2004 LEADERSHIP ISSUE: The Communication Cycle

How important is it to keep the lines of communication open between you and your employees? It’s imperative – if you want them to support the company’s mission and goals and to perform to your expectations/

Regular and relevant communication from the top down – and vice versa – results in employees feeling a strong sense of identification with and a connection to the company. This is the very foundation of employee loyalty and team spirit. A lack of connection, on the other hand, can breed uncertainty, distrust and alienation that frequently results in costly turnover. Today, with technological advances, such as e-mail, voicemail and teleconferenceing, you have more means than ever before to keep in regular touch with employees. But technology also can be a barrier to communication if you rely on it too much. When necessary, use it as a fast, efficient way to connect. Never forget the value of more personal – including face-to-face – communication.

You might thing you have great communication within your company, but would your employees agree? If you want to know how to improve communication, ask them. Chances are, they’re just waiting for the opportunity to tell you.

You might discover that employees feel they need more of the kind of information that allows them to do their jobs well. They may want clearer instructions for handling certain tasks or deeper insight into how the work they do contributes to company goals.

Most employees would appreciate knowing: “How is my company doing? What are management’s short- and long-range plans? Are we in good financial health?” If your employees indicate they want this information, share it, unless you have a very good reason not to. Putting them in the picture will pay off in goodwill and productivity.

Many employees have great ideas for solving problems or improving processes that could boost your business. But you won’t hear about those ideas if people think you aren’t interested. They might also be afraid they’ll be penalized for overstepping their bounds if they pass their ideas onto management.

Employees need to feel it’s safe to speak up. They need to know that their ideas will be welcomed and valued. This communicative culture must be cultivated. Simply inviting employee feedback isn’t enough. What you do with it will determine whether that flow of information continues. You must respond promptly and positively. Otherwise, the feedback wills top as employees realize you don’t really mean it when you say, “We want your ideas!”

Don’t be offended when employees challenge the way things are done in the company. Trust that they’re speaking out in good faith. If an employee says, “Every second customer complains that this form is too complicated and takes too long to fill out,” don’t respond with, “Tell that that’s just the way we do it here.” Instead, say, “I’m glad you brought this up; we obviously need to make some changes. I’d like to hear your ideas.”

SPEAKING SOLUTIONS. Effective speaking is a plus in the business world. The higher you progress in a company, the more crucial this skill becomes. In today’s business environment, the ability to speak in public is the norm for senior executives. Even if you are not a senior executive explaining a crisis to a group of managers or investors, you often will find yourself speaking before peers in your day-to-day responsibilities.

As a small-business owner, you may speak for a living – in the sense that you may talk to customers and clients daily to sell your products or services. Your speaking success relates directly to your bottom line.

We all know that it is not necessarily the brightest or most capable who get ahead. Often, it is those who make a strong impact on people who end up in positions to buy from them. People who speak well generally are considered more intelligent, forceful and respectable than their quieter counterparts.

Outside the business world, you will find chances to put your speaking skills to use at club fundraisers, on political issues, at farewell gatherings for departing colleagues and friends, and on behalf of non-profit organizations and causes.

Speaking well is a must for the successful individual and particularly for the successful business owner. There are a couple of books by Dale Carnegie that will vastly improve your communication skills. These two books were written in the 1930s and have been in print continuously since. Most local bookstores as well as www.amazon.com carry these.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie – This book along has sold more than 15 million copies and is still a bestseller. I read it when I took the Dale Carnegie Course many years ago and I must tell you I often find myself applying the principles from this book today. I have never encountered anyone who read it and didn’t praise it to high heaven – anyone in sales, any manager, anyone who deals in any way with the public will benefit from these books. The book is in paperback form from Pocket Books and its ISBN number is 0671723650.

The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking by Dale Carnegie – This is one of the finest books ever written on the topic. It is easy reading and it shows you how to make your speaking simple and highly effective. This book is in paperback form from Pocket Books and its ISBN number is 0671724002.

Another way to learn effective speaking skills is to check out Toastmasters in your community, which is a national organization with chapters all over the country of people who want to improve their public speaking and communication skills. Not only is it fun, it gives you the change to practice your communication skills in a positive and learning atmosphere. Their Web site, www.toastmasters.org, will give you the locations of their various chapters.

LISTENING LOGIC. The secret to being a good listener is to focus on what is being said. Too many people only listen to the first few words, then tune out as they think up a rebuttal of some sort. Big mistake.

Listening means the difference between making or losing a sales, gaining or losing a client, motivating or discouraging a team, mending or destroying an employee relationship, etc. Not a passive state of mind, listening is the beginning to all successful business activity.

Listen to others as you try to understand where the other person is coming from, stay focused on the issue without being defensive or making excuses. Keep an open mind. It’s amazing how many problems are created in business and in our home lives because we fail to see someone else’s side.

WRITE IT DOWN. Everything official sooner or later gets written down. Unfortunately, to the small-business owner, most of the difficult writing or at least reviewing of others’ drafts ends up on your desk – large customer proposals, important supplier agreements, strategic partnerships, policy statements, press releases to the public, letters to investors, etc. What you say is what you get. It has to be clear, concise and correct.

One of the most common forms of business communication is e-mail. Some people think because it’s fast, it’s not very important how well it’s written. In the business world today, some folks just type as they think, often using all lowercase letters and including badly misspelled words – even the common ones – as well as poor paragraph skills or just running paragraphs all together.

In business, many of your clients or prospective clients will expect to hear from you by e-mail. And how well or how poorly you communicate may well determine how much business you do. If your letter writing skills are poor, there are many high schools and colleges that have inexpensive evening and weekend continuing education classes for adults. Remember that many people will never see you or your facility, so they will be forced to make a decision to do business with you based upon what you write. Consequently, you must learn to write well.

LEAD A MEETING. Meetings can kill many hours a week fro even the best time manager. Business owners meet with clients to sign the big contract, meet with suppliers to negotiate better terms, brainstorm with their own teams to set up strategies for the next quarter or year, and lead staff meeting to tackle day-to-day issues. How well they lead determines who follows and what they achieve – either time waster or valuable outcomes.

Some of the time wasted at meetings is caused by poor or no specific agendas. Whoever is in charge should create an agenda in writing and send it out in advance so those attending can be prepared.

To facilitate meetings for effective results:

• Set a time limit for meetings and stick to it no matter what. People will love you for that and you’ll find if your meetings really end when you say they will, people will be more enthusiastic about attending and participating.
• End the practice of people getting pages and phone calls during a meeting, especially if they return them. Make a rule that these items must be left outside or turned off. Nobody, no call, is so important that it can’t wait until the meeting ends. Also, stop people from going in and out of the meeting constantly except for bathroom breaks.
• Keep anyone who doesn’t belong out. You are not in the entertainment business.
• Have a written agenda distributed in advance to attendees.
• When people speak on topics other than the agenda, ask them to hold their comments until the end of the meeting or another meeting more appropriate. Don’t allow people to drag out meetings with all kinds of extraneous materials.
• Don’t rehash old items over and over unless there is something new.
• Don’t procrastinate on coming to a decision at another meeting – get the business finished now.
• Ask people to turn off pagers and phones and certainly not to conduct business on a phone call during a meeting.
• Don’t allow people to hog the floor while others sit silently – everyone should have an opportunity to speak.
• Don’t hold meetings at all if issues can be dealt with by e-mails or phone calls. Some people come insecure in their jobs and what the reassurance of a group decision when they should simply make a decision on their own.
• When someone from the meeting is given an assignment, give them a specific deadline to complete the task and confirm that they really have the time. The person who facilitates the meeting should check on the progress of the assignment about halfway to the due date. Sometimes people will accept assignments to feel important even if they are taking on more than they can accomplish.

The author is a sales training expert. He offers additional free sales and time management tips at www.trainingexpert.com.