Struggling to communicate big, complex ideas? We get it. And we got you. 

Let’s say it’s your job to launch a critical initiative and make it stick. You’ve engaged in months of strategic planning, led countless meetings, and devoted significant resources to get the initiative off the ground. But as you begin cascading the news about the change throughout the organization, something goes terribly wrong.

• Employees’ eyes glaze over during presentations.
• Key information gets lost in a sea of dense slides.
• The transformative potential of your big idea dissolves into corporate white noise.
• Employees’ own internal resistance to change keeps them from embracing the initiative.
• The initiative fails to gain traction — and eventually fizzles out altogether.

Unfortunately, this is not a far-fetched scenario — it actually happened to one of the largest retailers in the world (before they called us). The problem is that even the best ideas can be torpedoed by poor communication. But you can prevent undesirable outcomes — if you invest in effectively sharing the ideas you spent so much time, energy, and money creating.

Breaking down the cause of communication breakdowns

Why do internal communications so often fall short? What goes wrong when leaders attempt to convey critical messages to their audiences?

Missing the mark is typically due to one or more of the following issues.

Not seeing the forest for the trees

You have all the details in your head. You understand the ins and outs of what you’re trying to achieve. But the details get in the way of the big picture, preventing you from casting a clear vision and telling a compelling story.

Too much complexity

There’s a tendency to think that complex information needs to be communicated in complex ways. But the more complicated the issue, the more essential it is to translate it into simple, easily understandable narratives or visuals.

Below is a relatively infamous Pentagon graphic capturing the complexity of military effort around battle. It’s comprehensive… but complicated and sloppy. How do you navigate it? Where do you find what’s relevant to you? Is there a sequence, priority message, or guide? No, you must dive in the deep end and swim for your life. A U.S. General said this about it:

“When we understand [it],”war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal joked when he saw the slide, “we’ll have won the war.”

Boring (and overly long) materials

The average employee is already overwhelmed. They’re juggling multiple priorities. Their primary focus is on completing daily tasks and meeting immediate objectives. And that means complex, jargon-laden communication becomes background noise — quickly forgotten and rarely internalized.

Declining attention spans

Whether you’re communicating to an internal or an external audience, you’re fighting against a prevailing societal shift: distraction. People are more distracted than ever. In fact, the human attention span now clocks in at 8.25 seconds — less than that of a goldfish. The longer your slide deck full of charts and bullet points, the higher the likelihood of losing your audience.

Misunderstanding your audience

The details you care about aren’t necessarily the same ones your audience cares about. To make a message stick, you need to understand who you’re talking to — which starts with realizing that you are not your audience.

Overreliance on AI

There’s a place for AI in enhancing productivity and efficiency. But AI should not become your go-to communication specialist. Why? Its overuse is creating a baseline of mediocrity and inaccuracy in which everyone’s decks, images, and videos are starting to look the same — and be ignored the same. When your message is indistinguishable from any other, there’s little chance it will stand out enough to make an impact.

When internal communication goes awry

The consequences of getting tripped up like this are serious. When employees don’t understand what’s going on — or don’t see how an initiative affects their daily work — the confusion can ripple through an entire organization.

Leaders need to focus on how to convey big ideas effectively, how to avoid the repercussions of communicating poorly, and determine what impactful messaging looks like for their audience(s).

Here’s what big ideas could look like. This is an explanation graphic we made for a Fortune 50 retailer. Granted, the content is oranges to the Pentagon’s apples, but the complexity is familiar. The difference is that this story has been transformed into a narrative that guides the viewer as it explains the process. It doesn’t just dump it on their heads. The content has been organized, complexity has been tamed, and the entire story has been humanized in order to engage, support, and inform key audiences.

A partner like Tremendousness can help you move beyond traditional approaches and embrace the power of visual communication so you can transform how you connect with your most valuable asset: your people. And in so doing, you can ensure your next big idea becomes the impactful initiative you know it should be.

We get it. We got you. And we’d love to help. Let’s talk.