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Why Can’t We Communicate About Succession Planning?
June 2, 2008
A friend of mine really enjoys going to Broadway and seeing plays. Recently he read a book about one of his favorite playwrights – Oscar Wilde – and he sent me a Wilde quote he thought I could use in one of my blogs. It seems that Oscar once said “The strange thing about communications is that everyone thinks it takes place!”
Just to keep in touch with the employment marketplace, I read many job ads. The communication that doesn’t take place in those ads is simply staggering. Many agencies and companies run ads that stress the need for excellent or superior “written and oral communications skills”. Those are two of the communications skills that most of us rely on. That’s why there are so many misunderstanding and mismatched expectations over anything; and succession planning is no exception to the rule.
Because of the need to preclude legal shipwrecks down the road, much of the written communication is not written to be understood by the man on the street. Most is written in legalbabble by attorneys for other attorneys. As a technical piece, the components of the succession plan may be the equivalent of a Russian novel. Most plans increase stress levels and give people headaches.
How can we do better? For starters, we can get beyond the belief that communications are only written and oral. There’s a complete suite of communications skills that must be used to make sure that messages have the intended impact. That’s what we call the Integrated Communications Bundle™.
As we see it, effective communications must include oral and written skills, which are pretty much one directional (Now hear this!) forms of communication. The additional skills required for highly effective communications include:
- Auditory Communications Skills;
- Visual Communications Skills;
- Sensory Communications Skills;
- Emotional Communications Skills; and,
- Factual Communications Skills.
In this week’s installments, I’ll be talking about how you can develop skills in each of these areas. Some of us have a self-imposed limitation regarding our communications ability; and we use our self-talk to reinforce our belief that we are poor communicators. None of us has to be.
Your succession plan is important. Intent has to be clear. We may need the legalbabble to protect the interests of our family members, business partners, and other stakeholders. But when it comes to finding a good example of effective written communications, somebody pass me a comic book.
Posted by Dan Schneider on June 2, 2008 | Comments (0)
