ContextMar 2025← Back to journal
Context & Communication

The room before the message.

Most communication fails because it answers a question no one is asking. Reading the room comes before writing the line.

  • Reading6 min
  • FiledMar 2025
  • SectionContext & Communication
  • ByThe Parlor
The room before the message
Plate — Context

Communication is a social act before it is a technical one. The instinct in most organisations is to start with the message — what we want to say, what we need to land, what the deck demands.

Context is not background..

The cultural, political, behavioural and commercial conditions around a message are not the backdrop. They are the message.

If you cannot describe the room, you cannot speak to it.
The Parlor

We start every engagement by mapping the room. Who is in it. What they are tired of hearing. What they are quietly waiting for.

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