“There’s Just No Communication Around Here!”: Your Opportunity to Lead
Companies lose employees and customers every week because they can’t teach people to communicate clearly and candidly with each other. Period. It’s that simple. And that complex.
This is where you come in. People just about everywhere routinely complain, “There’s just no communication around here.” If you can do something about that situation—that is, change that perception or reality—then you can lead. You can change things for the better.
The answer is not about technology. Blogging, instant-messaging, text-messaging, smart phones—all, just like e-mail and faxes, will be passé after a few years. New technology appears and disappears from the scene. The one constant is human communication.
How do you know if you’re any good as a communicator? By the results you get—or don’t get. You either clarify or confuse. You either motivate or demoralize. You either gain buy-in or generate distrust.
Symptoms of Poor Personal Communication
Most of us think we’re excellent communicators. Unfortunately, our own understanding or response is not the best measure of effectiveness. Everything we say is clear to us—or we wouldn’t have said it that way. So when we look outward for clues of poor communication, these symptoms often surface:
- Feeling that everyone agrees with and supports what you say, feel, and do most of the time
- Lack of input, questions, or feedback on your ideas presented in meetings
- Few or no ideas contributed in your meetings
- Inability to influence others to accept your ideas or change their viewpoint or behavior
- Seeing little or no behavioral change in people you’ve coached for improved performance
- Confusion about what you’re supposed to be doing
- Lack of understanding the “why” behind assigned projects and goals
- Thinking that what you do or say doesn’t really “change things” in the long run
- Nervousness or hesitancy about presenting new ideas to your boss, client, or strategic partners
- Ongoing conflict with peers or family
- Frequent rework
- Constant reminders from you to others to take action, meet deadlines, or send information
- Frequent requests for more information about topics or issues that you think you’ve already addressed sufficiently
- Feeling of disconnection and discomfort in one-on-one and small-group interactions
- Lack of positive feedback about your presentations or documents (from those not obligated to give it)
Symptoms of Poor Communication in Your Organization
Ask executives if their organizations communicate well, and chances are they’ll give you a thumbs up. But ask those a little lower in the ranks and you may hear otherwise. These symptoms crop up:
- Conflicting goals, objectives, priorities, schedules
- Left-hand, right-hand blindness (Division A doesn’t know what Division B is doing and often duplicates—or complicates—their work.)
- Turf wars
- Unclear values
- Low morale; people doing just enough to “get by”
- Lack of coordination of routine tasks; details “falling between the cracks”
- Rework
- Gossip, rumors
- “Us” against “them” attitude and conversations
- Poor team “chemistry” (either open expressions of hostility or silent withdrawal and cynicism)
Your career opportunity is your ability to use the principles of effective human communication to create connections and make things happen. The first step on that career path is to acknowledge reality of the current situation. No one ever claimed clear, compelling communication was easy.
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