Why Most Workplace Communication Fails

Have you ever sent an email so polished it could double as a mirror—only for no one to act on it? Or delivered a change initiative so inspiring it left your team staring blankly at their screens? 

This week, Amanda Gilbert joins Jimmy and James to discuss the 4MAT model, a framework that might save your next communication from the recycling bin of irrelevance.

This isn’t about prettier PowerPoints or fancier fonts. It’s about why your message should matter to anyone but you, what you’re actually trying to say, how people might—might—do something differently, and what if they actually applied it. 

James, who is midway through writing his second book (a collection of corporate disasters, because nothing bonds a team like shared schadenfreude), serves as the live guinea pig. It turns out that even a book about epic failures needs a structure that doesn’t just describe the wreckage but tells readers how to avoid driving off the same cliff.

The episode is all about cutting through the noise. Whether you’re rolling out a new policy, training a team, or just trying to stop your colleagues’ eyes from glazing over, the 4MAT model forces you to ask: Have I made this about them, or just about me? (If your answer involves “cascading information” or “aligning stakeholders,” you’ve already lost.)

Four key points:

• Corporate communication often fails because it’s designed for the sender, not the receiver.
• The 4MAT model’s four stages—why, what, how, what if—ensure your message lands, sticks, and (miraculously) prompts action.
• Without a clear “how,” even the most urgent “why” leaves your audience stranded.
• The best communication doesn’t just inform—it provokes a behaviour change. If it doesn’t, you’ve just wasted everyone’s time.
• The 4MAT model isn’t just for training—it’s a universal tool for any communication, from emails to meetings, ensuring your message isn’t just heard but acted upon.

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:03

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy, and welcome to A Job Done Well. The podcast that helps you improve your performance and enjoyment at work

Jimmy 0:15

Afternoon, James

James 0:16

What are we talking about today then?

Jimmy 0:18

Well, today we have Amanda back as a special guest,

James 0:23

Ah, somebody's gonna talk some sense then

Jimmy 0:25

definitely She is going to talk us through a model that really can help when you've got to communicate stuff, when you're delivering change in your team, when you've got training your team, all of those things that managers have to do every day. Amanda's got a really neat model that she's going to help us with

James 0:48

So go on then, why would anybody be interested in that?

Jimmy 0:51

Before we get into that, Amanda, do you wanna introduce yourself? You've been here many times, but some people may not have met you before

Amanda 0:58

Hello. Thank you for having me back. Great to be a guest on, on the show once again. I have... I'm a learning and development consultant. I work independently now, having spent 30 years in corporate world as head of learning and development. Thank you for saying that, James. Well said. Now working independently, helping businesses and individuals with their learning and people development. So it's great to, to be here and sharing something that I think will be useful to you and your audience So actually, James, a really good question that you asked, though. Why would anyone be interested in this? So what I think is managers, you know, have a pretty tough job. Every day they're out there leading people. But a huge part of that actually is communication and their efforts to be able to put across ideas, either of their own or maybe represent organizational concepts and ideas that, that need to be put across. And so they might find themselves in a number of scenarios. They might find themselves in what we call a, a straight communication scenario, maybe by email or maybe in team meetings. They might find themselves at the head of leading a change, maybe a change conceived by the organization, but in which they play a huge part in terms of people ta-taking people along with that change. Or it could be just generally helping people to understand stuff. Maybe you've got someone new in your organization and you're thinking about induction or the way that we do things around here, or it could be part of a, a, a formal training program. So a number of scenarios in which managers themselves are required to communicate and share information. But for me, the most important part, I think it's true for everyone if you think about it, the most important part of communication is making sure, one, the message lands, i.e., it's understood, it's received by the audience, and the meaning that they take from the message is accessed in the way that you would hope, and more significantly, drives some kind of action. Otherwise, it was a nice-to-know communication which obviously has its place, but very often for managers, I'm telling you this because I need something to happen. So the Holy Grail that we're, we're pursuing here, if I might use that expression, is around how do I communicate stuff in a way that's easy to access by the receiver and motivating enough to do something, to make some kind of personal change or individual change? Does that, does that resonate with you, first of all?

James 3:27

I think that to be honest with you, absolutely, and the number of corporate communication calls I've been on where they clearly haven't thought that through at all, yeah, is innumerable. So yeah, I think there's a lot people can learn from this

Amanda 3:40

Yeah

Jimmy 3:40

One of the challenges, Amanda, is in all of those scenarios and whenever we're communicating, we tend to get caught up in the content does my slide look nice? Is my email phrased? And so it's not-- we're not thinking about some of the things you're gonna talk about. We're just worrying about pretty slides and stuff like that, and I think that's, that doesn't change behaviors, whereas what you're talking about can help

Amanda 4:07

Yeah. Thank you for that. Yes, absolutely right. Hours and hours I would have ventured to guess spent on crafting PowerPoint presentations just exactly as you described, which again, have their place. But what this model does is help me personally, so I'm a kind of a user of this model too, is very, very helpful for helping you to think about, well, a number of dimensions in your communication, not just is this going to be a PowerPoint exercise. Shall we, should we take a look?

Jimmy 4:37

That's it

Amanda 4:38

So the model we should give full credit and citation to the, the creator. It's not, not mine, I, I wish it was, but a lady called Bernice McCarthy, who is experienced-- who is an expert in, in education actually. And I would say it's easy to think about Manda's a learning and development person, so she might use this in her training scenario. But actually, this is the complete model for communications in whatever form you might come across them. So for your manager audience, you know, think about any communication you're formulating. It could be a PowerPoint, it could be an email, it could be a team meeting. We've talked about that already. And it has four key stages. Actually, it's much richer if, if audience want to learn a little bit more about it, we should provide them with a link to the model at, at the end of this session. But essentially,

Jimmy 5:30

sorry, Amanda,

Amanda 5:30

yeah.

Jimmy 5:31

into the model per se,

Amanda 5:32

Yeah

Jimmy 5:32

should just add, rather than just talk through the model, which could be, I mean, you'll do a stunning job, Amanda, but it could be a tad dry. We are going to bring the model to life, as you are going to use a live case study

James 5:46

Guinea pig

Jimmy 5:48

Yes.

Amanda 5:50

Adi-

Jimmy 5:50

in fairness, in fairness, we should add, he's not only a live guinea pig, but he is wearing a very fetching shirt

James 5:58

Do you like that?

Jimmy 5:59

up for

James 5:59

That's my new shirt, that is. wife bought me that. She bought it from a charity shop last weekend. kid you not. 12 pounds. Can't go wrong, can you? But when you're a retiree like me, you need to watch the pennies.

Jimmy 6:13

Thrifty

James 6:14

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah

Amanda 6:16

What's the scenario?

James 6:17

So I am halfway through writing a second book, and I suppose if there was ever a exercise in communication, writing a book is. given that I'm halfway through, I thought now might be the time to sense-check what I'm doing and see if there's any rhyme or reason to it, 'cause it'd be a bit pissy off if we get all the way to the end, and you point out all the things I should have done. So there is the scenario.

Amanda 6:40

Amazing. Okay. Writing a new book, congratulations. So we want to hear a bit more about that. So as you are thinking about writing your book, I'm going to suggest you think about the 4MAT model for communication, and that has a number of stages. And the first one will be music to your ears. You have both touched on this in many, many of your podcast broadcasts. So the first part of the model is about creating meaning for your readers in this case. So the big question that goes with this stage of the model is why. And what it's actually about is connecting your audience, the, the learner or the reader in this case, to the materials, having them attend, having them be present to the information you're putting across. Let's experiment with that a little bit, James. Tell us about the why for the book you're creating

James 7:36

not the why am I writing it, but the why would anybody read it

Amanda 7:40

That's exactly right, for the audience in this case. So as you're formulating this essentially communication vehicle in the form of a book, you are thinking about the stages that help people to access the material you are trying to communicate to us

James 7:55

So the why. Why. The book is about... No, let me go a little bit back a bit. So wh- why am I writing it? 'Cause then that will help me frame it so people understand it. Have you ever read In Search of Excellence? So it's a book from the 1980s. Yeah, and it was given to me in- when I was a bright young thing in the 1980s, and I found it on my bookshelf 30 years later, and

Amanda 8:16

If you don't read it

James 8:17

do- I did actually. I did read it. I read it 32 year- 30 years too late, 'cause it's a very good

Amanda 8:22

Okay

James 8:22

But it's a book, and what they did in this book was they looked at high-performing companies, and they said, "Well, what's common about these companies?" And I thought, "Oh, that's quite interesting." It's a very good book. I recommend it to anyone. But I just thought, "Well, wouldn't it be interesting to see if there is commonality in companies that have really screwed it up?" I mean, the thing with high-performing companies is that sooner or later they, you know, the wheel drops off, so people can discount what people have learned. But if it's, if it's a screw-up, it's a screw-up. There's no avoiding it. So I thought, "Well, it'll stand the test of time." And also, I'm a bit of a half empty sort of guy, so I like things which have gone tits up. So that was the the why am I writing it. But why would anybody want to read that? Well, actually, when

Amanda 9:04

Mm-hmm.

James 9:04

start to look into it... and what I'm doing is I've got, you know, eight or nine sort of corporate disasters. And when you start to look at them, the commonality between them is really quite uncanny. So you see the repeating patterns over and over again. And actually I've seen some of these patterns in places that have actually worked all right. They didn't absolutely go belly up, but you see these patterns re- reappearing. So the why would I want to read, read that would be, well, what can I learn from it? Why, why did these organizations go belly up? is there anything in it for me that I can do to avoid that happening to me? So that's the why. How's that sound?

Amanda 9:43

Very good. Do you want to read this book, Jimmy?

James 9:46

it.

Jimmy 9:47

I'm interested., You can learn from the stuff going wrong, so maybe you don't make those mistakes in your team, in your organisation. So yeah, I'm there with that

Amanda 9:56

Yeah, sounds really cool.

Jimmy 9:58

But Amanda, is there anything that James could add to his why that would even strengthen it even further?

Amanda 10:03

So question is, James, have you done any market research, for example, about-- from your audience or your potential audience for your book and to understand what they want to hear about?

James 10:15

Chef. However, however, what the, well, the feedback I got on the first book was that people liked the stories that I'd used to explain points where things had gone wrong. And then from a personal perspective, having worked for, you know, six or seven large organisations, I just thought, "Well, I've seen the same patterns here," and these are very different organisations, so I was quite curious myself. And I have to admit, that's where it came from. But people do... yeah, people like a good disaster. You know, a good disaster movie always goes well. This'll be the Titanic of books, this will

Amanda 10:49

Yeah

Jimmy 10:49

A great point. James has got a strong why, and you'd be compelled to read it, but actually to make it stronger, understand really what the audience might want or what they might be thinking about this

Amanda 11:00

Yes. And then in this communication, you're creating from that point of view. You're helping them to connect to the concept, the ideas, the content, the communication from their point of view in a way that's useful and meaningful to them

James 11:15

Yeah, and I think, yes, so people have to be able to act on it. And there's a point there that one of the other bits of feedback that I did get from the previous book that I did was each chapter I did, I put a sort of summary where it said, "Well, what can you do with this?" So repeating that structure would fit within your your model.

Amanda 11:31

Yeah.

James 11:32

Yeah

Amanda 11:32

The beauty of the model is it's about seeking to connect kind of both sides of the, of the brain. So that desire for structure, which you will build into your, your book as you construct it, of course and sequential language, chapters, all of that, logical stuff.

James 11:52

Yeah

Amanda 11:52

And then the other part is can you help people to create some emotional shifts? Can they see, as you described, the patterns, so where things went wrong over and over, what's the pattern in that? Or create beautiful metaphors for them as... So although the example of things going wrong may not be s- in, in their industry, for example, it could become a metaphor for how they work and therefore a, a cautionary tale, something to be avoided. Does that make sense? So-

James 12:23

that's relates to, interesting, we did a podcast last week which was about.. High performers, and I recounted the of Super Chicken. Have to listen to last week's podcast. But somebody actually came back and said, "Well, that's exactly like every organisation I've ever made, worked in." So actually

Amanda 12:39

Right

James 12:40

it relevant to people's own experience in the organisation that they work in

Amanda 12:45

Yes

James 12:45

is really important from a why perspective

Amanda 12:48

Yes. Why I need to hear this? Why I need to engage with this communication? Relevant to them

Jimmy 12:56

What's the next step in the model then, Amanda?

Amanda 12:58

So the next step or the key question for the next step is the what question. So now I understand why we've created some meaning. I understand why this might be important or interesting for me to know. Then the question becomes what? You're either giving give people information, so engaging the part of the brain which is able to receive information, facts, stuff that you're putting across, ideas and concepts, but also asking them to imagine what might be possible. How might you go about solving this problem? So the big question there is, is what? What is it about? What's the concept?

James 13:35

So the what, so as I said, it's a number of organisations which have had there been a disaster. So if I had to choose two or three, the Chernobyl disaster, the Post Office scandal the blood transfusion disaster, Bhopal, horrible sex scandal in the States, in the Roman Catholic Church in the States. So it's a wide variety of different organisations. But the what is the things that you see, the repeating patterns.

Amanda 14:02

Nice. Thank you

Jimmy 14:04

So, so Amanda, just on that. So what James said in terms of the what, you know, he's described it, but he's then talking about some disasters that are on the s-surface, they're very interesting, but they're not really relatable to people's everyday's jobs. But he's creating the bridge from the disaster to how it relates to, normal everyday organizations and everyday work and everyday lives, and it's that bridge that becomes important in establishing the what for people. Is that

Amanda 14:36

Exactly that. It's what now are we talking about? What is this concept? So the story becomes the kind of metaphor-phorical access point. The what becomes the concept or the idea that you're trying to put across. What was the story in service of? What were you trying to illustrate or bring to life in terms of, in terms of concept?

James 14:57

Okay, so I think there the key point is some of these organisations, it went, you know, dreadfully wrong. But actually the reasons behind that are common to a huge number of other organisations.

Amanda 15:09

Right

James 15:10

actually these organisations just I think a lot of them just got unlucky. You know, the, the stars lined up, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen to an organisation near you.

Amanda 15:18

Yes. So the, so what do you want them to know now as a consequence of that pattern that you can see, that, that you bring to life through the story? But the bottom line is, What am I supposed to know now?

James 15:30

Yeah

Amanda 15:31

Good. Seems like you might be following this model intuitively through your work, James.

James 15:36

fall apart shortly, but let's keep going. Let's keep going.

Jimmy 15:39

get on to the

James 15:40

yeah, go on then

Amanda 15:41

Let's, let's hope it doesn't. And so now certainly from a training perspective in this case, but actually in all communication scenarios, the key question becomes how.

James 15:51

Yeah, go on

Amanda 15:52

So for example, set-- let's imagine you had launched some kind of change in your organization. You say things are going to be done differently from X date going forward. Very often, let's say your change has sadly resulted in some kind of downsizing. The question that you very often hear from people is, "Well, how? How will I now, how will we now get all of the work done with less people?" In the scenario I've described would be a very common question. How will these new policies and practices actually work? So you're moving into the skills area. What will we need to do? Is there some new training or is there some new way of behaving in this space? So as you're thinking about your communication, you've covered, you've covered off meaning. We've ex-explained why it's important. We're into the concepts. What's happening here? What ideas are we putting across? And now you're exploring how might this new way of thinking or doing things actually be, put into place? What skills will be needed to be able to do it? What's the practices we will need to change? How do we extend beyond thinking about it conceptually into making this a practical reality

James 17:03

Right, and this is interesting, 'cause I haven't started on this bit yet, and there's a question,

Amanda 17:05

Okay?

James 17:05

this part, should this be part of the book or not? I think your answer's gonna be yes. But you could then stop, and you could say, "Well, you see these repeating patterns, and that's the..." Yeah, right, and people will recognize that, and they'll see in their own organizations, 'cause they're endemic. So what you're saying is it's worth out the counter and so if you want to avoid that, this is what you should be doing, and give examples of that?

Amanda 17:28

Y- yeah, absolutely. Or providing provocation for people to actually then do some work on the how themselves. But certainly not missing the step of how we translate this idea, this notion, this example into something, a new practice, a new way of, of doing things. Yeah. I'm not sure you can necessarily in your book give them all of the answers to that, but you can certainly lead the thinking towards how might you practically apply this in your area

Jimmy 17:57

when you were talking about the how, what I was also thinking about was what James had talked about earlier, which was how he structures the actual book. So, you know, he's got stories, and at the end of each story, he gives a summary. Is that part of the how as well?

Amanda 18:14

So yes, for James it is for sure. How am I thinking about creating this book? So as I'm writing this, h- that, that would be the how of the practice of creating this book, for sure. If you're thinking about the communication for your audience, the readers of the book, then the question becomes, how do I access the information? What skills might I need to apply some of what you're talking about? But the two are interrelated, right? The structure of the book will help me to digest the ideas, for sure

Jimmy 18:44

Yeah. And that's what James had said. He had said that previously his last book was structured in a certain way, and the feedback was that worked really well for it. So he was thinking about how he communicates the message. In other words, story, summary, that's the structure, and that helps the reader learn more about the subject

Amanda 19:07

Yes.

Jimmy 19:08

than if he presented it in a different

Amanda 19:09

Yes. So the structure of his creation certainly is designed to be able to make it accessible to the reader. Yes

James 19:17

But from a communications perspective, it's important to give the how, what should they do differently? How should they avoid this situation?

Amanda 19:26

Yeah. Or certainly pay attention to that. As the creator of this communication, in this case a book, is there somehow... As I'm writing this email, is there a message in here that goes from the meaning, the why, into the what we're doing, and then how I'm expecting you to do this? And if there is, how are you building that into that communication? In this case, not an email, a book. But yes

James 19:50

Okay, but there have been times when I have been in meetings, for example,

Amanda 19:53

Yeah

James 19:53

you sit there and you think, "Well, how am I supposed to respond to that then?"

Amanda 19:56

Yeah

James 19:57

Yeah, and therefore they have totally missed the point in that communications exercise.

Amanda 20:02

Yeah. This is bringing awareness to the creator essentially. It's good practice for you as the manager trying to put some idea across., to think about how you take your audience on the journey to be able to access the information you're creating in a way that's consumable by them. Sometimes we create something that I would say is trainer-centric or facilitator-centric. I wrote it for myself, it's everything I know and I'm just passing it over to you, as opposed to taking a what is it like if I'm a learner here? How can I consume the information that you are trying to impart? And so placing yourself in, in your case, James, the, the shoes of your readers to be able to design the information that you're putting across through, in this case, through your book

Jimmy 20:50

And I think that's where certain books and communications fall down, is that they don't lead you the behavior that they want to see. They just give you the information

Amanda 21:02

Yes

Jimmy 21:02

rather than-- and how you can apply it, how you can think differently

Amanda 21:07

Yes. And as a development specialist, I am concerned with you might go through this training experience, which was just a lovely day out, unless at the end you're starting to think about how you might do things differently. So for me, as a learning designer, it's always what do you want your people to be able to do as a consequence? And then the next stage, of course, which would be how you actually apply it. But I guess the discipline for me is putting yourself as a creator through each of these stages and testing what you're creating against that model to explore the- accessibility of it for managers. How does this get received now by the people in my team so that they can do something be- differently, so that they can perform better in the job, so that they can contribute to the organisation?

James 21:59

can you

Amanda 21:59

Yeah

James 22:00

of something you've seen where that has been done really well?

Amanda 22:04

So, Let's talk about innovation and creativity, for example. I've seen brilliant training programs where actually meaning and purpose established by the organization, funnily enough, for the survival of the organization. The what, some teaching around what this actually means in practice, let's give you an experience of it, and then how, go and do some exercises where you're putting those skills into practice. You're creating, you're innovating in your space and what were your case studies that you create as a consequence

James 22:35

But it, I mean, so you, you talk about training, but actually training doesn't matter as in... 'cause it could just be a communication, as we said earlier. It could be an email. It's just

Amanda 22:43

100 of them

James 22:44

of effort you put into it. But if you're not being very clear about what the skills are that people are supposed to use as the, off the back of this,

Amanda 22:53

Yes

James 22:54

if you think all communication is trying to change behavior, then how do you want my behavior to change?

Amanda 23:00

Exactly. How am I gonna do this?

James 23:02

just paying a bill, frankly. Yeah,

Amanda 23:04

Yeah

Jimmy 23:05

And the problem here is if you think about the model, you've established the why, so now I'm interested and I'm paying attention. You've told me what you're gonna tell me about. If you don't tell me how, then I'm left high and dry, aren't I? You

Amanda 23:16

Yeah, incomplete

Jimmy 23:18

you've created a sense of urgency, so I want you to do this, and now you've left me

James 23:22

Yeah, but it does, that's interesting actually. It doesn't matter if it is, let's say, the bill, but a book or a training course or a bill, 'cause if it's a bill, they want you to pay, and they're very clear about the how. There's u- how. There's usually a big red box at the bottom with four options as to how you can pay this bill.

Amanda 23:36

Yeah, give you the options.

James 23:38

right. So therefore, if I want to avoid a corporate disaster, these are the options. These are the things I could do to avoid it. That needs to be spelt out. Yeah, okay, cool. So What's next?

Amanda 23:48

And then we move into the key question being if or what if. What if I'm going to do this in my role? What if I applied these concepts and these skills to my current job or my life? Or so essentially, I'm gonna perform something now. I'm gonna do something and move to action here, and this very often requires adaptation. So let's say in your book you're giving examples outside of my industry, but they certainly do bring to life what can go terribly wrong, and you're teaching us a little bit about how to avoid that. What's the skill that I need? Question is now for me, how am I going to apply this or if I apply this in my workplace, in my job role, what would that look like? How, how do I refine it to make it meaningful in my context? Make sense?

James 24:44

So it's interesting, isn't it? Because the questions become, overlap with... you start off with why. Yeah. What's the meaning of this? Talk

Amanda 24:52

Yes.

James 24:52

what's the concepts?

Amanda 24:54

Yes

James 24:55

are the skills? But then the what if is the application of it. So you use this, what

Amanda 25:02

How?

James 25:03

look like? Yeah.

Amanda 25:04

Yeah. What, yeah, nice question. What would it be like

James 25:07

is the, how would that play out in a a book? I'm... So I'm thinking of, if you think of some of the classics, like, I don't know, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Managers How does he do it in that?

Amanda 25:19

Well, it's really interesting because in that particular training as I experienced, we had a number of sort of supporting or reinforcing mechanisms. So one of the things, for example, which worked brilliantly was a little buddy system. So after you've been through your training and you're taught all these concepts, then you have a buddy already assigned, and you've both been through the training together, and you meet up on a regular basis, and you take one of the concepts or one of the habits in the book, let's say, start with the end in mind, and you say, "Okay, how have I, how have I been applying that in my work or my home life?" And so the reinforcement wa- becomes around what did you do? How did you do it? How did it go? What did you learn?

Jimmy 26:02

So in this context, Amanda, how does this apply to James and his book?

Amanda 26:07

It's a really good question. So James, in your book now, what are you going to suggest people might think about doing next? What would you encourage them to take from the book and translate into their world?

James 26:21

Yeah, and I think it's about your behaviors as a manager and the things that you could choose to do differently.

Amanda 26:28

Yeah.

James 26:28

Yeah

Amanda 26:29

So you might give them some prompts or some nudges. About what to, to do next, how might you think about this. You might encourage them, as you as you guys do with the podcast, to give you some feedback, to write to you as the author afterwards and say, "How have you applied these these concepts? How did you experience them? What did you do as a consequence?"

James 26:46

But it is worth having a chapter at the end called So What or something like that, which

Amanda 26:51

would, yeah

James 26:52

forces out, well, if you were going to do

Amanda 26:55

Yeah.

James 26:57

this, what are you going to do?

Amanda 26:57

Yeah

Jimmy 26:58

For me, this translates into one of the big mistakes that people make around delivering change, whether it's in your team or organisationally, is they don't think about the sustainability of that change. So, it's push it out there, tell somebody the information, job's a good 'un. They don't think about how is it going to be sustained over a period of time. So you wanna see the b- the benefit of it. You've got to make sure that from the outset you're designing in the methods, the accountability, the space, the things that make it become real every day

Amanda 27:34

Yes. The reinforcement mechanisms essentially, and I don't mean that in a controlly way, but I do mean it in terms of check-in. If this really matters enough organizationally or as a manager for you to be spending some time creating a communication, sharing it, presumably you have an expectation of action

James 27:52

Well, but that's really interesting because I think, I mean, I've- from our discussion, I I've got the why and the what. That's all right. That's very straightforward.

Amanda 28:01

Yeah.

James 28:01

The how a bit, the what if probably not at all. But am I alone in that? yeah, maybe those are the sins of communication

Jimmy 28:10

And, therein lies the problem, James. That's how I think most people will relate to this, whether it's communication, training, change. They will look at it and say, "Yeah, really... I'm really clear on why. I've really clear on what." And it starts to peter away, and that's why so much communication doesn't fully land, and that's the beauty of this model, and it forces you to do the third and fourth parts of it

Amanda 28:36

Absolutely. It's about helping your learner, your reader,, the receiver of your communication to engage with your communication and for you to go work through the discipline. So a resource for all of us to be able to work through each stage and answer the questions. And if you can't, well, maybe something's missing actually. So it, it might push you further back round the model to, to think a bit more carefully about your intention or, or what you're trying to communicate. I'm a massive advocate. I can't take credit for it, but I'm definitely can speak for using it as a discipline for, for creating

James 29:11

Very good

Jimmy 29:12

So, so James, now your book's gonna be even better than it was

James 29:16

It'll be

Amanda 29:17

Wow.

James 29:18

yeah. But if anybody's interesting and wants, you know, to send me 20 quid as a down payment, be well, hardback,

Jimmy 29:24

James

James 29:25

you know, limited edition

Jimmy 29:26

Let's not go too far. Let's just li- start by reading Managed by Morons, James' best-selling first book, and then you'll want to read his second book after you've read that and listened to this podcast.

Amanda 29:40

For sure

Jimmy 29:40

See, that's how you do an

James 29:41

Sorry, I screwed it up. Self-promotion, not my strong point. Lovely. you very much. I shall

Amanda 29:48

Lovely

James 29:48

heart and go and start writing some more

Jimmy 29:51

Well, thanks thanks for that, Amanda. I think that was really useful. We applied it to James' book, but you could see how in all sorts of scenarios, communication situations, managers will be able to use your model every day. So thank you for joining us and sharing that

Amanda 30:06

pleasure to see you. Thank you

James 30:08

Here's to the next 30 years

Jimmy 30:10

Thanks everyone

James 30:11

See you later.

Speaker 30:12

We cover a whole host of topics on this podcast,

Speaker 2 30:14

from purpose to corporate jargon,

Speaker 30:17

but always focused on one thing, getting the job done well.

Speaker 2 30:20

Easier said than done. So if you've got unhappy customers or employees, bosses or regulators breathing down your neck,

Speaker 30:30

if your backlogs are out of control and your costs are spiraling, and that big IT transformation project that you've been promised just keeps failing to deliver,

Speaker 2 30:39

we can help. If you need to improve your performance, your team's performance, or your organization's, get in touch at jimmy@ajobdonewell.com or james@ajobdonewell.com.