The Art of Effective Communication: Before You Divide the Lemon, Ask What People Need
Two people were asked to share a lemon as fairly as possible, so they did the obvious thing and cut it in half.
It sounded like the perfect solution. Each person received an equal share, nobody appeared to lose out and the lemon had been divided in a way that was easy to understand.
There was just one problem. One person wanted the zest and the other wanted the juice.
By cutting the lemon in half, they had created a fair outcome on paper, but neither person got everything they needed. A short conversation would have revealed that they could both have had 100% of what they wanted.
It is a simple story, but it captures something I see regularly in business and internal communications. We are often so keen to reach a solution that we start solving the problem before we fully understand it.
Good communication starts with curiosity
Communication is often treated as the final stage of a project. A decision is made, a solution is developed and somebody is then asked to communicate it.
In reality, good communication should begin much earlier.
Before deciding what to say, how to say it or which channel to use, we need to understand what people actually need. That means asking questions, listening carefully and being willing to challenge our first assumptions.
When a client comes to oXyFire, I do not expect them to arrive with a finished brief. They might know that they need a film, a live event, an internal campaign or a better way to engage their people.
Sometimes they simply know that something is not working.
My job is not to immediately tell them what the answer should be. It is to help uncover the real need behind the request.
What are they trying to achieve? Who do they need to reach? What does the audience already know? How do they want people to think, feel or act afterwards? What would a successful outcome look like?
The answers to those questions shape everything that follows.
The first request is not always the real brief
A client might ask for a video, but the real need could be to rebuild trust following a period of change.
They might ask for a live broadcast when what they really need is to make employees feel included in a leadership conversation.
They might ask for more content, when the issue is not the amount of communication but its relevance, timing or clarity.
This does not mean the client is wrong. It means the first request is often only the starting point.
A good brief is not simply a list of deliverables. It is a shared understanding of the problem, the audience and the outcome. Once those things are clear, the right creative and technical choices become much easier to make.
Without that understanding, even an impressive piece of work can miss the mark.
Listening is more than waiting for your turn
Most of us would say that we are good listeners, but genuine listening takes more effort than staying quiet while someone else speaks.
It means paying attention to the language people use, noticing what they emphasise and asking follow-up questions when something is unclear. It also means being comfortable with not having an immediate answer.
That can be difficult in a professional setting. There is often pressure to demonstrate expertise by responding quickly and confidently. However, expertise is not just about arriving with answers. Sometimes it is knowing which questions will reveal the right answer.
I would rather spend more time understanding a client at the beginning of a project than waste their time and budget producing something based on an assumption.
That early conversation is not a delay. It is part of the work.
Fair is not always the same as effective
The lemon story also raises an interesting point about fairness.
Splitting something equally can feel like the fairest approach because everybody receives the same amount. But equal treatment does not always produce an equally useful outcome.
The same is true in internal communications. Sending the same message to every employee might appear fair and consistent, but different audiences may have different needs.
A senior leader, a line manager, a remote employee and somebody working on a production floor may all need different levels of detail, different formats and different opportunities to respond. The central message can remain consistent while the way it is delivered changes.
Effective internal communication is not about saying exactly the same thing to everyone. It is about giving people what they need to understand the message and act on it.
That requires us to think beyond distribution and consider the experience of the audience.
Communication is not complete when a message is sent
One of the easiest mistakes to make is to confuse sending information with communicating.
An email can be delivered, a video can be published and an event can take place, but that does not automatically mean the message has been understood.
Communication is not complete until there has been some form of understanding. In many cases, it should also create space for questions, feedback and response.
This is why the best communication is rarely one-way. People need opportunities to clarify what something means for them, raise concerns and contribute their own perspective.
If we want employees to engage with a message, we need to treat them as participants rather than an audience that simply receives information.
Build around the need, not the format
At oXyFire, this thinking is part of our baseline philosophy.
We do not begin with the format we want to produce or the solution we find most exciting. We begin with the client, the audience and the outcome.
Once we understand those things, we can make informed decisions about the project. That might lead to a film, a live production, a series of shorter pieces, an interactive event or a combination of channels. The format should support the need, not dictate it.
Creative ideas and technical expertise still matter, of course. They are what allow us to turn an objective into something people will notice, understand and remember. But creativity is most valuable when it is focused on the right problem.
A beautifully produced solution to the wrong problem is still the wrong solution.
Ask before you assume
The biggest lesson in the lemon story is not that cutting it in half was a bad idea. Based on the information available, it was a perfectly reasonable one.
The mistake was acting before asking.
A single question could have changed the outcome: “What do you need the lemon for?”
That same question, in different forms, can improve almost any project.
What are we really trying to achieve? What does the audience need from us? What assumptions are we making? Have we listened before deciding what the solution should be?
Good communication does not begin with the message. It begins with curiosity.
Before you divide the lemon, start a conversation.
If you are planning an internal communications project and want to start with the right questions, let’s have a conversation.
