“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”
Paul J. Meyer.
Anything we do strives for communication. Relating to each other is an urge we all share. That’s why pictograms evolved into letters to form words that carry an abstract idea. In a way, connecting with someone else through a message is like a miracle. One that’s key in human relationships. This relevance is more obvious when talking about business communications.
Communicating a message is very complex, even though we try to communicate with each other daily. This statement might be surprising. But it makes sense when knowing that communication is not about transmitting a message, nor is it the message itself. Instead, it is about connection, a mutual exchange of understanding.
What is business communication?
Usually, the definition of business communication comes as a “process of sharing information between people within and outside a company.”
This information can consist in explaining to a customer what a product is. It also includes telling an employee how to perform their tasks. Showing the actual situation of the company with stakeholders comes with it too. Is this all it takes?
Actually, one might say that’s only touching the surface of the communication process. For a business to work, communications must be effective. That is, people involved with a brand should understand each other, and have a common ground.
In that sense, business communication is more about a process. One where relationships between a person and a customer, stakeholder, or employee happen. Phrasing this a bit, it is about building a relationship between several actors. That is a company, a leader, or a company department with a customer, stakeholder, or employee.
It isn’t only a series of steps you mark on a chart with pretty designed steps to communicate something.
It is more about engaging in a conversation through the power of a message delivered. One that arises from a method of communication that fits the need for deep connection. The method used varies depending on the level of engagement or detachment the relationship has.
When there is detachment, there is a distance between the customer and the organization. Say, there is lower engagement. Thus, an urgent need for touchpoints.
On the contrary, when there is engagement, there is less distance between the customer and the organization. In this case, the organization becomes a person, a company CEO, a personal brand, a purpose brand.
Business communication and the Transformative Power
Business communication, from the Transformative Power point of view, involves creating a strategy. Such a strategy comes with designed steps to connect a company, an employee, and a customer. In other words, it’s about creating a relationship between an entrepreneur with a personal brand, or business brand, and a customer.
This strategy comes to close the gap in communications through a genuine aligned connection based on the why. Not the why of an individual, company’s CEO, or a person, but the interactive why of each individual.
It is a vehicle of connection that touches on each person’s point of view. This aims to find the common vision and mission that unites them. Once this happens, it serves as a mechanism to deliver a message that can help to:
- Change the world.
- Build belonging.
- Create engagement.
- Establish a long-lasting relationship.
When the center of business communication is the why everything changes. This is the essential reason why a customer, employee, or stakeholder sees something in a company. That comes before the what, how, who, and where of a business.
At this point, answering relevant questions for the brand becomes easier. What kind of questions? These are some examples:
- Why does the company want to create a campaign for its employees?
- Why does the company serves this customer demographic?
- Why does this customer follow our brand instead of following another?
- What is the level of relationship this entrepreneur and company want to have?
- How are you building that relationship?
These questions can find an answer at any time. Yet, the goal here is to use effective communication within business relationships. To give meaningful answers, the why of a business have to be clear and serve as a common ground for everyone involved in it.
In conclusion…
Traditional business communications only touch the surface of the issues related to this process. Most of the time, the fall of productivity within a business has its ultimate cause in a lack of engagement.
That’s because there is no common why within a business, one that serves as the cornerstone for the company’s vision and mission. Again, this should function as a common ground. It should work as a shared vision and mission between everyone: customers, employees, and stakeholders.
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Edited by Ludwig Laborda