COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES
Any communication, from a call to a friend to poems, research papers, annual reports, and presentations, must comply with the five communication principles.
When we miss one or more of them, we significantly reduce our chances of convincing, helping, managing, or teaching others.
The GOAL principle states that every communication must have a goal.
The goals of various communications differ, and they can be mutually exclusive. For instance, the goal of belles-lettres might be stimulating imagination; thus, indistinctness is a tool. In professional communication, indistinctness is a plague, and all the communication parties must get the same impression, leaving no space for multiple interpretations of a fact.
Before writing an email or paper, giving a call, or presenting, ask yourself what you want to achieve with it.
The SUFFICIENCY principle states that communication must be adequate in means, language, and volume to reach its goals.
If people cannot read, we will not convince them with our leaflets; yet, talking to them might work. It won’t if we don’t speak the same language, which is fundamental to informing or influencing people.
Thus, analyze your audience before communicating and choose the adequate approach.
The VOLUME principle states that the volume of any communication is inversely proportional to its probability of being read, watched, or listened to.
Express what you want in the briefest form possible. Indeed, in belles-lettres, a woodcock can take off from some mudflat for half a page and send sparkling droplets into the cerulean sky for another half, and it might be a beautiful page. In work communication, shoot the game or let it go.
The volume principle is always consistent with the sufficiency principle, and preparing experts will always require millions of pieces of communication.
The FEEDBACK principle states that we cannot be sure communication has reached its goal unless we receive meaningful feedback. In high-stakes contexts, people use closed-loop communication. The receiver repeats the message, and the sender confirms it, closing the loop.
Follow up with questions concerning your message.
The ITERATION principle states that the more we work on and with our message, the higher the probability it reaches its goal. Thus, writing is rewriting. This principle applies to poetry and prose, including resumes, CVs, abstracts, papers, and presentations. Also, the more we expose the receiver to the message, the more likely it is to reach its endpoint. Ads and propaganda exploit this principle extensively.