Lessons from Utah – Part 1

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

Cairn: a pile of stones stacked by a person to mark a trail

My husband and I just returned home from 10 days hiking in the five national parks in Utah. It certainly is a beautiful world. Many of our hikes were on well-marked, well-utilized paths. A few trails, though, weren’t as obvious. In some cases, the destination was well disguised and out of sight. The path to it was sometimes over huge rocks or through water, so we couldn’t see other people’s tracks. On those trails, we were grateful to find cairns every once in a while along the way.

A cairn says:

You aren’t the only one.

Someone else has been here before.

This is the way.

You are on the right path.

So many challenges in life could be avoided if we placed more cairns on our path for others to follow! It’s too easy to become information hoarders in our work or in our relationships instead of being willing to share insight and wisdom with the people around us. Being the knower of important things makes us invaluable, or so we think. But sometimes the people in our lives don’t even know that we know anything at all because we never tell anyone else what we know.

This also is one of the biggest challenges to successful communications initiatives: getting the right people in the room, breaking down the barriers that separate them, and helping them feel comfortable enough to spill their guts. What information is housed in their beautiful brains? How do we start at the beginning of what they know, take others through the path of their knowledge, and help the public reach the same destination of understanding?

Cairns―markers to guide others all the way to the end―can help. Information needs to come in small enough chunks to digest. Sometimes an aerial map of the whole path isn’t as helpful as simply knowing you have reached another milestone on the journey. And it is a relief to know that others have made it through and left you some encouragement to keep going.

Let me help your organization or company make it through to the end of a path I have already been down. When it comes to a crisis you are facing, I have undoubtedly been in your shoes at some point, and unfortunately needed to announce it publicly. When it comes to a project that seems too big or too long to break into chunks small enough for the average person to take in, I have already been there, too. If you’re trying to get a social media program off the ground, yes, I have done that before. Together we can chart a path, step by step, to help you reach your communications goals.

That’s really what communications consulting is. I am here to leave cairns on your path so that you can reach your destination more quickly, more smoothly, and with fewer sprained ankles than someone else without a guide. Next time, you’ll know the way, too.