The Three Levels of Communication Success

What is good communication in the 21st century? How do we define it? What does it mean? And more importantly, how do we obtain good communication skills in the 21st century? Is it simply good or bad? Are we either good at communicating or not? Or are there levels of good? Are there ways for us to think about our own skill development so that we can build on our skills over time and reach higher levels of good? We think there are. We think there are three levels of good communication skills, three ways for you to think about your own skills and pursue your own skill development. The first level, which we would call professional level communication, is defined by one simple word, clarity. We have eliminated the distraction, we have stripped away anything extra that doesn't need to be there, and we have made our message simple and clear so that our audience is likely to hear what we're talking about. That's a good level to get to. A lot of people don't communicate at that level. It's simple, it's clear, people will hear us. That's great. But there's more. There's more for us to think about. Because we can make our message simple and clear, but that doesn't necessarily mean that our audience is going to care about it or be interesting, which leads us to our second level of skill, which we call leadership level communication. And now you're doing more than just making your message simple and clear. Now you're making it interesting. Now you're creating something that your audience is likely to care about. They're connected to it, which means you have to understand your audience at a much higher level. That's a big jump from simply making it simple and clear. Now it's interesting. Now they're going to care. Now you're communicating at a higher level. But we're still not done. There's a third level, which we call executive level communication, where now you're doing more than just getting your audience to care. Now you're being truly persuasive. Now you're causing your audience to act. You're likely to get them to agree with you. You're able to build consensus to get approval for your plan or your budget request. And to communicate at this level, you have to have full command of the material and the facts and the figures. You have to understand your audience and be able to anticipate the questions and the objections. You have to be able to give relevant examples easily, and you have to deliver all of it with confidence and presence. Three levels of communication for you to think about. Professional level, where it's simple and clear and your audience will hear you. Leadership level, where now you're connecting it to your audience and they're more likely to care. And executive level, where you have such a command of the situation that you're much more likely to persuade them to act. Three levels of communication for you to think about, and a way for you to think about your own skill development over time. Think about first getting to clarity, then causing your audience to care, then being truly persuasive.