I was making my way to a clients office one day and decided to take a short cut through a local park, where it had recently rained. So I had two choices when I was walking: go through the muddy, cloying puddles, or avoid them.
Amazingly, I did the latter. I chose the easiest path.
Obvious, yes? After all, people always choose the easiest path, don’t they?
Well, no, not always. For instance, when people have important messages to cascade, they have two paths:
The muddy, cloying path of creating detailed slides, emailing them to their team and saying “pass my messages onto your teams using these complex slides”; or
Making it really easy – either by:
communicating directly with their team’s team, or
creating something simple to cascade
When you look at it like that, why would anybody choose the muddy, cloying path? Yet, people do.
So, to improve cascades, here are two better options:
When appropriate, communicate directly with your team’s team
If you want to involve your team:
Tell them the impact you want their communication to have on their teams
Tell them the key (very few) messages to get across, to cause this impact
Ask them to add their own slant, stories, experiences etc to make the communication resonate with their teams
Both work very well. The first means people hear directly from you. The second works because people often respond well to their boss’s personal perspective.
And, of course, if you’re handed something to cascade that’s muddy and cloying, consider asking the owner for guidance on what they want you to add to their message. It’s just a much less muddy path to choose.
Action point
Involved in a cascade this week? Ask yourself: “are we choosing the best path to ensure we do this well?” and identify ways to strip out all the mud.
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Written by NativeEnglish
Native English Spain is dedicated to make learning English simple, fun and affordable for Spanish people.
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