Like any good relationship if there’s no good communication, sooner or later the cracks will start to show. This is valid everywhere, from home to office and all around us.
But first and because I can’t resist a few memes here you go:
And this last one pretty much sums how I’m feeling these days
So why does communication matter so much for the organization?
Well to start with, it wouldn’t be organization without communication anyway! To function, organization need to establish communication channels to ensure all the employees are aligned. There’s emails, banners in the offices, newsletters, team meetings and the whole lot. Traditionally the communication would be top > down (although I’m pretty sure some companies still approach it this way). As any kid playing chinese whispers soon enough the message will be lost.
What is often neglected is that the most powerful source of communication is not the offical one. Oh no, it will be the coffee chats, the chit-chats in the corridor, the who knows who about what’s going on. We will trust a close source at the company more than the message that was cascaded down miles from the top.
In reality it’s more like this
All the sources of communication are relevant though. The message from the top should be so simple that you can do it in a 30 seconds lift break. However, companies need to ensure the right people that need to be working together are talking together and are not constrained by the top > down communication flow. Whereas they need to abide by the strategic goals of the company, they need to be empowered to do decision making on the fly amongst themselves.
But why is it so hard though?
1 – Because we are no different than children!
People raise your hand if you have felt you work in the kindergarden! It’s as simple as, if we don’t like one particular person we will not talk, even if we are meant to be working together. We will avoid it with all our heart. You might argue that being a professional adult you should be able to put your own personal feelings aside and ensure there is cooperating. We don’t all need to be friends at work, even though that would be quite nice. The more tired you are, the likely you will try to surround yourself by those you enjoy working with and speaking with. Those with whom you relate. Which to me could be resolved by ensuring you have the right skillsets in your team but also their personalities end up working towards the goal you want to achieve.
2 – Because there is a communication overflow
There’s e-mail non stop 24/7, millions and millions of them no matter how many fancy rules you establish on your outlook, then there’s team messenger where you chit chat with your colleagues but also get chased by people trying to seek your attention, then there’s your own personal overflow of communications like alerts on your phone to pay the bill, read some gossiping online, the news, you name it. So unless you are very disciplined at managing all the different sources of communication you will feel overwhelmed and potentially not notice the key ones until it’s much later. This is where the ability to prioritize becomes key.
3 – We are tribal
Yap, we are. That’s how we evolved. And I’m sure it’s easy to find what the tribes are in your workplace. Typically these will be departments, or even teams in a given project. Within the team it’s easier to get communication flowing, but to cross your tribe that’s a whole new level. There is more resistence to go and ensure you are aligning with a completely different team. You might not be interacting with them on a daily basis therefore you don’t have the same level of confidence and trust. It seems there is an invisible China wall between teams and they just won’t speak, even when it’s in their interest to align. Ways to overcome this would be to do workshops together where the teams discuss the dependencies between them and agree the most efficient way of communication (e.g. 1 team member of each team would have a working group to discuss common points). The lack of cross communication might be a reflection of a blaming culture, and people would rather stay within their boundaries than venture on the other side and be blamed for something. So they don’t talk, nor share. But like at home, if you don’t talk, you don’t resolve the issues you should be resolving and sooner or later the cracks will come when it might be too late to resolve them.
So let’s go back to why does it matter
Fostering good and open communication channels throughout the organization will enable employees to share their ideas, concerns and points for improvement. This will only happen if they believe their individual voice will be heard. Team leads need to be empowered to act upont the information they receive to make a change on the fly as and when situation occour.
Through good communication, especially outside the specific department or team will enable the company & the leadership to define strategic innitatives and which teams should be working together based on successful achievements from the past. If there is no good communication you will see the same type of innitiative being done in 3 different places by completely different teams (which in turn will be more costly) and with the risk of impacting each other negatively at a later stage.
Knowledge will be shared faster and teams will be able to upskill each other and stay relevant, which in the end can only be competitive advantage. Also, on a team level basis, if there is good communication then the team lead will be able to spot and act when the employee might be feeling demotivated or upset which in turn would lead him to leave the company and go to the competition instead.
FYI, you're TBB 