have become increasingly uncomfortable with that and have decided to find other ways and venues through which we will continue to support women's health issues."  

What do you think?  Regardless of what you think about their decision, or the politics of this issue, do you think that Komen could have mitigated some of the damage they did to their reputation by presenting the decision differently?  Please share your thoughts in the comments.

I Recognize the Value of Recognition

Yesterday, I wrote a blog titled The Fallacy of Awards. In it I questioned the value of awards like the ADDYs or the Academy Awards.  I questioned the value of awards that (often) stray from the primary mission of the activity (increasing sales or selling movie tickets.)  My comments should NOT, however, be taken as casting of aspersions on the value of recognition.

Recognition can be a powerful tool.  Most lists of top things employees are looking for from a good workplace will include "appreciation," "respect" and "recognition" near or at the top, well ahead of good pay.  Customers respond to recognition the same way.  I went to a certain dry cleaner for years because the woman who worked the counter always remembered my name and phone number and, if she was with me, that my daughter liked Tootsie Rolls.  After she retired, I became a number.  I had to give them all of my information every week.  Shortly after that, I found a new, cheaper dry cleaner.

But recognition only works when it is genuine and sincere and when it provides true value to the targeted person.  My kids could not have cared less about the participation trophies they got in Pee Wee soccer because the didn't do anything extraordinary to earn it.  On the other hand, I have stayed with Netflix, despite being upset by their pricing and listing fiascoes, because their recommendation tool already has thousands of my movie reviews loaded into it and does often make inspired recommendations.  They recognize my tastes in movies and create value out of that recognition.

Awards are great, if they recognize and encourage actions and behaviors that support the mission and purpose of the organization.  Often, however, the recognition of a simple "thank you" and "good job" delivered honestly, directly and in a timely manner can be just as effective or more so.

The Dragnet Approach

A while back, when I worked at an ad agency, a client told me one day that he wanted an ad that didn't sound like an ad.  Actually, I think that is what most clients want from their ad agencies, but this guy was the first one to express it so succinctly to me.

There is a very simple strategy to writing an ad that doesn't read like an ad, a sales pitch that doesn't sound like a sales pitch, an excuse that doesn't sound like an excuse.  Tell the truth.  A colleague of mine used to call this the Dragnet Approach.  Just the facts, ma'am.

The truth, told in a straightforward and direct manner, will resonate with the reader or the listener.  More advertisers don't use the Dragnet approach because it is harder.  In the short term.