People Remember What You Say When You Paint a Picture

Harvard Business Review:

When leaders communicate a vision of their organization’s future, they tend to emphasize ideals and ideology — the importance of “success,” “stewardship,” or “sustainability.”  Leaders are likely to emphasize this type of abstract rhetoric more as businesses become increasingly digital. Given that employees within the same organization increasingly possess distinct types of technical knowledge, it may appear that an abstract, general vision is appropriate in order to gain traction and prevent alienating different constituencies.

Yet this type of rhetoric undermines another core objective of vision communication: providing clarity about the future. Leaders must communicate strategies for growth that employees can clearly envision. Instead of invoking abstract ideals, the most effective leaders communicate their visions using image-based words.

Read the whole story: Harvard Business Review