Communicate with Mastery

1Adopting a Communication Mindset

Consider your communication mindset as a platform—every time you deliver a message, whether it's verbal or non-verbal, written or spoken, you'll stand on your communication mindset as the basis for all you do. Your communication mindset will ask you to think strategically, analytically, and empathetically about your audience and what matters to them. It will ask you to clarify the work that your communication is meant to do. And it will invite you to make choices about the words, channels, visuals, and multimedia assets that will comprise your message. It is not only a starting place, but the foundation for all effective communication. So let's dive in.

Know Your AIM

Nearly every class, workshop, or seminar I've led in the past decade at Stanford and beyond has begun with one simple yet elegant framework (Figure 1.1). So, of course, my first book should also begin in the same fashion. It's not just at the heart of all I teach and coach around communication, but I believe it's at the heart of all great leadership communication.

Figure 1.1 AIM triangle

Source: L. Russell and M. Munter, Guide to Presentations

While I wish I had developed it, there's nothing that I've seen or created on my own that's a better place for a leader to start. Lynn Russell (then at Columbia Business School) and Mary Munter (then at Dartmouth's Tuck School) co-created ...