When it comes to early communication about change, getting the message right is critical. Change inherently stirs emotions—uncertainty, excitement, fear, and hope. Our message must address these emotions head-on, guiding our audience from resistance to acceptance. 

One of the most critical steps is clearly explaining the Why behind it. Why is change necessary? Why now? Why is this the right path? Without a compelling and well-articulated “Why,” even the best strategies will face resistance.

Over the years, I’ve developed a framework I call “Hook / Scare / Comfort / Inspire” to craft a message that answers these questions. It connects the logic of the change to the emotions of the people who will execute it.

In a world where more is often mistaken for better, the true effectiveness lies in how much you can remove while still retaining the essence of what matters. Whether it’s crafting a concise email, delivering a powerful presentation, or defining a focused strategy, simplicity isn’t just a stylistic choice—it’s a necessity.

One of the most frustrating pitfalls in communication is something known as the Curse of Knowledge. It happens when we're so familiar with a subject that we speak in jargon, acronyms, or insider language—and confuse the heck out of our audience. This is a dangerous trap, particularly when presenting new strategies or analyzing performance. We think we’re being clear, but our audience is left bewildered and unsure of what to do with the information we’re conveying.

The Ladder of Abstraction, a concept coined by linguist S.I. Hayakawa and recently highlighted in an article by Big Think, provides a useful tool to avoid this trap. It helps us shift between high-level, abstract ideas and specific, grounded details that ensure our message is not just heard but understood.

What is the Ladder of Abstraction?

In a world full of distractions, clear communication is more crucial than ever. Learn how to cut through the noise, simplify your message, and make sure your audience truly gets it. Read on for four practical tips will help you ensure your message is heard loud and clear—no matter the setting.

If your organization has a hierarchy then so should your metrics.

KPI Trees are a great way to connect the entire organization to the ultimate success metric while giving people at all levels a clear view of how their work connects to the ultimate success metric and to the work of other teams.

So what the heck is a KPI Tree?

A KPI Tree is a multi-level, mathematically connected view of the building blocks of the business.

I find KPI Trees are a critical way for everyone in the organization to understand how the business actually works. They provide clarity for each person to understand how the work they do drives a higher-level metric. And, conversely, they can see how something they are pushing might detract from a different metric. For example, one team might develop a service program in a retail store that requires a service counter that is fully staffed all day long. However, that dedicated use of labor might cause a Sales Per Labor Hour metrics to go sideways and ultimately negatively impact the profitable growth.

How do you build a KPI Tree?

In my experience, the most important factor for success in business is the ability to interact well with other people. Leadership skills, financial acumen, and technical expertise all matter a lot, but they don’t amount to a hill of beans without solid people skills.

The reality is none of us can be successful completely on our own. We need the help of other people — peers, staff, managers, vendors, or business partners — to successfully accomplish our tasks and goals.

Human relationships are more complicated than Wall Street financial schemes, but we often take interpersonal skills for granted. We rarely study them to the degree we study financial or technical skills. After all, we’ve been talking to people all our lives. We’re experienced. But I’ll argue there are subtleties that make all the difference, and they’re worth studying.

In today’s business world, we’re drowning in data. We track nearly everything, constantly analyzing the numbers. Yet, the sheer volume of data can be so overwhelming that it often leads to a shortage of actionable insights.

All that data is worthless—or worse—if we don’t produce thoughtful analysis and carefully craft communication of our findings in ways that enable decision-makers to react to the data rather than try to analyze it themselves.

To navigate the data deluge and extract meaningful insights, I’ve found a framework that consistently produces effective analysis. It’s all about achieving F.A.M.E., baby!

We need to focus on four key attributes: Focused, Actionable, Manageable, and Enlightening.

Here, in my experience, are the keys to achieving FAME in analysis:

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” —George Bernard Shaw

I read that quote the other day, and it kind of blew me away. How often, as managers, executives, marketers and team members do we send forth messages and assume effective communication has taken place? I know that I personally have been guilty of spewing forth my thoughts and directives in ways that were clear to me but were not nearly clear enough to my audience.

Over the weekend, I did a bit of reading on communication. As I read Wikipedia’s article on communication, I was reminded of the technical breakdown of communication I learned in my college Organizational Behavior class. While those explanations are useful, I really wanted to think about communication in more practical terms. While communication between individuals is very important in business, effective one-to-many communication can often be extremely challenging.

Technology may impede quality.

Acquiring new customers is hard work, but turning them into loyal customers is even harder. The acquisition efforts can usually come almost solely from the Marketing department, but customer retention takes a village. And all those villagers have to march to the beat of a strategy that effectively balances the concepts of bought loyalty and earned loyalty.

I first heard the concepts of bought and earned loyalty many years ago in a speech given by former ForeSee Results CEO Larry Freed, and those concepts stuck with me. They’re not mutually exclusive. In the most effective retention strategies I’ve seen, bought loyalty is a subset of a larger earned loyalty strategy.

So let’s break each down a bit and discuss how they work together.