Monthly Archives: July 2011

What Are You Communicating?

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 1 Comment

One of the more frequent issues facing organizations is around internal communication. Sometimes employees say they don’t know what’s going on despite great effort made at communicating, or the leader has a clear idea of where they want to go but nobody seems to be following.

Even worse is when the leadership thinks it’s doing a good job communicating (“Look, we have a newsletter!”), but the internal survey comes back with “lack of communication” written all over it. This is what I like to call failing the “Am I smoking crack?” check.

Good news: at least you’re checking. That puts you ahead of 90% of the companies out there.

What simple behaviors do leaders who communicate well engage in? Here’s a couple of things I’ve noticed.

  1. Listen  - Maybe your one-way communication to your organization isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s that you’re not listening to what they’re saying. People generally aren’t ready to listen until they feel they’ve been heard. Maybe they’re trying to tell you something important? What are you telling people when you listen to them.
  2. Have a Simple and Consistent Message- remember KISS? “Keep it Simple Stupid?” The “stupid” in this case is not the people you’re talking to. It’s you. If you think that a wordy, complicated, bland message  is going to engage people to action then you’re being stupid.If you’re going to ask people to listen to you at least do them the courtesy and have the courage to actually say something. Be bold, brave, and brief.What is your message?
  3. Link Purpose to Action- can you answer the “So What?” question? Does everybody in your organization know where they fit in? If they don’t know how what they do supports the company – what the company is trying to do and what their part is – then they tend to switch off.If you can’t draw a line between somebody’s role  in your company to the company’s larger vision, strategy, and goals, then why do they work for you again?
  4. See Every Interaction as an Opportunity – every interaction with all employees is an opportunity to communicate. Beginning at the hiring process, on-boarding, newsletters, celebrations, feedback, one-on-ones, coaching, how your company runs meetings, who you fire (or not), who you promote(or not), etc. All the simple things that outstanding managers do well.How does your company behave during a crisis? What does how often and how you communicate say about you and your company? Sometimes it’s a case of “your actions are so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying”.
  5. Forget E-Mail – notice how I didn’t mention e-mails (until now). If you think you’re communicating through e-mail you might want to have another think.  Talking a lot is also not communicating (see point 1. above).
How important do you think communication is in your current rôle? How much time do you think you spend communicating? How much time do you dedicate to “communicating” (and listening) in your daily schedule?

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Posted in behaviour, change, coaching, communications, conflict, delegation, engagement, execution, feedback, influencing, listening, mentoring, motivating, persauding

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Communicate, Navigate, Execute

Posted on July 18, 2011 | 2 Comments

I was working on my old motorcycle in garage this winter with a friend who spent some time in the Canadian navy. He reminded me of the old military phrase “Communicate, navigate, and fight.”

A ship, a plane, a soldier all have to be in the right place (navigate), do their job (fight), and tell their superiors what they’ve done (communicate).

I sometimes have interesting conversations in the strangest places.

What It Means In Business

In business, communication is communication. Getting the right information to the right person at the right time so that they can execute their tasks and responsibilities as effectively and efficiently as possible. Which is why the leader(s) of an organization need to have a clear vision of where they’re going (navigate) from the leader of the organization, and be willing to not tolerate lack of performance either in themselves or the organization (execute).

What’s More Important?

Which one of these three  is the most important? No matter what level you are in an organization, if other people report to you my answer would be communicate.

Communicating the vision (navigate), communicating the plan (execute), communicating the results (accountability) are a big part of the job. Yes, you have the do your job, but most of what any manager or leader does has to be communicate.

A soldier has a gun and a shovel. Their “execute” is straight-forward: dig a trench, shoot at the right target. As a leader in a business or otherwise, our execute is done through other’s actions. We set those actions in motions by “communicating”.

Everything is Communication

I’m not just talking newsletters and slide presentations, although these have a place. We “communicate” in almost everything we do in a business, including but not limited to: hiring practices, performance reviews, weekly one-on-one meetings with our direct staff, giving feedback, what we choose to delegate to whom, who we fire, who we promote, who we don’t promote, what we celebrate, who we pursue as customers, which customers we chose to drop, etc.

These are all forms of and opportunities to communicate.

What Most Businesses Suck At

. . . and yet when my clients ask they’re employees what their company could do better, “communicate” comes up over and over again. So ask yourself the following two questions:

1. Do you communicate with your subordinates often and well enough?

2. Does your boss communicate with you often and well enough?

If you ask a room full of managers and executives these questions, many of them will answer “Yes” to the first question, and “No” to the second. Even with their bosses and subordinates in the same room at the same time answering in the same way. Without a hint of irony.

Think about it – are you really better than your boss at understanding where the company is going, and conveying it to your direct reports if she’s not doing a good job with you? Really?

Communicate Until You’re Sick Of It

How much do you need to communicate? Constantly. I like to tell my clients that if you tell everybody in the company the same thing seven different times in seven different ways, it might stick. When you’re sick of talking about your company’s values, vision, and goals, when you think you can’t give the same spiel one more time, then you’re probably just starting to communicate enough.

Who’s the best communicator you ever worked for? What do you think they did well that helped them get their message across?

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Posted in behaviour, communications

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Fire the Creeps and Bums

Posted on July 11, 2011 | 2 Comments

Fire the Creeps and Bums

Firing a non-productive or anti-social (in the destructive sense) member of a team actually increases the team’s productivity by 30 to 40%. That means that on a team size of 4, productivity will stay the same or get better even if you don’t replace them,  Yet your payroll drops by a quarter.

On a larger team then you’re making money by getting rid of the bully / degenerate  because of the bump to productivity. If they’re at the managerial or executive level your return on investment is even higher. The higher up in an organization the greater their impact, positive or negative.

Cost of a Bad Hire

If that doesn’t convince you then consider the cost of make a bad hire, or keeping them around. It starts at five times their annual salary and goes up from there, depending on their impact within the organization. Up to 27 times.

Too many leaders are afraid to replace, move, or let go somebody they know needs it. Perhaps they’re in a key position. Perhaps they’re a family member (tough one for sure). Perhaps they’re a loyal, long-term employee whose performance has dropped in recent years.

So decide now what’s best for the business and all the people in it. If you can’t do what’s right, maybe the problem is you.

Let the Facts Judge Them

I like John Spence’s approach as outlined in his book “Awesomely Simple“. You’ll need four sheets of paper: On the first one have thee employee write  what they believe is expected of them. It’s important that expectations are clear and agreed, and that they have agreed deadlines.

On the second they write what they need (training, staff, support, equipment) to accomplish what they’ve committed to. On the third what their reward should be if they accomplish their goals. On the fourth, what they believe the consequences of failure should be.

The key to this approach is regular (weekly) face-to-face review. Regular review is where accountability happens. We don’t need to judge our employees. Presenting the facts will do that for us.

What Took You So Long?

A common reaction when they finally do get asked to leave? “What took you so long?” Everybody else knows what needs to be done. Why don’t you?

What’s the hardest fire you’ve had to make? Do you have somebody you need to let go but just keep putting it off? Let us know in the comments.

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Posted in conflict, developing staff, execution

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