Communication is not what you say. It is what people hear.

My first love was psychology. That is where my career started because I am so interested in how people think and why they believe some things and not others. That curiosity morphed into a career in communications because it is about how we think, feel, and believe. Communications is not just a pretty poster or well written news release. It is about understanding your audience. So let’s talk about the science behind that.

How many times have you sent a carefully worded update, held a well-organized public meeting, or issued a thorough staff report, only to have people walk away confused, frustrated, or convinced you were hiding something?

If you work in local government communications, the answer is probably: more times than you would like to count.

Here is the uncomfortable truth behind that experience. Most of us significantly overestimate how clearly we communicate. Researchers call this the illusion of transparency, the cognitive bias that leads us to believe our intentions and meaning are far more obvious to others than they actually are. Because we have full access to our own thinking, we assume others do too. They do not. What we intend to say and what people actually receive can be entirely different things, and the gap between those two is where trust erodes and conflict grows.

In public engagement, that gap is not just an inconvenient, it can lead to hostility.

I’m going to get a little sciencey here for a second but keep up with me. It is super interesting.

There is also a layer of neuroscience at play that most people never account for. When people feel threatened, whether by a decision that affects their neighbourhood, a process that feels opaque, or a tone that feels dismissive, their nervous system responds accordingly. The brain’s amygdala flags the situation as a threat and triggers a stress response. In that state, the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for rational thinking, problem-solving, and listening, goes offline. Research on conflict and communication is consistent on this point: once someone is in a heightened stress state, productive conversation is very nearly impossible.

This means that by the time someone steps up to the microphone at a public meeting and starts venting, they are not in a position to hear your response, no matter how accurate or well-reasoned it is. You are not losing them with your facts. You lost them before you even started talking, because something in the environment or the process already signalled danger.

So, what does good communication actually require, especially in high-stakes public settings?

Clarity matters more than intensity. Research on difficult conversations consistently shows that calm, plain, specific language builds trust and cooperation, while emotional intensity, even well-intentioned passion, tends to trigger defensiveness in the listener. When we raise our voice, use sweeping language, or communicate urgency through tone rather than content, we often create exactly the reaction we are trying to avoid. Simple and steady lands better than forceful and elaborate, every time.

The sequence matters too. People need to feel heard before they can hear you. This is not just good advice from a communications workshop. It is grounded in how the nervous system works. When someone feels genuinely acknowledged, even briefly, their stress response begins to settle. That settling is what creates the space for actual dialogue. Skipping the acknowledgment step and jumping straight to information or explanation is one of the most common and most costly mistakes in public engagement.

Tone carries more than content. Studies on communication consistently show that how something is said, the pace, the warmth or coldness of delivery, the presence or absence of genuine eye contact, registers in the listener’s nervous system before the actual words do. A technically accurate message delivered in a dismissive or bureaucratic tone will almost always underperform a simpler message delivered with genuine care. Your residents are picking up on cues you may not even know you are sending.

Questions build more understanding than statements. When we move into explanation mode, we often trigger the very defensiveness we are trying to defuse. A well-placed question, one that signals genuine curiosity rather than challenge, does the opposite. It tells the other person that their perspective matters and that you are interested in understanding it. In a public engagement context, this is the difference between a meeting that feels like a lecture and one that feels like a conversation.

And finally, how you end a conversation or an engagement process matters as much as how you begin it. Closing the loop, telling people what you heard, what changed, and what did not and why, is what transforms a single interaction into a trust-building pattern. Without that follow-through, even a well-run engagement process can leave people feeling unheard.

None of this is complicated. But it requires intention, especially in environments where the stakes are high, the scrutiny is real, and the pressure to just get through the meeting is constant.

The communicators and leaders who do this well are not the ones with the best PowerPoint slides. They are the ones who understand that communication is not something you transmit. It is something that happens, or does not, between people.

Five things you can do right now

1. Before your next difficult public meeting or engagement session, think about what signals the environment is sending before anyone speaks. Is the room set up for dialogue or for performance? Is the process transparent enough that people feel safe? Anxiety in the audience often starts well before the microphone is turned on.
2. Read your public-facing communications out loud, slowly, as if you are hearing them for the first time. Notice where the language is dense, passive, or vague. Those are the spots where the intention-impact gap opens up. Rewrite them in the plainest language possible.
3. Train your spokespeople and elected officials to acknowledge emotion before responding to content. A simple phrase like ‘I hear that this is frustrating, and I want to make sure I understand your concern’ is not weakness. It is the neurologically correct sequence for productive conversation.
4. Replace at least one statement in your next engagement session with a question. Instead of explaining why the decision was made, ask residents what aspect they are most concerned about. The shift in dynamic is immediate and significant.
5. Always close the loop. After any engagement process, publish a summary of what you heard, what it changed, and what it did not. Do it in plain language, not bureaucratic summary. That follow-through is not optional, it is where trust is either built or lost.