Larry D. Lauer

How many times have I slaved over every word of a sensitive email blast to staff that announced a new salary scheme, or a benefits package, or revised budget priorities for the coming year? With all my effort to be totally fair and absolutely clear certainly everyone will understand the content, all questions will be answered, and the institution’s commitment to transparency will be fully realized… and appreciated! Right?

This is what I actually thought early in my career. So when a colleague this week complained to me that a very important carefully worded email produced complaining phone calls and negative responses, I recalled an extremely hard lesson learned about management communication.  

Plainly put, people won’t read these memos from administration, and even if they do, they won’t read them carefully. And they certainly won’t absorb them with an open mind.  Most will skim them, at best. And yes, as we have noted many times in other posts, they will comprehend mostly only what they want! 

After receiving memos like this many employees will even continue to deny knowing things they now know. They won’t accept knowing them because they did not actually hear them in person  from their manager. For many people, important transactions like this are  “not real” unless delivered in person. For them change producing information rings hollow and lacks credibility without eye-to-eye contact.

And what’s even more disappointing  is that for some, being able to say “they never told me,” or “that memo was totally confusing,”  becomes a license to reactivate their continuing complaints. And this, of course, is how old rumors gain steam. Now, a well-intended email, one that sought to clarify the situation, has actually backfired.

If an announcement is important, experience teaches that you must meet with your staff to inform them, and they in turn must meet with theirs. And these meetings must take place on down the line. You must rehearse the facts of the message, and furnish a fact sheet for immediate and later reference.  A narrative or “white paper” that requires reading and comprehension will not work. These meetings must embrace and insist on feedback, response, and discussion. 

No doubt an interactive process such as this will produce better results than emails alone.  But even so, some misunderstanding will always continue and must be dealt with over time. Effective communication is an ongoing process. Success only happens with repetition, dialogue, and time.