It's not just you

We work so hard to become better communicators, and yet perfection keeps eluding our grasp. None of this is easy! When you can’t believe how badly that meeting just went, take comfort in Finnish professor Osmo Antero Wiio. Wikipedia is at pains to remind us that Wiio’s laws are humoristically formulated, but it sure feels like he’s just reporting findings from a decade working at a startup. For a year-end dose of black humor, here are the laws:

Communication usually fails, except by accident.

If communication can fail, it will.
If communication cannot fail, it still most usually fails.
If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there's a misunderstanding.
If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails.

If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage.

There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message.

The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds.

In mass communication, the important thing is not how things are but how they seem to be.

The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

The more important the situation is, the more probable you had forgotten an essential thing that you remembered a moment ago.

Every exec comms, internal comms, media relations, and analyst relations professional has a horror story that proves the truth of Wiio’s Laws. So do marketing, sales, and HR leads. Also engineering, product, operations. Pretty much everyone who ever has to talk to or type a message to anyone has had a moment when we wanted to pull our hair out.

And yet, despite the incredible challenge that transporting understanding from one mind to another can be, we DID communicate and some people DID understand us. We did well!

Here’s to celebrating and building on what went well and jettisoning the traumatic memories of our failures after we’ve learned the relevant lessons. We can always learn and do better, especially if we have a sense of humor.

The poseycorp newsletter is taking a holiday break. We’ll be back in your inboxes on January 9, ready to attack 2024 with gusto! Meanwhile, HAPPY, HAPPY HOLIDAYS.

Not sure how to crush your next presentation? Persuade that difficult customer or team member? Navigate tough questions from regulators, press, your boss? How about some pragmatic, actionable communications advice?

If you are a startup founder, an intrapreneur at a company, or a leader looking to grow, consider Office Hours with Lisa, a great way to get bite-sized, personalized communications coaching. Because your business must scale and you must scale with it. Because it’s the great communicators who create change!