“People forget what you say, but they remember how you made them feel.” That’s what actor/director Warren Beatty told Frank Luntz at a Hollywood gathering. Luntz, the noted pollster and commentator, believes that “it’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.” The point that Beatty and Luntz are driving is that words take second place to interpretation. This is a theme that Luntz explores in his new book, Words That Work; Luntz argues that the onus of understanding falls on the communicator, not the listener. This concept is vital to leaders because so often they spend time honing their messages but comparatively little time thinking about how those messages will be received, if they are received at all.

Live the Message
Communication, of course, is vital to leadership; that’s certainly no secret. It is vital for a leader to develop a message and stick with it, but it may be equally important, if not more important, to find out how that message is playing. Now politicians are adept at the later, especially those who watch the polls. But sometimes the pols do have it right; they do know how to judge the effect of a message on an audience. And in that regard they can certainly teach corporate leaders a thing or two. Too frequently the mantra from mahogany row is this: “Here’s the message, like it or lump it. But pay attention, I’m only going to say this once.”

Yes, that’s an exaggeration, but only slightly. It is often not that senior leaders are being arrogant, it is that they are so pressed for time that they forget to iterate a message more than once and even more they forget to listen to the feedback. Yet communication is vital. A recent survey from the Ken Blanchard Group stated that more than three quarters of all employees feel their managers fail to set clear goals and objectives. Is it any wonder then that so many initiatives fail, or worse, are dead on arrival to anyone more than two levels down from the CEO? There are ways, of course, to make communication a priority and in the process sharpen your messages so they resonate clearly. Toward that end, here are three important questions to ask before you give a speech, or make an important announcement.

What have you got to say? Think about what you are going to say

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