A message that matters

How can you ensure that readers remember an essential idea and understand the expected action on the first reading?

1250 € per session, excl. VAT

In short

This half-day session of 3 hours explores how to prioritise information, formulate a central idea and support it with relevant facts. Participants experiment with generative AI using a fictional case, then produce a short message and assess its clarity, faithfulness to the source and comprehensibility.

Why this training?

An announcement can contain all the necessary information and still be difficult to understand. When context, justification and instructions are given equal prominence, the recipient no longer knows what to remember or do. AI can suggest wording, but a fluent sentence can shift the meaning or add a promise that is absent from the source material. The training teaches participants to prioritise one idea and check each suggestion rather than automatically accept a text. Case used throughout: The fictional organisation Orbeva Services is replacing internal requests by email with a single form. Employees need to understand what is changing and where to submit their next request. The source material specifies the scope, exceptions and support contact, without attributing unproven benefits to the change. Transfer to the workplace: After the session, take an anonymised professional announcement: isolate the central idea, remove secondary information and ask a colleague to restate the message. Compare the two versions using the checklist from the training before any distribution.

Objectives of this training

  • Identify the recipient and the action expected from an announcement.
  • Distinguish the central idea from supporting arguments and secondary information.
  • Write a message consisting of an idea, factual support and an instruction.
  • Compare an AI-assisted reformulation with the source material.
  • Assess understanding of the message by testing the reader’s ability to restate it.

Who is it for and what are the prerequisites?

Roles and tasks concerned

  • Employees who write internal announcements, information emails or short notes.
  • Managers and communication officers who want to make instructions clearer.

Prior skills

  • No prior knowledge of AI required.
  • Ability to write a short professional text in French.

What you will work on

  1. Choosing what the reader should remember

    Objective: Define a single purpose for the announcement. Difference between the topic, essential idea and expected action; the recipient’s needs and information already known.

  2. Organising the idea, support and instruction

    Objective: Build a clear sequence before writing. Central idea first; selection of factual support; placement of exceptions; distinction between informing and requesting action.

  3. Exploring reformulations with AI

    Objective: Discover how to request and check a rewrite. Prompt specifying the recipient, purpose, permitted facts, tone and length; risks of additions and oversimplification.

  4. Testing understanding and making corrections

    Objective: Measure quality through the reader’s restatement of the message. Peer reading; questions asking readers to restate the message; checks on vocabulary, ambiguities and the instruction.

What you take away

  • Worksheet covering the recipient, purpose and expected action.
  • Message structure with selected supporting facts.
  • Finalised announcement and short spoken version.
  • Completed checklist with justified corrections.

Method and assessment

  • Short explanations followed by immediate practice using the ongoing case.
  • Individual work followed by work in pairs, with peer review of the texts produced.
  • Guided group discussion: what works, what needs correcting and what remains a human decision.
  • Preparation: Arrange access to a generative AI tool authorised by the organisation; a guided demonstration remains possible without individual access. Choose a fictional or anonymised announcement, without personal data or confidential information; the Orbeva source material is provided for the exercises.

Observable criteria: The central idea appears in the first sentence, with no competing objective. ; Every supporting fact can be traced to the source material. ; The instruction specifies who should do what and through which channel. ; The reader restates the essential idea and expected action without further explanation. ; Shifts in meaning introduced by AI are identified and corrected..

Frequently asked questions

Do you need to be familiar with generative AI?

No. The first reformulation request is built step by step from the fictional source material.

Can you work on a real announcement?

Yes, after anonymisation and removal of confidential information, using only tools authorised by the organisation.

Does AI choose the essential message?

It can suggest a hierarchy; the participant decides based on the recipient, purpose and available facts.

How do you distinguish a pleasant style from an effective message?

The test checks what the reader remembers and the action they understand, not just their stylistic preference.

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