Go into any business and ask them what are the burning issues that need to be improved, and you will probably find the word ‘Communication’ within the first five priority points. Even as technology continually finds us cleverer ways to communicate, it still seems to be this element that most trips us up. Building best practice in this space is less about implementing a new ‘system’ or set of ‘rules’, and more about creating a culture of effective communicating, using whatever media works within your business. And the word ‘Culture’ automatically means that it needs to be led and modelled by the senior team in a business.
So the frustrating thing for managers is that this incredibly important element of daily effectiveness cannot suddenly be ‘fixed’ by some sort of management intervention. Just like losing weight, it requires a slow and steady change in behaviour: Managers, daily bringing their own communication A-game, until the more effective communication behaviour is cascaded throughout the whole business. The tough part is that bad management communication behaviour is also taken up throughout the business as ‘the way we do things around here’.
I asked a few of my business leader colleagues for their favourite ‘go-to’ tips when they are working at better communication within their businesses:
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