Why are you waiting?
You don't need all the information at-hand before you communicate to stakeholders.
Change communications is time-sensitive. That way-of-thinking is something that I learned when I worked as a writer and sub-editor at national newspapers.
When new information became available, it was the job of the writers, editors and other newspaper staff to get that information out the door.
In contrast, I often see very little urgency from leaders to communicate to a tight deadline. If that is you, I urge you to re-think your idea that you can do stakeholder communications in your own time and according to your own schedule.
I suspect the reason why many leaders don’t communicate more often is because they think they need to source, fact-check and get multiple approvals on the information before doing so. I call this the ‘leader-centric approach to communication’. It’s a way of thinking that puts the leader/s first — what do the leaders want to do?
Instead, I urge you to think about your audience first. To empathise with them. To put yourself in their shoes. What do they need to know right now?
And if you don’t communicate with them now and, instead, do it later what will they think in the meantime? Will they possibly create their own narrative — something that is factually incorrect and potentially damaging to your credibility or reputation?
Let’s look at an example of this. Say there is a COVID-related development that might impact your employees. You could say to yourself — or maybe your communications adviser is saying to you — ‘let’s get all the facts together and then we’ll communicate’.
While you’re spending time getting all the information from the relevant departments of health and/or governing bodies, hours tick by — maybe even days. As a leader, you feel good because you’re getting good, high-quality and useable data. But what you’re missing is: your audience is hearing nothing. Zipola.
So, what are your employees doing during this information gap? They’re likely taking guesses on what this COVID development means to them and their work situation — and, most crucially, they’re making decisions. Decisions without input or guidance from their leaders.
These are the kind of (negative) experiences that critical stakeholders like employees remember.
I have long advocated (though I suspect I remain an outlier on this subject) that as a leader, you have to take an audience-centric approach to communication always and at all times. What that means in-practice is: you HAVE to communicate when you don’t have all the information at-hand.
My message to you in these situations is: That’s okay. It’s okay to communicate when you don’t have all the data. Just communicate anyway. Tell your audience what you do know, share any commonsense advice, and promise that you are currently collecting the information that you don’t know (and then follow up with that information when you have it).
That is just one example of sharing information in an audience-centric, time-sensitive way, but it’s not the only one. Time and time again I see senior leaders prevaricate and think they have to have sourced all the possible information before broadcasting it to employees.
What that tells me about leaders such as this is: they’re thinking about themselves and their own needs more than their audience’s.
Instead, think like a newspaper publisher and get what information you do have into the hands of your audience.
Image by Mahesh Patel from Pixabay.