When we must read something that is poorly crafted, one of two things happens: we very quickly switch off and strop trying or we work extra hard to make sense of it. Unless they know something is of critical import, senior business leaders switch off surprisingly quickly. They will wait for a subordinate to raise the issue with them in person rather than investing the time and energy to read something that is poorly crafted.

So, it’s worth taking a step back to understand what we should not be doing if we want senior leaders – or anyone important, be they a customer or a colleague – read and respond to our communication.

Here are three of the most common traps we see technical experts falling into with their communication, all of which make the audience work harder than they want to, lead to ambiguity and a risk that your message doesn’t get cut through.

Let’s now look in more depth at each of these elements.

In fact, we encourage you to flip the order so your audience can find your message easily and you also have an opportunity to explain the details that support your point of view.

The graphic below illustrates what we mean. In the first section, it illustrates your problem solving journey. First you gather data, then you analyse it, synthesise and identify your message. Much technical communication follows this path, however, it makes a lot of extra work for your audience, which is why we recommend flipping the order and communicating your message first.

Unfortunately, your audience did not sign up to go on a magical journey through your analysis, while you jump from one idea to the next until the ‘aha’ moment emerges right at the end.