INT 139 - The Communication Conundrum: Why Businesses Falter and How to Boost Communication

Foster trust within your team through clear communication! In this episode of Int-HER-rupt, our host Linda Yates meets with Jen Colton, Chief of Staff and Chief Communications Officer of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. Jen’s experience in marketing and PR and love of storytelling has helped her lead with openness and courage and build teams who would follow her into battle.

Jen’s Journey

• She graduated from university into difficult economic times, so rather than jump head-first into the job market, she continued her education.
• While she worked on getting her Master’s, she started working for WIRED Magazine in a marketing role.
• She brought her love of storytelling and knowledge of emerging tech into her own PR firm!

What Makes Communication Challenging?

• You have to think deeply about context – where your audience is coming from and how they’re going to receive your message.
• You also need to ask yourself what your intent is and be really clear internally about what you want people to understand about your message.
• If you’re not sure whether you’re coming across, ask! Jen’s example is, “How did that land with you?”

3 Questions to Ask Yourself to Develop Communication Skills

• What does your audience need to know?
• What does your audience need to feel? – Jen says this is the most important thing!
• What does that look like to you? – Ask your audience to reflect your talking points back to you.

“Getting [communication] right is hard. Part of what is hard is that you have to think about context and intent. The way I think of that is, context is ‘who am I communicating with?’ … ‘who is it that needs to hear and understand the message and what is their worldview?’ … And then, I think it’s really about looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, ‘what is my intent?’ and then ensuring that your intent in whatever it is you’re communicating is pure and transparent. And that’s not...