The Process of Communication:
Your Message in Their Minds

By: Robert F. Abbott

Article Summary: Strengthen your messages by working through the process of communication that goes on inside the minds of those who receive them: awareness, understanding, justification, action, and evaluation.

You have an important message to communicate, whether to customers, employees, or anyone else. So, you start on your PowerPoint slides, right?

Nope! You should first focus on your strategy, which involves specifying objectives, knowing your audience, and selecting the best medium.

Today, let's focus on the audience issue, and what the people receiving your message (let's call them the receivers) will do. More specifically, let's talk about the mental processes that go on in their minds.

Many models of these communication processes exist, but here's one that works for most important messages: Awareness; Understanding; Justification; Action; and Evaluation.

Awareness means that receivers know a problem or opportunity exists. In an employee communication context, you might announce a change in benefit plans. In a marketing context, it might be as simple as letting prospective customers know you're open for business.

The second stage involves Understanding: This means receivers develop some sense of why you're communicating with them. If you're pitching to prospective customers, you want them to understand your proposal. If you want a response from employees, it might be to know why an action is being taken.

Justification is the third stage. At this point in the process, you want receivers to feel that benefits exceed the costs. It's one thing for receivers to hear a request; it's another to respond to it. While you can provide the carrots and sticks, it's ultimately the receiver who decides whether or not they're sufficient.

Action comes fourth. The receiver actually does something or nothing, responding or not responding, to the specific request you made. That response likely helps you achieve your objective, if you got the one you asked for.

Fifth and finally, Evaluation. In this stage of the process, the receiver assesses the consequences. "Did I do the right thing when I acted? Did I gain more than I gave up?" The receiver's assessment matters to both of you; to you because you may have to ask for something again.

Let's consider a quick example. You sell group life insurance packages to small businesses, and to get started you make a phone call to a prospective client. You make the prospect aware of your existence. You get a meeting where you ask questions to identify the client's needs, make recommendations to fill those needs, and answer questions. Now, you both should understand.

The prospect, meanwhile, weighs the pros and cons of your proposal, and assuming she thinks the benefits outweight the costs, she feels she can justify signing up. To do that, she signs a contract, which is the action you set out to get. And, in coming days and months, she will evaluate, which is important to you because you want referrals from her.

For your part, if you prepare for the call and meeting by strengthening your message at each stage of the communication process, you'll stand a much better chance of getting the response you want.

In summary, the process of communication involves several critical stages. In this article, I've laid out a five step process, and your results should improve if you think through each stage the recipients go through: Awareness, Understanding, Justification, Action, and Evaluation.

Next, go to the general business communication page, or visit our home page Communication Skills .

Contact information

Robert F. Abbott
Email: wordengines@gmail.com or wordengines@gmail.com

The Process of Communication: Your Message in Their Minds, Copyright Robert F. Abbott 2009