MESSAGE RICHNESS

The first concept of effective communication is message richness – the message (content) and the way the sender and receiver are able to connect.

Richness is highly related to the emotional nature of humans. In essence, the greater the degree of richness, the greater the emotional connection to the message.

First and foremost, it’s important to base the importance of message richness on this undeniable fact: We’re creatures of emotion, not cold, disassociated creatures of logic. And it’s vital to understand how message richness is achieved.

In-person interaction has the highest degree of richness because all parts of the message can be evaluated and processed. We take in and process all nuances. We understand the message better simply by watching body language. We best interpret tone. When we're there, right then and there, we can seek clarification. We can evaluate understanding, and rapport.

Over-the-phone interaction diminishes richness. Although tone can still be evaluated and clarification can be requested, we miss the non-verbal clues.

Perhaps surprisingly, in public communications, (meetings, presentations and the like), richness also fades because of the lack of interactive elements related to clarification and understanding.

Richness takes a final hit when we convert communication to the written word. With the exception of Nobel Laureate winners, most people cannot achieve any type of meaningful connectivity in writing. Written communication has a high probability for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Humor and personality can rarely be translated in the written word. And, even emoticons, colored backgrounds and dancing symbols, emails have are impersonal and lack ability for clarification.

So how do you establish richness?

Compare the amount of time you might spend recovering from a misunderstood email to the amount of time it takes to walk down the hall and talk to the recipient. Whenever possible, engage in interpersonal, one-on-one communication.