Using these five questions will make sure you’re communicating successfully and will help avoid a multitude of problems.
WHO? I was a manager at Garner’s Pizza and Wings in college. There was a big event and we were providing pizzas. In between his resupply runs the owner came into the store and asked me to have an employee complete a specific task. A couple of hours later he was back for the next run of food and asked me why the task wasn’t done. I told him that I had announced to all of the employees that “Someone needs to take care of this!” He told me “Everybody’s job is nobody’s job.” He taught me that I should have picked a specific person and asked them to do it. We see this same sort of thing play out in organizations as big plans are made in a meeting, but each specific task isn’t assigned to someone. Do you know WHO is going to take care of that task you just sent in your group email? Failing to take the time to search this out will lead to big problems and last minute scrambling to meet important deadlines.
WHAT? One organization I worked with began looking back at previous messages they’d advertised and realized that although they had included the target audience and the title of the event, they had sometimes left out descriptions of the events. Even though people read the title of the event they didn’t know what it was. Make sure you communicate clearly what your message is about or you might have high school seniors joining the town’s elderly at your Senior Dance.
WHEN? I’ve set in meetings where major projects were being planned. The specific ideas were being communicated and people were eagerly gobbling up responsibilities, but no one discussed a time table. I think this is fairly common in organizations. It’s akin to goal setting which is often left out of not only organizational planning, but also people’s personal lives. The ambiguity of statements like “We’re just going to work as quickly as we can” leaves lots of room for misinterpretation and problems. Even if your organization takes the initiative to set a launch date, that’s not enough. Each step of the process needs to be planned starting at the launch date, then working backwards. When is this project launching to the public? When is each step in this process due? Remember to leave a little time in between each step to manage problems that arise and to make necessary changes of direction along the way. Best case scenario: if everything goes perfectly during planning, then your project will be ready ahead of time and can be set on the shelf until the deadline comes due. This is exceptionally rare, so don’t plan on it.
WHERE? Within the past week I’ve seen a post for a major event in Branson being passed around social media by way of an electronic flyer. It has lots of information like the date, time and a list of sponsors and participating companies, but one key piece of information was left out…WHERE?! Even after researching I have no idea where it’s going to be held. I can probably make an educated guess, but you don’t want your customers guessing where they’re supposed to be especially after so much time and energy has been invested in your project.
Why? This is the most often neglected aspect of communication. In a business setting there is often an attitude of “It’s not important to communicate ‘the why’ because employees are paid to do what they’re told.” This is a BIG mistake. Does it take extra time to communicate to an individual or team why something is happening or what the purpose of a specific process is? Sure, but taking the extra few moments to share this most important information helps to empower and encourage people, and it shows them a great deal of respect. It communicates that they’re not just simple hirelings, but key pieces of the organization that are important enough to know why they do, what they do. Explaining the purpose of what you are trying to accomplish also acts as a continual training class as others learn how each of their daily tasks fits into the big picture of the organization’s purpose.
These Big Five Questions aren’t just useful in meetings for multimillion dollar organizations. They also act as a checklist to effective communication between individuals. Before you post a flyer, send an email or get off the phone with your spouse, quickly think through the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE and WHY. Using these as a filter can help you avoid missing work deadlines, the awkward “I thought you were picking him up from soccer practice” discussion and a night on the couch.