Let’s stop kidding ourselves about communication impact

Marketing and communication results rarely delight management.

Why do most marketers and communicators do what is comfortable and familiar, rather than what is necessary and high impact?

Corporate language is part of the problem. First it is simply ignored because most people don’t hear it. And second because it degrades the quality of thought in an organisation. It is easier to ignore core issues by burying them in mindless abstractions (“We care about our people”; “There is nothing more important here than safety” are safely non-specific – but they sound terrific to management).

The failure to impact others also comes from ignoring the importance of order in the parts of a proposition, not setting adequate context before launching on people with our solutions, and of course self-centred rather than other directed communication. It is the perfect storm, and no surprise so little of what passes for communication actually is.