One of the central keys to success is the ability to communicate accurately and effectively. It’s a skill you never stop learning, never stop using.

While communication can take many forms and serve many purposes, there’s a smart way to think about your efforts to communicate that will help you in almost every situation: it’s the Four Level Model.

The Four Level Model of communication is intended to help you focus on the essentials of the communications process, so your every utterance and written message conveys what you want with the maximum possible power. To use it, start thinking about your communications like this:

Level One – Why Is My Message Important?

There’s an old joke about a young boy whose parents are frantic because he never speaks. Finally, at age ten, eating some eggs for breakfast, he opens his mouth and says “Mother, please pass the salt.” Pandemonium and joy ensue, until eventually someone asks the boy why he hasn’t spoken for the first ten years of his life. His answer: “Until now, everything has been just fine.”

The point is simply that communication always has a purpose.

More to the point, you’ll make your communication more accurate and effective if you start by determining its purpose: What is important about your message? What exactly do you hope to accomplish? Why say it now rather than last month or next week? Nail down these elements, and you’ll have the basis for a powerful message.

Level Two – What Am I Trying To Convey?

Most people think they always know what they’re trying to say, but this is rarely true. Sure, you may know that you’re asking a specific person to do you a favor, or suggesting a course of action in a difficult situation, or something else. But most times, there’s much more going on in your messages. Look for and try to understand the deeper issues you’re conveying, perhaps unconsciously, such as: your own motivation for conveying the message, the words you’re choosing to use in your message, ideas and information you’re leaving out of the message, the emotional tone of your message, and so forth. By understanding these additional layers, you give yourself opportunities to convey a more accurate message.

Level Three – Who Am I Trying To Reach?

Communication involves messages directed at audiences. That’s why it’s important you identify and understand the people you are trying to reach with your message. These are people who already have a certain amount of relevant information, and who live within a complex set of responsibilities, opportunities, drives, and limitations. The effectiveness of your message depends heavily on communicating ideas that resonate with your intended audience.

Level Four – How Can I Stimulate The Reaction I Want?

After thinking through why you’re communicating, what you’re communicating, and to whom you’re communicating it, you’re finally in a good position to think about the reaction you want from your message, and the best way to generate that reaction. Your communication can employ factual information, emotional appeals, practical incentives, and other elements, which you can weave all together to seamlessly motivate and inspire your audience to do what you’re hoping for.

Not every message succeeds at stimulating the response you want, but using the Four Level Model provides a systematic way to maximize the chances that your next message will achieve a higher level of effectiveness.