Trailhead Thoughts
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
- George Bernard Shaw
Trail Map - Learn. Think. Act. ™
From Said to Remembered: How to Communicate for Execution
📚Learn
Great communication breaks in 3 places:
Said → Heard → Remembered
If it’s not clear, it won’t be heard.
If it’s not heard, it won’t be remembered.
If it’s not remembered, it won’t be executed.
Here are the 3 tools to fix that:
The Call Plan - Before the meeting, ask:
Who will be in the room?
What are their objectives?
What are our objectives?
What are the desired next steps?
BONUS - Before the conversation or meeting wraps up - clarify. Who will do What, by When.
The Four Ways of Seeing - is a red-team exercise. It works to improve perspective and accelerate empathy. Work through the scenario, and ask these questions.
How I see myself?
How I see them?
How I think they see me?
How they see themselves?
Jobs to Be Done (for Meetings) - Not all meetings are the same. From my perspective there are 3 types of meetings. and each have a specific Job to Be Done (JTBD)
Inform and include Q&A - If you are not looking for feedback, questions, or follow-up answers - turn that meeting into an email.
Decision-Making - In this meeting we are making a decision. To do, or Do Not. To move forward, or Not. To invest, or Not.
Clarify -What are we deciding?
What criteria will we use?
Collaborative - This is the meeting where we waste a majority of time, and they are actually the ones that can be very valuable. They create space to build as a team. The 3 types of collaborative meetings follow.
Solve a Problem.
Align on Strategy and Tactics to Achieve a Result.
Design a Solution.
If you don’t define the job of the meeting, people will disengage.
🤔Think
Ask yourself:
Where does communication usually break down for me?
Do my meetings have a clear job?
At the end of conversations, do we clearly know who will do what by when?
When was the last time I asked, “What did you hear me say?”
Small gaps create big execution problems.
💪 Act
Try this in your next meeting:
Write the job of the meeting at the top of your notes.
Before ending, say, “Let’s confirm who is doing what by when.”
Ask one person, “What did you hear as the key takeaway?”
That’s it.
Simple tools. Big impact.
Clarity → Alignment → Execution
