What do you do if your mentee struggles with effective communication in Corporate Communications?

1 Assess their communication style

The first step is to understand your mentee's communication style and preferences. How do they express their ideas, opinions, and emotions? How do they listen, respond, and adapt to different audiences and contexts? How do they handle feedback, conflict, and collaboration? You can use various tools and frameworks, such as the DISC model, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the Communication Styles Inventory, to help your mentee assess their communication style and strengths and weaknesses. You can also observe their communication behavior and patterns in real or simulated scenarios and provide specific examples of what they do well and what they need to improve.

2 Identify their communication gaps

The next step is to identify the communication gaps that your mentee needs to address. Communication gaps are the discrepancies between what your mentee intends to communicate and what the receiver actually perceives or understands. Communication gaps can occur due to various factors, such as lack of clarity, coherence, or conciseness, inappropriate tone, language, or format, insufficient or excessive information, misunderstanding of the audience's needs, expectations, or feedback, or ineffective use of communication channels or tools. You can help your mentee identify their communication gaps by asking them to reflect on their communication goals, outcomes, and challenges, by soliciting feedback from their peers, managers, or clients, or by using communication audits or assessments to measure their communication performance and impact.

4 Provide them with communication feedback

The fourth step is to provide your mentee with regular and constructive communication feedback that helps them monitor their communication progress and performance and identify their communication successes and areas of improvement. Communication feedback should be timely, specific, balanced, actionable, and supportive. You can provide your mentee with communication feedback by using various methods, such as one-on-one meetings, peer reviews, surveys, or ratings, by focusing on the communication behavior and outcomes, not the personality or intentions, by highlighting the communication strengths and opportunities, not the weaknesses or failures, by suggesting the communication solutions and resources, not the problems or criticisms, and by encouraging the communication growth and development, not the comparison or judgment.

6 Support them with communication mindset

The sixth and final step is to support your mentee with communication mindset that helps them communicate effectively in corporate communications. Communication mindset is the attitude and belief that your mentee has about their communication abilities and potential. Communication mindset can affect your mentee's communication confidence, motivation, and resilience. You can support your mentee with communication mindset by using various strategies, such as affirming their communication value and contribution, acknowledging their communication efforts and improvements, challenging their communication assumptions and limitations, empowering their communication autonomy and ownership, and inspiring their communication vision and purpose.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?