Lindsay Tan

Between What Organizations Say and What People Experience Organizations spend enormous amounts of time deciding what to say about themselves. They write mission statements, develop brand platforms, train spokespeople, create campaigns, publish values, and carefully manage public messages. All of that matters. But people do not encounter organizations only through the messages those organizations intentionally … Read more

“Hard to reach” is an interesting way to describe someone your communication system is not reaching. Organizations use phrases like this all the time. Audiences are described as disengaged, resistant, uninformed, difficult to reach, skeptical, or noncompliant. Sometimes those descriptions capture something real. People do ignore information. They disagree with experts. They reject recommendations, resist … Read more

We measure communication constantly. Email platforms report open and click rates. Websites track visitors and page views. Social platforms count impressions, reactions, shares, and comments. Organizations record meeting attendance, reports distributed, media placements, and campaign reach. These measures are useful because they tell us something important about whether information traveled and whether people encountered it. … Read more

Organizations communicate constantly. We send emails, publish reports, issue policies, build dashboards, hold meetings, post updates, create campaigns, and distribute alerts. We document what was sent, when it was sent, and sometimes even whether someone opened it. Then, when people misunderstand the message or fail to act on it, we wonder what went wrong. One … Read more

When organizations face a communication crisis, attention almost always turns to the message itself. Was the statement transparent enough? Should leadership have responded sooner? Did the organization explain its decisions clearly? These are important questions, but they often focus on the final stage of a much longer process. By the time a public statement is … Read more

Most of us notice problems only after they become visible. We notice flooded roads after the storm has passed, declining trust after relationships have already begun to fracture, communication failures after confusion spreads, and disease after people become sick. By the time we recognize many of society’s most significant challenges, the underlying processes have often … Read more

One of the most common ways we talk about research is also one of the most misleading. We often imagine knowledge traveling along a straight path: a researcher makes a discovery, a journal publishes the findings, a communicator explains the results, and decision-makers apply the evidence. It is a comforting picture because it is orderly … Read more

Ask someone to describe resilient infrastructure, and you’ll probably hear about roads, bridges, electrical systems, hospitals, water treatment plants, or emergency operations centers. They’re right. Physical infrastructure is essential. Communities depend on it every day, and especially during times of disruption. Yet something has always bothered me. Why do communities with remarkably similar infrastructure often … Read more

Instead, Ask: “Where Are We Accidentally Destroying It?” When leaders talk about trust, the conversation often turns to communication. How can we be more transparent? How can we improve our messaging? How can we better explain our decisions? These are important questions. But they all assume the same thing: that trust is primarily created through … Read more

If you asked a room full of leaders how to build trust, many would instinctively reach for communication. “We need to explain ourselves better.” “We need a better marketing strategy.” “We need more transparency.” None of those are bad ideas. In fact, clear communication is essential. But I believe we’ve become accustomed to treating trust … Read more