What does good communication look like?

It’s human nature for us to criticise others for poor communication, but if you sat down and thought about it, what would your wish list for good communication look like?

Maybe it’s about ensuring you’re given all available information – the good, the bad and the ugly?

Maybe it’s expecting the person or company who’s providing the information to filter out what you don’t need or want to know, demonstrating their understanding of your role in a situation?

Maybe it’s about the format the information is provided in – but does the sender know you’d prefer a phone call rather than an email; or an email is better than a letter?

Or maybe you have different expectations for different circumstances?

It’s not straightforward is it.

I think good communication is about knowing your audience. In a previous article I talked about who we communicate with, and it’s so critically important for us to understand this. We can’t assume everyone we work with understands every aspect of our work – why should they? We’re there as the landrights services provider and it’s up to us to manage the information for them and communicate as we see fit.

In our recent video post on LinkedIn, Landrights Manager Aileen Paterson talked about ‘need to know’ and ‘nice to know’ in terms of the information we communicate to a client. Any professional services provider who doesn’t proactively communicate the ‘need to know’, isn’t doing their job properly, but the difference really comes into its own when you’ve chosen to communicate the ‘nice to know’ information.

As Aileen explained, we know our audiences. We know what their understanding of the landrights process is and the level to which they want to get involved. We will always ensure they have the ‘need to know’ information, but for the ‘nice to know’, we’ll cherry pick. We know who prefers email updates on a Friday afternoon; who wants a catch up on Teams on a Monday to talk through the week ahead; who wants bullet points on a text; and who would rather meet up in person once a month for a cup of coffee to talk through all the ins and outs of their projects. For me, that’s what good communication looks like.