Communication

How to improve the communication throughout your organisation with staff, customers and suppliers.

Most business owners come to us saying that they have staff problems and almost every one of them will have had a gap with the way communication works in their business.  If you get communication right in your business a lot of time, money and stress can be saved. 

 

The first key learning is that you actually need to communicate differently to different people. The way you like to be communicated to may not be the way that one of your key staff members likes to be communicated with. As a leader you have an obligation to meet their requirements, do not be so arrogant to assume that they just have to adapt to your style. The truth is in most cases will not happen and you will lose staff.

There are a lot of profiling tools available that will help you understand the different styles, we use DISC but it does not matter which one you use. But do yourself a favour and learn what your communication style is and what the other styles are. Adapt your communication style to suit the person you are communicating with and you will get a lot better result.

Secondly, communicate the difficult issues when they occur and in person. So often we see leaders wanting to send emails or texts rather than talking in person. This almost always ends badly. You can confirm a conversation that you have had with an email but the first communication needs to be verbal. Do not do it 2 weeks or 5 weeks after it happened.  Confront it at the time and deal with the issue. Our clients are always surprised at the result of this. “Oh, that went better than I thought”, is a common response once the conversation has been had.

Thirdly, be consistent and frequent with your communication. Do not change your message or have one message for one staff member and a different rule for another staff member. Do not just reprimand or discipline. Make a point of congratulating or praising good behaviour when it occurs so that everyone knows what you are wanting from them, not just what you do not want. 

Finally, listen and allow your staff to have their say. If you want a company where staff feels valued, respected, appreciated and like they can give input, it is critical that you listen to them. It is always a good aim to try to be doing less talking than the person you are communicating with. You do not have to agree with everything that they say but you do need to hear what they say, and have them feel that they have been heard.

Organisations with great communication are more often than not high performing companies and getting this right in your business will greatly increase the value of your business.