Nobody’s rude. Okay. Not many people are rude. Alright, the people you talk to and who get to work with you, they’re not rude. But they are all as busy as you are and it’s hard to get them to do what you need even if they need it to. Even if they want it too. (Hopefully you’re not spending a lot of time forcing people to do things they hate. You know that. I just had to say it.) Without trying to criticise the whole of humanity in one massive generalisation, here I am criticising the whole of humanity in one massive generalisation:

Faced between a massacre in a foreign country and stubbing your toe on a door frame, people fixate on the toe.

Because it’s closer.

Also, we’re horrible human beings, so, you know, there’s that.

But faced with everybody focusing on themselves and faced with the certain fact that you need people to work with you, do this. Do what every single television news bulletin you’ve ever seen does. This is a mantra for broadcast news:

Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em

Tell ’em it

Tell ’em what you’ve just told ’em

Why do you think news bulletins start with the headlines? If the top story is so important, why aren’t they just beginning with that? You can say it’s because the headlines are a quick way to see whether you want to watch the entire bulletin and I can then say aha, got you. That opening is how you get attention.

But look at the next bulletin that comes along or look at rolling news stations at the top of the hour. They headline the major stories yet they also headline smaller ones. Weather presenters now appear in the headline block saying things like “Will there be rain to spoil this weekend? Find out later on”. What is that doing in the news? Not in the headline block, why is it in the news at all? It’s weather – and they’re standing there refusing to tell us what it is. What is point teasing the weather?

The point is that they tell us what they’re going to tell us.

Then we get the news stories, we finally find out whether it’s going to rain.

And then we get “The headlines again”. Why?

Because it gets us watching and then it keeps us watching and finally it makes us remember. Three times’ the charm.

If you have to tell someone something or you know the work can’t be done, won’t be achieved, find three ways to tell them. Three ways and three times. You know it makes sense: you have seen it in action eleventy-billion times.