As a CEO, it’s part of your job to talk to people, to tell your company’s story to customers and investors, and to communicate your Vision, Mission and Values consistently to your team and partners. It’s fair to assume that you spend a lot of time speaking — but are you communicating enough?
One of the key challenges you’ll encounter lies in remembering that you hold a unique perspective. You likely have more information than anyone else, because your attention is spread across every part of your business, internally and externally. Other people don’t, and so what’s obvious to you may not be to them. You also probably spend most of your time thinking about risks, issues and the future — again, other people don’t, because their attention is on delivering what they need to deliver today (which is where you want it to be!).
It’s easy to forget that your vantage point gives you sight of the panorama around you, while others can only see part of the picture. This leads to miscommunication, misalignment, duplication and frustration and, much of the time, the things that cause these issues are easy to fix, if you have the right information.
At the same time, too much noise is distracting. Your customers and investors don’t typically care about the intricacies of your forecasting process, but your Finance team probably do. Your salespeople might not need to know about the new product you’re developing just yet — in fact, telling them will be confusing and will take them away from their key task of finding new customers.
CEO communication: who, what and how
The art of CEO communication is in finding the balance between signal and noise. Judging what different people or groups need to know when, and how best to deliver it to them, is an ever-shifting maze, but one that you must navigate to be effective. To make things just that little bit more challenging, most people think they want to know everything, until you start to tell them everything and their eyes glaze over as they rapidly lose interest.
Every company is different, and so the optimal flow of information in your business will be unique. But there are some key principles you can apply that will help you judge how best to communicate to the world around you.
Who do you need to communicate with?
To start with, work out who you need to communicate with. Focus on key stakeholder groups (customers, investors, analysts, internal team members, your board, etc), and break these down as far as it makes sense to do so. It’s usually helpful, for example, to break down “internal team members” into segments like Sales, Marketing, Finance, Operations etc., and you may go even further than that if you’re running a large organisation.
Then decide how regularly, or in what circumstance, you should be communicating with them. You may decide, for example, that it’s appropriate to update your board quarterly and your Chair monthly, but also if there are any material changes in the business that they should be informed about. Schedule time to communicate with each stakeholder group at the appropriate intervals and refer to this “CEO communication map” any time something significant happens.
What do you need to say?
For each category, you should then ask three questions:
· What do they need to know? (In the case of your internal team, “what do they need to know to deliver?”)
· What would be useful, but not essential, for them to know? Is this information likely to distract or confuse them? (If it will, then your best option may be not to communicate)
· What would they like to know? Is that information helpful to them in some way?
You can use these three questions to structure your regular communications with each group, and you can filter any non-standard updates through them.
How should you communicate?
The final decision to make is on the best way to communicate the message you have to give. Is the information likely to be controversial or confusing? If so, you’ll want to do it live and give the opportunity to ask questions. Is it related to a new process or procedure, or connected to lots of facts and figures? An email and attachments may be a better option. Is it quick and specific, but also urgent and important? Speak briefly to people individually. There are plenty of options on this, and some trial and error may be needed to find the right approach for each of your stakeholder groups.
And if in doubt, over-communicate. While you don’t want to swamp people with irrelevant information, most of the time they’ll appreciate being in the loop. Be selective, but generous with your communication, and you’ll start to see better decision-making, more transparent interaction, and less friction.
For more information about CEO communication, and what it means to be a great CEO, check out the blog series on Medium from Singular’s Founder and CEO, Tom Froggatt.
