Understanding Clear Messages

For executives, communication is a critical part of leadership.

The essential elements of sending clear messages include:

1. conceiving your messages
2. sending your messages
3. monitoring your messages.

Conceiving your messages
There are a number of steps that you can follow to create a clear message. These are shown below:

1. The first step in creating a clear message is knowing why the message needs to be sent. You could be requesting information or asking for a specific action. Carefully consider the reason for your message before you craft it.
2. Focus on who it is you're contacting. The greater your awareness of that person and his or her concerns, the greater the effectiveness of your message.
3. Believe that the details of the message already exist within you. Learn how to let this information come to the fore, and distinguish between the details that are important and those that are extraneous.

Sending your messages
The second stage of communicating her message is choosing the means of delivering her message and actually sending it.

If the message dictates a personal delivery and you can't go yourself, consider a spoken form such as a messenger, a telephone call, or a videotape. However, if the message is nonpersonal, technical, or routine in nature, then consider delivering it via letter, e-mail, news release, or organizational publication.

Monitoring your messages
The last step that you have to consider before sending your message is how you are going to monitor the receipt of the information and whether or not it was understood.

The following are a few key ideas about following up after the message is sent:

• Set up a way to check whether the message was received, understood, and retained.
• If the recipient didn't receive the message, find out why and correct the problem.
• Make sure you have the attention of the person to whom you're sending the message.

By carefully following the steps to sending a clear message and understanding the key elements of the process, you can effectively communicate information.