Make Messages Stick

A great book to help your internal communications process is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. The book posits six key principles of sticky messages. They should be:

1. Simple
2. Unexpected
3. Concrete
4. Credible
5. Emotional
6. Stories

For instance, to communicate the potential benefit of an ESOP, have a former employee (or one with another company) come tell her story about how the ESOP distribution helped her put a child through college. The message is a story, is emotional, is concrete, is credible (because the source is not management or a lawyer), is not something people would expect, and is simple.