The most important communication insight is to keep the lines of communication open. Without open and honest communication, all other attempts will fail or at least get slowed down. The second most important communication insight is honesty. If a leader is not honest, even if it is just in one situation with one person, the rest of his team will doubt everything said to them. The third most important insight is to keep communication positive.
It seems too simple to even bring up, but keeping a line of communication open is the first step in establishing effective communication between leadership, teams and team members. When there is an open dialog between leadership, teams and team members, it is easy to spot problems when they are still small and do something about them. It is also easier to take advantage of insights and ideas that the team finds in the course of their work and take advantage of them. Doing this can save a great deal of time, effort and money.
Teams and team members need to be able to trust their leaders. If there is no bond of trust the people will always be trying to second guess the leader and wonder if what they heard was true. This is especially true when the boss is wrong. making a mistate and admitting it frees the reast of the team to bring problems to their leader’s attention while they are still small. No one is perfect, although we all want to be. Everyone makes mistakes from time to time and that can be hard to admit. Although the best thing to be is always right, the worst thing to do is lie when you are wrong. Now although lying about mistakes is wrong, so is lying about other matters as well. Sometimes there are questions, such as anticipated restructuring that leadership is not planning upon announcing at that moment. It is tempting to came up with a quick lie at a time like that. However it es better to simply say “I cannot comment on that right now” or offer a similar response. .
There are times when a simple “no” seems to be enough, but if an individual thought enough about an idea to bring it to the team’s attention, or the team leader’s attention it deserves more than that. Presenting an idea takes effort, and that effort should be recognized as well. Even if the suggestion is a poor one the person should be thanked for offering it. This goes for evaluating the teams efforts as well. There are times when leadership and teams have to sit down and evaluate the progress to date on a project. It is not enough to go over everything that needs to be corrected and all that needs to be done, the good work and the right things need to be identified as well. If correct action is acknowledged, team members know what to do more of.
Open, honest, positive communication is vital to every business or organization. It keeps team members working together for a common goal. Without it individual efforts can go off in the wrong direction, This misdirection slows the team down. Even worse, if the whole team does not understand and trust their leader the entire group effort can be wasted. If on the other hand, the leader keeps a dialog flowing with the team and its members, efforts get maximized and mistakes get caught when they are still small.
References
Ramgi, P. (2012). The Advantages of Communication With Teams in the Workplace. Retrieved 12 23, 2012, from e-How: http://www.ehow.com/info_12062306_advantages-communication-teams-workplace.html
Stever, R. (2009, 03 31). Seven Communication Mistakes Managers Make. Retrieved 12 23, 2012, from Harvard Business Review: http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2009/03/seven-communication-mistakes-m.html
