How to Know If You Have Communicated Enough Your Message

“Until your people are “mocking” you, you’ve not repeated your message enough” states Verne Harnish in the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

When it comes to implementing change, communication of a consistent message throughout the organization is very important. What I observe is that too often, executives believe they have over-communicated when in fact, the message has not been perceived or received with sufficient clarity. Sometimes they even have not really communicated the message beyond their direct reports!

I like this criteria for knowing whether you have communicated sufficiently on your message: wait until someone mocks you about it, or just mentions amicably that you’ve said the same a sufficient number of times. Then you’ll know that the message has been received and only then can you move on to the next.