Did you know that 75% of communications received are interpreted incorrectly?
What are the implications of that? Well, 70% of people believe that one of the worst outcomes of this is wasted time.
If your communications are not reaching people, or they are interpreting them incorrectly, then it does make sense that the outcome will be that time is being wasted. Think about the times when you have felt frustrated at having to explain something again, or communicate in a different way to help someone understand? What if we thought about trying to reach a wide range of people right from the start?
Making sure your communications are accessible, engaging and reach people so they understand them, is a key reason to focus on inclusive communication. It’s more than that though, your communications should make an impact on people so they want to talk to you and communicate with you again.
The great writer Maya Angelou said:
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
The importance of inclusive communication
As well engaging people, making them feel included and saving time, as if that’s not enough, there are other benefits too. Thinking about inclusive communication for all your communications will create a positive impact in so many other areas of your work too.
Then there’s team cohesion to think about. If everyone understands that people communicate in different ways, then imagine the impact of that? Perhaps you are not someone who can easily read complex, detailed, information. So if you get a good clear summary and there are links to the detail for people who need it, then that ensures everyone gets what they need.
Taking actions like that will help everyone gain a clearer understanding of information. Then that builds better, stronger relationships with everyone you communicate with. The impact of that will be your personal reputation increasing, but also the company’s reputation. You will become known as people who understand different people and communicate well. What an impact that will have on your appeal to others over your competitors.
Creating inclusive communications
So what are the actions you can take over this? Well it’s all about understanding different people and different styles of communication. You’re rarely communicating with just one person. And with your communications, it’s not just about the words you use. The key to understanding that, is understanding yourself. Here’s some ways to think about this:
- What are your demographic characteristics?
- How do you read information? Do you prefer details over highlights?
- Do you prefer seeing images, or seeing large text?
- What’s your personality type and how does that impact your communication?
Understanding your own style and preferences, helps you to think about people who have different needs. And then there’s accessibility to think about too. When you create communications, do you consider whether someone is lip-reading? Or perhaps needs another form of accessible communications? Most websites are not checked for accessibility. Which is a quick fix so many businesses could do with so many accessible website templates.
Consider people who may be:
- Using sign language
- Lip reading
- Not speaking English as their first language
- Using Braille
- Reading subtitles on videos
- Using a screen reader to read alt text on images and social media
These are just some of the ways in which communications can be made more accessible to read different people. Then to take things a stage further, we recommend you review all of your communications and think about what you can do to reach different people with each type of communication you create.
You can get your website checked for accessibility, you can add subtitles to all of your videos, you can add alt text to images and more. And you can think about the language you use and whether it is genuinely clear and simple to understand.
Getting started with inclusive communication strategies
If that is sounding like a lot to get started with, simple things you can do are about starting to think about this with any communications you create. Remembering that we are all different and receive and process communications in different ways will be a great start. Knowing that and acting on it will already make your communications more impactful. Showing people that you understand differences will help you reach people in a more impactful way.
And we believe in this so much, I did a TedX talk about it. If we can really understand different people and listen carefully to our differences, then we can value those differences and reach people more widely.
Watch this video about valuing the power in our differences.
If that’s got you thinking, and you want to know more, we literally wrote the book on this. Buy The Inclusion Journey and then you can access lots of free resources. We also have a lot of resources on our website that you can access too.
Use code KOGANPAGE20 for 20% off
https://www.koganpage.com/responsible-business/the-inclusion-journey-9781398616721
Midnight clients get 20% off all training courses with Watch This Sp_ce so make sure you quote us when booking. For more information, visit watchthisspace.uk or email hello@watchthisspace.uk.
