In the latest edition of “communication is just common sense but if that’s the case why isn’t everyone else doing it” I was helping an insurance executive run better meetings.

The aim: to make them more purposeful but also a moment to build a higher performing culture.

After taking them through some fundamentals to nudging a culture in the right direction we moved onto running better, more effective meetings as part of this but as a separate objective too.

After a while, they smiled and then shared that much of what we’d discussed they had done previously in their last job at a previous company.

But they’d “got out of the habit” and it “wasn’t the way things are done here”.

So, while good communication can sometimes (often?) seem to be “common sense”, lots of people don’t actually do these common-sense basics that should be your foundations of good communication.

Here then is this week’s tip.

Do the basics.

Make doing them a habit.

And then watch as you stand out as a positive outlier in a world where laissez-faire has replaced proactive when it comes to preparing for meetings and many other repeat communication moments.

Not only will those standalone communication moments be better, more effective and full of energy but you will nudge your culture in the right direction too.