How to Communicate Your Ideas

As well as your verbal communication or your management style, the standard you will likely be measured against is your ability to craft and communicate your ideas.

Communicating your ideas is a key skill for senior staff and managers.

Your professional image is rooted in the mental picture others have of you. For career purposes, this is usually assessed from two perspectives: your contribution and your potential contribution. One way for your contribution to be noted is to put forward persuasive ideas. You may have brilliant ideas daily, but to be taken seriously they must be fully developed and professionally communicated.  

How to communicate your ideas:

When you are asked to “justify” a request or recommendation you need to ensure that you show a very logical argument supported by clear, provable “evidence”. Evidence can take a variety of forms, but can generally be grouped into 4 categories:

• Statistical Evidence

• Link to Accepted “Theory”

• Comparative Argument

• Financial Analysis

Let’s consider each of the following methods of justification using the same example:

Assume that you have been asked to justify spending $1,000 on a team building activity.
Let’s examine how you could justify this using the various categories of evidence.

1. Statistical Evidence:

Depending on what “statistical evidence” you have access to, you may be able to justify the expenditure as follows:

The last team that participated in this team building activity was able to report a decrease in sick leave in the six months following the activity by an average of .75 days per participant. Based on comparisons of sick leave over the previous 3 years it is evident that this change is directly linked to the team building activity. Refer to graph 3 that show the trend-line over that period and the noticeable drop from February onward.

Note that this justification has quantified the evidence, and also addressed any “questions” about the relevance of the evidence ie the evidence can be directly linked to the activity and not some other event. This is the most powerful way to justify any requests.  

2. Accepted Theory

In this method of justification we may not have specific statistical evidence that we can directly link to the thing we are trying to justify, so we would refer to the “accepted” theory that exists. We would explain and reference the theory to give it “credibility. For example:  

It is anticipated that the main benefit of the team building activity will be a reduction in absenteeism, based on Lisa’s Theory.

Lisa’s Theory says that when the emotional needs of staff are met, they will be happier at work and have lower absenteeism (Ref Management, K Cole p).

Note that this method of justification is “stronger” if we can add statistical evidence, even if we can’t directly link it but where we believe it is supported by the theory. For example:

The last team that participated in this team building activity was able to report a decrease in sick leave in the six months following the activity by an average of .75 days per participant. While we are unable to directly link this improvement in Sick Leave to the team building activity, under Lisa Theory this would be an expected benefit.

Lisa’s Theory says that when the emotional needs of staff are met, they will be happier at work and have lower absenteeism (Ref Management, K Cole p).  

3. Comparative Argument

In this method of justification we are arguing that option A is better than option B – so we should take option A. In this method of justification it is again best if we can support it with available statistical information about why one option is better than another. But we must remember that we need to justify doing anything at all …  For example:

Option A for the team building activity will only cost $1000, while option B will cost $2000.

It is anticipated that the main benefit of either team building activity will be a reduction in absenteeism, based on Lisa’s Theory. Lisa’s Theory says that when the emotional needs of staff are met, they will be happier at work and have lower absenteeism (Ref Management, K Cole p123).

The consultants advice is that option B will have a 10 % additional benefit over option A, however this does not justify the additional expense over option a, so it is the recommended team building activity at this time.  

4. Financial Analysis

Many options that you investigate will suit consideration by a cost / benefit financial analysis. To effectively do this analysis you need to be able to quantify the benefits in dollar terms and compare this to the costs. If your benefits exceed the costs – this is a very powerful argument. For example:

The last team that participated in this team building activity was able to report a decrease in sick leave in the six months following the activity by an average of .75 days per participant. Based on comparisons of sick leave over the previous 3 years it is evident that this change is directly linked to the team building activity. Refer to graph 3 that shows the trend-line over that period and the noticeable drop from February onward.

The sick leave reduction effectively saved the company $2000 over that period. When compared to the cost of the activity of $1000 plus $500 in time to arrange; this clearly shows that there can be financial benefits achieved from this program.  

In Summary

Of course you should never attempt to justify an argument where you do not have supportive evidence, and nor should you make up, misinterpret or misrepresent evidence.

If you take any of these options you will be found out and your credibility on all future requests will be in doubt.  Goodbye professional image.

In circumstances where you cannot communicate your ideas using evidence, but feel strongly motivated to still ask for it, simply make the request, disclosing that you can’t justify it. In these instances explain your personal views and why you believe the recommended solution will work. Ensure that you do not use emotive argument; instead use clear factual explanation.

Excerpt adapted from Achieving Leadership Priorities, Cert IV in Leadership & Management

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