I generally advocate for communication tools that reach a targeted audience, or as large a number of people as possible – shotgun communications sort of thing, where you try to hit everything in sight.

That’s my job.

Over the years, I have developed and created tools that seek to do just that, be they press releases, internet sites, intranet site, and a pile of other tools.

But there are instances where leaders need to stop depending on their communications people to get a message across. Sometimes, you need to just stop and talk to people and tell them what a great job they are doing. Or just say hello.

It’s like having a target audience of one person. Just one, face to face, no phones or intranets, no memos (do people still use memos?) nor instant messaging, Skype or anything. Just two people, speaking.

You’d think this was as obvious as boneless bananas, but apparently it isn’t.

Like when a colleague was looking unhappy, and it transpired that she had done a great deal of work and believed that nobody noticed. But they did, only nobody bothered to tell her.

I mentioned that her work was appreciated and somebody said that she had sorted out an area in her department that was a huge mess before she had arrived. Her face lit up, and then she opened up to me on how she was feeling sad because she had done a lot of work and felt unappreciated.

Sometimes, we communicate the big things and forget the small. Only the small can have a far larger impact in both the short and long run.

Communications isn’t just about intranet articles, press releases, yammer posts, and fancy events – it’s about people.