COMMUNICATION PRINCIPLES: Intentional, Sufficient, Concise…Intentional, Sufficient, Concise. Right?
1. The goal principle: Every communication must have a goal.
The goals of various communications differ. 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.
2. The sufficiency principle states that communication must be adequate in means, language, and volume to reach its goals.
If people cannot read, you will not convince them with your leaflets; yet, talking to them might work. It won’t if you do not speak the same language in the expansive definition of the term.
Speaking the same language is fundamental to informing or influencing people. Thus, analyze your audience before communicating and choose the adequate approach.
3. 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.
4. The feedback principle: You cannot be sure communication has reached its goal unless you 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.
5. The iteration principle: The more you work on your message and with your message, the higher the probability of it reaching its goal.
Thus, writing is rewriting. This principle applies to poetry and prose, including resumes, CVs, abstracts, papers, and presentations.
Also, the more you expose the receiver to the message, the more likely it is to reach its endpoint. Ads and propaganda exploit this principle extensively.
{INFORMATION, INFORMATION ASYMMETRY, ENDPOINT TIERS, COMPARTMENTALIZATION, THE DICHOTOMY, FEEDBACK, CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE, COMMUNICATION: Q&As}