The Communication Cycle: Six Steps to Better Communication

image:mindtools.com
culled from:softskills.com

•    "The ability to express an idea is well nigh as important as the idea itself."
– American businessman, Bernard Baruch
Whether you're writing an email to a co-worker, delivering on the job training to a new team member, or giving an important presentation to your board of directors, you must communicate in a way that is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
But do you ever get lost while organizing your message, or struggle to identify what your audience truly needs to know? There are so many factors to consider during preparation and presentation that it's easy to forget an important point.
The Communication Cycle is a six-step process that helps you develop and refine your message. It helps you ensure that you don't forget anything essential the first time you present it, and it helps you maximize its impact in the times that follow. By putting the process into the form of a cycle, this approach encourages you to use the feedback you receive to improve your communications in the future.
In this article, we'll examine the Communication Cycle, and look at how you can use it to improve your daily communications. We'll also give an example that shows how you can use the Communication Cycle when delivering an important communication.
Understanding the Communication Cycle
The Communication Cycle (shown below in Figure 1) provides a checklist that helps you communicate effectively with your audience.
Jargon Busting
Communicating Without Barriers
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"Look at these sales figures! – You know Sam, you can't put lipstick on a pig. If we continue this strategic partnering paradigm we might as well be milking a mouse. We've got to cut bait and return to our archetype of using customer-oriented discretionary values to make product reengineering decisions."
If your head is spinning after reading that, you're not alone. The culprit is jargon: The use of specialized terms, idioms, expressions, acronyms and abbreviations that are understandable to only a select group of people.
Jargon – the specialized language of a group of people – has its place in the workplace. It can provide useful shorthand to get across specific meaning quickly.
But jargon becomes a problem when it stops people understanding your message. When you start using jargon (perhaps unintentionally) with audiences it is not intended for, people will find you very difficult to understand.
Even within the group the jargon's meant for, meanings evolve and newcomers misunderstand. And soon jargon can create barriers within groups too.
In the comments above, made to Sam by his colleague, there are seven instances of business jargon and idioms. You may be familiar with some of the words or phrases, but do you know what the speaker really means? Probably not. That is the problem with jargon. It diminishes the effectiveness of the communication.
It would be much easier for Sam, and anyone else listening, if the speaker simply said:
"Look at these sales figures! – They don't look good. The new partnering arrangement is not working. We need to go back to deciding on product improvements based on customer feedback."
When jargon creeps in
Every profession, organization and specialized group has some unique vocabulary that can speed communication between group members. This is okay, provided that the meaning is totally clear to everyone who needs to understand. (Sometimes it's even a benefit that others outside the group do not understand. For example, patients may sometimes be better off not knowing some of the jargon used between doctors.)
Jargon is not effective however if your intended audience doesn't understand it. Some people use jargon unintentionally when it's out of place to do so. Others use it to look more knowledgeable.
Sometimes people replace perfectly acceptable and understandable words with fancy, specialized jargon, seeking to impress their audience. These specialist words seem to hold some magical power that can make the speaker feel more intelligent or more knowledgeable. Unfortunately, the impression he or she gives may be a negative one, rather than the one intended.
Whatever the reason you use jargon, if it's out of place and the audience misunderstands, it can create a two-fold problem. Whilst you fail to convey information to them, you may also succeed in conveying a more subtle, negative message: That you have given little thought to your audience; and perhaps that you are insincere and not to be trusted.
Worse, you may never know that your audience has not understood – people often don't say anything if they mistrust you, or if they fear of looking unintelligent themselves.
Creating a Value Proposition
Communicating the benefits of your product, service or idea, simply and clearly
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Messages must be consistent.
© iStockphoto/jacus
Imagine a world where everyone is in sales. Well, the fact is, everyone is in sales, in some fashion. It's not just the salesman at the car lot or computer reseller who qualifies: Maybe you are trying to sell your spouse your ideas for the next holiday; Maybe you're pitching a new project to your boss; Maybe you are headhunting someone to join your firm. It's all selling, and, whatever your offer (product, idea, project or job) it's important to have a really strong value proposition.
A value proposition is a short statement that clearly communicates the benefits that your potential client gets by using your product, service or idea. It "boils down" all the complexity of your sales pitch into something that your client can easily grasp and remember.
It needs to be very specific: Simply describing the features or capabilities of your offer is not enough. Your value proposition must focus closely on what your customer really wants and values. Your customer wants to solve problems, to improve on existing solutions, to have a better life, build a better business or do more, better, faster. and so on.
Creating a value proposition is a useful marketing technique that had wider application than product marketing. Whatever you are 'selling' and to whom, a value proposition is useful, if not essential, tool. Whether your 'customers' are external customers, employees, co-workers or even your family, the idea is to help them see the specific value your offer brings to them. And by doing so, you will grab their attention in such a way that they know: "Yes, that's right for me".
Creating a Great Value Proposition
"Why should I buy this specific product or idea?" asks your customer: And your value proposition must answer this, in a compelling way. In creating a good value proposition, the trick is to know your product or idea well, know how it compares with those of your competitors and, very importantly, put yourself in your customer's shoes to find the answers.
Your value proposition can be created step-by-step, by answering a series of questions. Once you answer these, you have the ingredients to create a value proposition that answers your customer's question: "Why should I buy this specific product or idea?"
Step 1: Know your customer
Thinking from the perspective of your customer, ask the following:
•    Who is he or she? What does s/he do and need?
•    What problems does s/he need to solve?
•    What improvements does s/he look for?
•    What does s/he value?

Tip: If you don't know, ask!
It's easy to try to second guess what your customers want. And very easy to get it wrong.
So do some market research: This could be a simple matter of asking customers directly, or organizing a focus group or surveys. 'Market research' is not just for external customers, it works for other 'markets' too: Depending on your product or idea, your 'market' could be employees, colleagues, or even your spouse.

Step 2: Know your product, service or idea
From your customer view point:
•    How does the product, service or idea solve the problem or offer improvement?
•    What value and hard results does it offer the customer?

Tip: Include numbers and percentages
To grab your customer's attention even faster in this financially-oriented world, your value proposition should also speak percentages and numbers: How much will your customer gain, save or improve? How much more efficient will he or she become? How much safer, smarter, faster, brighter will the solution be? And so on.

Step 3: Know your competitors
Keep on thinking from the perspective of your customer, and ask:
•    How does your product or idea create more value than competing ones?

Tip:
This can be quite difficult. See our articles on USP Analysis, Core Competence Analysis and SWOT Analysis for useful tools for doing this.

Step 4: Distill the customer-oriented proposition
The final step is to pull it all together and answer, in 2 or 3 sentence: "Why should I buy this specific product or idea?"
Try writing from the customer viewpoint by completing the following, (and don't forget to include the numbers and percentages that matter!):
•    "I want to buy this product or idea because it will..."
•    "The things I value most about the offer are..."
•    "It is better than competing products or ideas because..."
Step 5: Pull it all together
Now, turn around your customers 'answer' from step 4 into a value proposition statement.
Example:
Here's a simple example. Let's say that you sell lawn mowers, and your customer is someone with a large back yard.
Step 1: Know your customer
Your customer is a businessman with quite a large house, who likes the "meditative feeling" of cutting his own lawn, but gets bored by the job when it takes too long.
He's looking for a good quality of cut, for the job to be done quickly and enjoyably.
Step 2: Know your product or idea
The product is a ride-on mower with a 25 horsepower (powerful) engine and 45 inch (wide) cutting blades.
Step 3: Know your competitors
The mower goes faster and cuts wider than the competition.
Step 4: Distill the customer-oriented proposition
"Our mower cuts your grass in 50% of the time of 'big brand' mowers in its class. And it leaves the lawn looking beautiful too!"
If you haven't already looked at our USP Analysis article, do so now – it will show you how, with a little research, you can identify how your product or service is unique. It's also worth understanding the various strategic positioning options that will underpin your value statement: our article on Porter's Generic Strategies explains these.