Communication+Management

Successful internal communication requires more than a finely crafted message. That message also must be delivered by the right person, using the right platform, at the right time. And all those decisions should be handled consistently across your organization. At one of my recent employers, we discovered we had a problem with several of these steps. Some situations that required specific messaging came up frequently, but they were managed differently depending on the team leader involved. That’s understandable, because each of them had a different take on what would be best in the various situations. However, this lack of consistency and standardization with our messaging led to confusion, miscommunication, and misunderstandings, which hurt morale. When I moved into the internal communications role for that division, one of my initial tasks was to create a communications protocol to clean up this mess. The first step in this process is to make a list of the different types of messages...

Information is tricky. It can be incredibly powerful, both when it’s shared and when it’s withheld. It can move people and organizations in directions either planned or unexpected, depending on how it is released. And it sometimes seems to have a mind of its own. If you’ve ever tried to keep a secret, you know firsthand how badly that information wants to be set free. To harness the power of information, an organization must determine how, and how much, it wants to communicate. Based on my years of experience in several different kinds of businesses and organizations, I’ve come to believe that a philosophy of transparency is the best foundation for an effective communications plan. This is not to say that a leader should communicate every detail about every topic to every person on his team all the time. Organizations will always need some level of confidentiality, especially when dealing with sensitive topics. However, that doesn’t mean a business should default to secrecy. Rather, I ...

In a perfect world, every company would have sustained growth, generous salaries, wonderful benefits, and huge annual bonuses. No one would ever get laid off, and all the news you distribute to employees would be good and positive. But we don’t live in that perfect world. If you’re a manager, you will have to deliver bad news to your team at times. Here are a few things to remember when you must communicate negative developments. Plan ahead . Sometimes bad news sneaks up on you due to unforeseen circumstances or disasters. In those cases, you need to go into crisis communication mode, which I’ll address in another post. However, most of the time, you’ll see bad news coming weeks or even months in advance. Make sure creating a communication plan for that news is part of your process. This plan should address who is going to be told what, when they are going to be told, and what method(s) you will use to disseminate information. Communicate early . The sooner you can provide information,...

When I was editor of the business section for a daily newspaper, one of our regular beats included writing about the state Public Service Commission, which was responsible for regulating utilities. I covered that beat for a while when I was a reporter, and it was complicated work. It took me months of attending meetings and asking questions to learn the technical terms the commission used and to understand the issues they were addressing. Just as I was starting to feel like I had it figured out, I left the beat, and another reporter took over. That may seem like a strange time to make a change, but it was absolutely the right thing to do. Why? Because that jargon I finally understood was starting to find its way into my stories. Having become somewhat knowledgeable about the commission’s work, I was no longer as likely to ask questions that would allow me to explain issues in a way the average reader could understand. My stories were still correct, but they weren’t as clear.  We of...