You make people happy by telling them what they want to hear, but you provide long-term value by telling them what they need to hear. They might want to hear they’re doing a great job, but they might need to hear how they need to improve. They might want to hear the path forward is going to be easy, but they need to hear how difficult it will be so they can prepare for it. The highest value information you can deliver is a real insight that changes the way they view the world, and most people don’t want that.
Lean communication is not a joke, which is why it starts with the punchline. Be very clear about your ask at the beginning of any communication. This directness and transparency is both respectful and efficient. It’s respectful because it allays suspicion and confusion, which is what people will feel if they’re unsure what you want from them. It’s efficient because if they know your intent early, it makes it easier for them to process and understand your reasoning. It saves time because they will listen until they’ve heard enough, and it surfaces objections early, so you can deal with them.
In lean manufacturing, value is defined and decided by the end customer. It’s the same in lean communication: your listener is your end customer and only they decide if they get value from the encounter. The only way to know if they got value is to consider what they would pay for the opportunity to get that precise information, at that precise time, from you alone. Of course, people “pay” for the communication in the form of time and effort, but maybe they’re being polite or have no choice. If they had to pay money to hear you, would they?
Always remember that value is a combination of the what and the why. What you want must be combined with why the audience should do it. You get what you want only by connecting your needs to those of your listeners.
With apologies to Sun Tzu: Know your audience and your stuff, and you will never be in peril in a hundred presentations. When you are ignorant of the audience but know your stuff, your chances of winning or losing are equal. When you are ignorant of both the audience and your stuff, you are in peril in every presentation.
