The art and science of communicating with purpose and impact

This post is written by Dulcie Wyatt, head of behavioural insights ONS & data collection research, Social Survey Collection Division, Office for National Statistics (ONS).

• **The problem: **Having something important to say is not enough for your message to be considered, absorbed and retained.
• **Why it matters: **Effective communication ensures your message will be received as you intended.
• The solution: Know your audience and plan your content carefully to maximise its impact.

Nowadays, it can be hard to get people’s attention. We lead busy lives and constantly contend with multiple communications channels, so it’s really important to get the message right first time if it is to have a lasting impact. Nothing is more important for effective communication than thinking before we start.

Here are three tips that, in my experience, are essential to consider when communicating with **any **audience, through any means.

Know the purpose

Often, we plan to communicate what we know, which is likely far more than the audience needs to hear or read. We’re also much more invested in the detail than our audience is. This means we risk our communications being too long and distracting from the important messages we need to convey.

Before you put pen to paper, finger to keyboard, unmute yourself or interject in person, ask yourself:

• ‘What is the purpose of my communication?’
• ‘What does this audience need to know?’ not 'What do I want to say?'

Put yourselves in their shoes

Know your audience. If you don’t know who you’re communicating with, you can’t tailor your approach to resonate with them. Consider their needs and think about what they already know.

Once you know your audience, prepare your communication for the busiest and least interested members using behavioural science. The Behavioural Insights Team’s EAST framework is a helpful tool. If you make your communication Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely, you’re more likely to grab the attention of even the most distracted people.

Review important messaging with fresh eyes. Imagine yourself in the shoes of someone rushing to a meeting, or someone who doesn’t care about what you’re saying. See if you can make your communication work for them. Distract yourself (with the TV on in the background, or in a busy office) while you skim read what you’ve drafted. Or better still, ask a trusted colleague to do that for you.

Just because you’ve said it, doesn’t mean they’ve read or heard it, absorbed it and retained it.

If it isn’t immediately clear what the communication is telling the recipient or asking them to do, you need to try again.

Tell a story

It might seem clichéd, but your communication will have more impact if it tells a story (this is where the ‘art’ comes in).

This doesn’t necessarily mean using anecdotes (although they can help to hook people in). Instead, it means communicating your message as a narrative rather than a series of disjointed points.

Narratives can take many structures, including the linear ‘beginning, middle, end’ approach, telling the story as a loop, or a linear structure with supplementary ‘side notes’. You need to consider what will work best in each situation.

Despite how important storytelling is, it is essential that it is not used as an excuse to make your messaging long and wordy; it doesn’t work in isolation from the other tips.

Remember: Important content alone is not enough. Just because you’ve said it, doesn’t mean they’ve read or heard it, absorbed it and retained it. Follow these tips, and keep checking and adapting your messages until you’ve got it right.

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