The Message Was Perfect but Nobody Heard the Same Thing
It’s easy to forget how differently people can hear the same words.
You say, “we need to invest in this,” and the VP who just had to announce layoffs rubs her temples. Someone else hears bonuses disappearing and pinches the bridge of his nose. Another worries your investment means their team will have to train their AI replacements on the way out the door.
You’re talking about strategy, but what they heard made them zero in on survival.
This is the problem with one message for many audiences. It may be transparent. And it may be honest. But it isn’t strong enough to survive dozens of worry-factors. It doesn’t speak to the manager who knows the names of those who will lose their homes if they’re let go. It doesn’t know she hasn’t slept through the night since the last time an “investment” or “pivot” destroyed morale. It doesn’t reach the optimistic parts of front-line employees who want to hang on but are unclear on what it truly means for them.
This pattern is surfacing across organizations right now.
Broadcast messages that try to speak to everyone at once—whether from main stages or through formal “From the Office of the CEO”—are failing when it comes to new technology rollouts. And I say this as someone who has ghostwritten many a speech and all-staff memo on behalf of executives in the past: They don’t work like they used to.
People are more on edge than before. They’re more jaded now. Trust has been trampled, and corporate ground needs to be rebuilt brick by brick with attention to the mortar holding the whole thing together. We can do this by replacing traditional change comms with a new structure for tailored, contextual, and empathetic messages that people respect regardless of the news. A consistent method for thoughtful communication that can hold up to the constantly changing environments we now find ourselves working in.
Communicators who are evolving their approach think of the full ripple effect of messaging before crafting. They think ahead and anticipate reactions, rumors, and resistance. They create tailored messages with the same facts but framing for different realities, and they understand their audiences. It’s not even always about “saying the right thing,” because the right thing can still be heard wrong. It depends on who is listening and what they’re listening for. It also depends on several other deep-seated variables that aren’t usually easy to know when drafting the old way (but can be loosely determined by mapping what each audience is already carrying).
So, before you write your next message, ask: What might each person on the team be feeling when they receive my message? What will they hear that I’m not saying? After you write your final draft, ask: What question did I leave unanswered that might become a rumor by Friday? And then adjust accordingly. This is how you speak to the manager who was listening with her whole spine. The forklift driver who’s running on fumes but still showing up.
If you’d like to join a small group of leaders to test this new method of change communication, or your team is navigating a rollout right now, message me with “Pilot” to upgrade how you communicate.