Communication for Dummies
When I was teaching Stakeholder Management and Communication at Coventry Uni, I used to give an exercise to my students to get them to understand the importance of talking in layman's terms about sustainability so that anyone could understand them.
I would get them to rewrite paragraphs found on the specialist press in plain language.
So why don't you try to do the same?
Here is a paragraph lifted from the Ellen McArthur Foundation explaining what circular economy is:
“The circular economy is a system where materials never become waste and nature is regenerated.
In a circular economy, products and materials are kept in circulation through processes like maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacture, recycling, and composting.
The circular economy tackles climate change and other global challenges, like biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, by decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources.”
How would you rewrite it if you had to make this easier to understand to the general public?
For instance, you might rethink terms like remanufacture, regenerated or decoupling.
How about:
- re-use materials to create new products,
- improved by creating new habitats for plants and animals (I know, this is not the full meaning of regeneration, but I'd rather make it easy to understand than provide a full explanation)
- ensuring businesses can still profit without using new materials or other resources that cannot be replaced.
Adding practical examples would also go a long way to explain a complex concept.
Every time you have to talk about your work, try to put your language under the microscope: are there terms that someone without your experience and knowledge would not understand? How can you rephrase them?
How can you make them easier to understand for:
- a Chief Operating Officer
- someone working on a building site
- a Chief Financial Officer
- a child?
This article was originally written for the Green Gorilla weekly newsletter. If you liked it, subscribe to receive more articles like this and learn how to communicate sustainability better, how to be more productive without selling your soul to the work devil, and how to make an impact in the world. Here is the link: https://newsletter.thegreengorilla.co.uk/