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In the decade and a half that I worked for companies, I’ve never seen corporate comms done right. In fact, at the beginning of my journey as a solo consultant, I spoke to a woman in Zurich who had just taken over the family business — and was talking to her staff once a year at the company barbeque. No joke.

40% of employees receive “excessive” communication at work. The latest research puts the number of notifications at 84 (!) across one day. No one is listening to anything you have to say when there’s that amount of noise. And it’s costing companies millions. According to HBR, poor communication causes 44% of employees to fail completing projects, 31% to miss performance goals, and 52% to report higher stress levels.

This is one of the most common problems that I help people solve—I’ve got a thing that I need people to hear, and they’re not hearing it. How do I get them to read/listen/watch what I’ve created and act on it?

Based on both research and experience, here are three things you can do to make sure that your updates don’t get ignored:

1. Label your comms accurately. Remember “the boy who cried wolf”? When your team knows that your “urgent” or “important” label means something, they’ll listen when you apply it. It can be tempting to think that everything is important, or that everything you write needs an employees attention right now. But we both know it’s not true. That update about some new HR scheme or the minutes from the company town hall … are not that urgent. A useful framework for this is the “Eisenhower Matrix”, where you put any communication into one of four categories (and then choose the appropriate channel, which we’ll get to later):
   • Urgent + Important → this should be reserved for crisis-level comms, immediate deadlines, and the like. If it doesn’t need to be done right now, it doesn’t fall into this category. Think “red phone on the President’s desk” level urgent.
   • Important + not urgent → these are things that team members must know, but they’re not time-sensitive. Things like strategic updates, quarterly reviews, etc.
   • Urgent + not important → I know, this seems like an odd pairing. But really what this means is that it can be handled by someone specific, or a specific team. These are targeted communications that are only sent to one subset of your overall email list. Don’t blast these out to everyone (it cheapens your name when it shows up in an inbox and it’s irrelevant. That just makes it easier to ignore next time).
   • Not urgent + not important → what are you doing communicating this? If you have to, put it in a once-monthly round up email.
2. Treat important communication as if it were cold email. If you’ve ever received a generic email from a boss, you’ll know how bad some of them can be. Generic updates that don’t show any relevance to you, or abstract ideas that aren’t immediately clear. Once we take it as a given that people are being bombarded with comms on all channels multiple times an hour (an average of 10.5 per hour in an 8 hour day! How does anyone get any work done?), your message needs to stand out from the noise. I’ve written in a previous issue about how to do cold outreach properly, but specifically in this context, here are a few tips:
   • Find the relevant intersection between your message and the recipient’s world; it also helps to be clear about the implications to them as well.
   • Create targeted distribution lists based on roles, decision-making authority, and information needs (don’t spam everyone because it’s easier)
   • Use different channels for different messages — this is relevant for the label as well. The highest priority should get the highest fidelity channel (phone call, SMS) and on down through priority email, slack, etc. If it’s important, make sure it gets in front of them. (But again, be careful! Too much use of one channel risks diluting it and introducing noise into the signal, reducing its efficacy.)
   • If you want something done, don’t ask for volunteers or write generic request emails. The bystander effect says that this will never get done. Instead, identify key people that need to do the thing, or that you want something from, and talk to them specifically. But again, as with everything, don’t dilute this; use names only when stakes are meaningful or tasks are nontrivial; don’t name just to show you “see” everyone.
3. Be impossible to misunderstand Put the most important information up front, so that even if people only spend a few seconds on it, or skim it, they’ll get the gist. Axios are excellent at this, and in fact sell a (very expensive!) piece of software to help you write like them.

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In practice, you can just use this prompt in ChatGPT to get the same effect:

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Task

Rewrite or summarize any given piece of communication in Axios Smart Brevity® style — concise, structured, and informative. The goal is to preserve the core message and essential insights while increasing clarity, readability, and impact for a busy professional audience.

​Persona

You are an Axios-style editor — part journalist, part strategist. You think like a newsroom pro: your mission is to deliver clarity, context, and consequence in as few words as possible. You strip away fluff and jargon. You replace rambling explanations with sharp structure and sentence rhythm. You prioritize what matters most, right now. You write with the Axios DNA:

Smart Brevity — short sentences, strong verbs, minimal adjectives

Structured Hierarchy — headline, summary line, bullets

Context + Why It Matters — brief framing that shows stakes

Audience Empathy — you write for speed and understanding Considerations The input text may be long, disorganized, or dense.Preserve all key facts, tone, and intent — but remove redundancies.

Focus on clarity, hierarchy, and scanability: the goal is comprehension in under a minute.

Avoid marketing speak, jargon, or filler.

When necessary, inject neutral connective phrasing (“Why it matters,” “Driving the news,” “By the numbers”) to frame information clearly.

When context is missing, briefly infer logical connective tissue so the rewrite reads smoothly.

​Steps

Identify the Core Message: Determine the main point or newsworthy takeaway.

Distill the Key Facts: What are the 3–5 most important data points or statements the reader needs?

Add Framing: If helpful, add one brief line of context (“The big picture”) or consequence (“Why it matters”).

Rewrite for Smart Brevity: Use punchy sentences, no wasted words, no redundant phrasing.

Structure the Output: Format in the Axios house style (see below).

Review for Tone and Clarity: Ensure it feels confident, neutral, and useful — not sensational.

​Constraints

​Max: 200 words (preferably under 150)

Sentences: under 20 words each

Paragraphs: 1–2 lines max

Use bold for lead phrases or framing labels (e.g., “Why it matters:”).

Use bullets for supporting facts or details.

Avoid rhetorical questions, filler adverbs, or long transitions.

Do not mimic Axios branding or use copyrighted terms verbatim (e.g., avoid “Smart Brevity®” in the output itself).

​Success Qualities

​Clarity: Reader instantly grasps the key message.

Hierarchy: Most important info first, context next, details last.

Brevity: Each word earns its place.

Flow: Reads naturally aloud; punchy rhythm.

Professional polish: Feels newsroom-ready.

​Stakes

​The Axios rewrite is for readers who have 60 seconds and zero patience. Executing this style effectively builds trust with readers, boosts comprehension, and demonstrates mastery of modern communication clarity.

​Output Format

​Return your rewritten Axios-style output in this structure:

​Headline: concise and specific

The gist: one-sentence summary of the core message.

Why it matters: short explanation of the consequence, value, or relevance.

Details: - Bullet 1: Key supporting fact - - Bullet 2: Context or quote - - Bullet 3: Data or action step -

The bottom line: clear takeaway or next step.

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Writing in this way is accessible for everyone—if a team member only has the time to get the top line, they’ve gotten the important info, and if they have the time or need to go deeper, it’s all there for them.

At some point though, especially in bigger companies, you will run across the problem of sheer volume of communication. Here’s where newer AI tools come in (though user beware, they’re not perfect yet!) that can help sort and label your email. Another tip for you as a team member and for leaders to implement in their teams are focussed “no notification” time periods, where all non-critical comms are paused, and specific times are set aside for comms processing. This increases the focus on each specific task, reducing the risk that something important gets lost in the shuffle.

If you’ve encountered this problem at work yourself, how have you solved it?

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