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Communicate

Communicate structures the communication strategy.A great strategy without an associated great communication strategy  is doomed to be still-born. 

Uses of the method

  • To ensure that key messages for dissemination and objection handling are thought through from the taking of a decision.

Benefits

  • High-levels of stakeholder acceptance
  • Reduced noise and speculation
  • Faster plan implementations
  • Shows stakeholders that a plan has been well-thought through

Disadvantages

  • None if done well! Communication, communication, communication is key to any successful change program.

Steps to complete

Keeping your furthest flung stakeholder (member of staff, customer, supplier etc.) in mind, complete the template. Ask yourself "what will your furthest flung person say to your communication?" and "how will they respond?" Endeavor to make your messages inspirational, engaging and enabling at at all times.

Some pointers to great communication:

  • Be honest and don't speak with a forked tongue
  • Get personal and write as in a conversation
  • Be SMART: talk specifics, measures, actions, relevance, timelines in clear layman's language
  • Give rather than receive: focus on leave-behinds rather than take-aways
  • Be open-minded: encourage freedom of thought and responses
  • Speak to the receiver: be empathetic, transparent and caring of their feelings
  • Consider different cultures: take the time to communicate with different audiences on their terms
  • Medium: use the right medium to communicate. Firing someone by e-mail is hardly empathetic
  • Visuals: use pictures and diagrams etc. to get your point across whenever possible

Invite your team to polish the draft until it is clear, coherent and acceptable to all. Don't rush this. Take the time to ensure that your team is fully supportitive of the communication and can speak to it and only it! Ask them to accept Cabinet responsibility for the message and not to go off message with their own take on things.

Collaboration
This method and your response can be shared with other members or kept private using the 'Privacy' field and through the 'Tag', 'Report' and 'Forum' functionalities. Use 'Tag' and/or 'Report' to aggregate your analyzes, or add a 'Forum' to ask others where they agree/disagree and encourage them to make their own analysis from their unique vantage point.

Click the 'Invite tab to send invitations to other members or non-members (colleagues, external experts etc.) to ask for their input. You can whether or not you want anonymous responses.  These can be viewed and exported within the Responses tab.

Further reference

Contact us
Even with all the advice and tools we have provided here starting a foresight project from scratch can be a daunting prospect to a beginner. Let us know if you need help with this method or want a group facilitation exercise or full project or program carrying out by us. We promise to leave behind more internal knowledgeable people who can expand your initiative for better organizational performance.

Contact us today for a free discussion on your needs.

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