What to do when the case for persistent, redundant communications is compelling, but senior executives are not easily compelled?

As we’ve suggested in an earlier blog, part of the resistance to redundancy is situational: Something about “positional power” makes redundant communications seem unnecessary.  And for those senior leaders who, by personal preference, want to shirk sticking to the same theme anyway? There is an abundance of rationales from which to choose, including:

• It takes too much time
• Most of their people do what they’re asked without it
• It’s just too darn tiring, exhausting, mentally fatiguing

What is the professional communicator to do? As a start, they should do their best to marshal the evidence for redundant communications, and make the most compelling, persuasive case they can.  With some leaders, it will work.  But then, again, with some leaders it won’t.

The original research behind this muli-part blog suggests, at a minimum, a mitigating strategy for managing senior leaders who are reluctant to go over the same message more than once:

Ensure they do the message at least once, but using personal media, like face-to-face or phone first!

Once the message is out there, communicators can then:

Reinforce it multiple times with less personal media, like an email reminders, newsletters, portal posts, etc.[1]

Okay. I know this is standard practice for most professional communicators worth their salt. So the advice may seem a bit anti-climatic.  But that doesn’t make it any less necessary.  It’s something communicators have to do, even if it requires a somewhat Faustian bargain with recalcitrant senior leaders to ensure it happens:

“Do it once in person, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

It is the “in person” that counts, combined with the need for it to come first. According to the research that jump-started this series, one of the differentiators between project managers who proactively engaged in redundant communication and those who were reactive – communicating again only when the initial communication didn’t produce the desired results – was the order in which they used media.

Those project managers who relied on influence and persuasion to achieve desired results communicated first using what I’ve called “personal” media, or what academics refer to as “rich” media – media that allows the communicator to pick up the nuances of the response to their communication, whether because they were face-to-face, or because they could hear variations in voice (by phone).

When you can instantaneously gauge the emotional response to a communication, it allows you to quickly recalibrate the message or its delivery, or to at least provide an immediate explanation of the underlying “why”[2] behind those portions of the message that led to the emotional response.

Needless to say, project managers with “positional authority” tended to do the opposite: use impersonal or “lean” media, like emails, or spreadsheets, first. And then, and only then, when the initial message didn’t produce the desired result, they switched to more personal media.

It’s fairly easy to imagine: They send an email requesting an action. When nothing happens, they get on the phone. Totally reactive.

Ergo, the obvious remedy: reverse the order.  “Rich” or personal media first: speak in person or by phone or videoconference; “lean” or less personal media second: emails, newsletters, etc.

That one step won’t save the day, but it might lessen the need for the day to be saved.

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That’s it. So it ends – my multi-part blog on redundant communications – admittedly not with a bang, but with more of a whimper. But it’s with a whimper that works. Professional communicators already know this. Senior leaders still have room to learn.

[2] See my blog series, “Why ask why?”