We live in a world where each and every one of us faces a deluge of information and there is a war out there to get and hold our attention. Given this is the case, as leaders, how can we ensure that important communication that our teams need to know is not lost in this deluge?
There are a few things that we can do to improve the effectiveness of our communication (more on this here). There are a few things that we can do by mixing up our communication medium (written, spoken and visual). We can repeat our messages through various combinations of the mode and method to communicate.
However, it would be remiss on our part, if we stop there. There is an even more important, effective and fast mode of communication, that when used well, can serve us really well. I am referring to the unofficial channels of communication – rumours or gossip or memes.
Every organisation and team has a back channel run by the members of the team. There is no other form of communication that can beat rumours or gossips or memes, in terms of the speed at which they can spread through the entire team.
None of these are bad by themselves but have garnered a reputation of being the black sheep in the world of communication. Really good leaders and communicators understand the power that these unofficial channels of communication have and learn how to harness the same.
If not managed well, it is extremely possible that we lose control of the content being communicated and it takes on a life of its own.
Every organisation has a set of people (and we all know who they are), who have the ability to start and spread a rumour really fast.
The first thing we need to do is to help them (sometimes by enrolling them into the program and sometimes just leveraging their reach and network, without enrolling them into the program) get hold of the content that is easy to remember and easier to share. Then let them do their magic.
Sometimes, we might have to add fuel to this mode by neither accepting nor declining that the idea being spread is true or not. Sometimes, we confirm the idea and sometimes we deny it.
Whatever we do, we can not ignore this mode of spreading ideas and create the impact that we want to have. We need to practice this in a low risk time with low risk communications and track the communication.
We learn from these and get better and better at leveraging the medium until we get to a point where this could make or break the impact we want to have.
PS: Here is Seth Godin talking about “How Ideas Spread” in a keynote that he delivered at the Nordic Business Forum. He shares some really great ideas that can help us spread our ideas fast.
