I have three core values:
Honesty. Empathy. Trust.
And I’d argue they’re all you need to know about communication.
If you take these three values seriously and apply them to how you speak and write, they become the most ruthless, demanding communication strategy you can possibly use.
Honesty requires a true story worth telling.
If you commit to only ever saying what is true, you lose your ability to spin. You can’t use clever words to dress up a bad idea. You can’t hide behind corporate jargon. Your words have to be attractive strictly because of what you are saying, not how you frame it. Honesty forces you to dig until the plain truth is actually useful all on its own.
Empathy requires words others effortlessly understand.
It is never enough that a thought is clear in your own head. Empathy means you care deeply about how others hear it. You care about what they see and how they feel when the words land. You don’t make them do the hard work of decoding what you mean. You do the hard work of making it as easy as possible for them to understand.
Trust requires genuinely useful stuff.
This terrifies people. You tell the truth. You make it easy to understand. And then? You let go. You trust your audience to decide. But because you know the choice is completely theirs, it forces your hand: you have to make absolutely sure that what you are asking them to do is actually a good choice for them.
You want a communication strategy that works? Stop trying to talk people into things.
Keep lighting the path,
Michael
