Make Your Audience Feel the Problem

Getting people to listen to you, and hear you, in today’s modern workplace is hard enough. We write about that challenge all the time. But once you get people to hear you, your challenge is not over. Getting people to hear you is a great first step… but only a first step.

The next step, which may also be the harder step, is to cause people to care about your issue. If you can get people to hear you, you are on the right path. But if you can cause people to care, you are well on your way to successful communication.

How do we cause people to care?

Like so many other things we teach at The Latimer Group, the explanation is simple, but the execution is harder. To cause people to care, you have to make them feel the problem or the opportunity. You have to put it into their context, make it relevant for them. You have to take the issue, and make it real for them… explain the benefits… explain the reality of the problem… explain how it will positively or negatively impact them.

Clear and powerful business communication is not easy. Our first threshold for success is to be clear and make it easy for people to understand what we are talking about. But that is just the price of admission… that is just table stakes. The harder challenge, and the skill that differentiates great communicators from merely good ones, is the ability to make things real for the audience. Make them care. Put it into their context, with examples, stories, or statistics that will feel real for them.

If you want your audience to care, make them feel it.

Good luck!