Developing a Plan to Meet the Difficult Challenge of Effective Communication in any Organization

One of the most important components of good leadership is also one of the most difficult. Have you ever heard the expression, "I feel like I'm being treated like a mushroom"? Mushrooms are fed a lot of "crap" and kept in the dark ... obviously not good when it comes to communication.

The bottom line is that continuously communicating with everyone is critical to an organization's effectiveness. However, getting this done consistently is very difficult. Like many of the other difficulties of leadership and infrastructure building, communication must be systemic - happening almost automatically at all levels of the organization.

Communicating effectively is so important that senior leadership should establish and document a communication plan. The Communication Plan should be "communicated" to all team members and be continuously available for reference. Of course, once you put a plan in writing, you have to follow it.

The Communication Plan should include communication guidelines/requirements at all levels of the organization. A typical plan would include guidelines as follows:

Announcements

A vehicle for routine all employee announcements should be established and utilized as much as possible to get the word out to everyone frequently. Almost anything of interest to the team that is public knowledge can be communicated via e-mail or an internal website bulletin board.

One on One Meetings

A leader should meet one-on-one with their direct reports frequently and informally. This can be done in an actual sit-down meeting and/or through routine interaction throughout the week. Regardless, there needs to be a forum for team leader to team member communication.

Routine Staff Meetings

Every team leader should schedule and conduct routine team meetings. The two most critical aspects of a "staff meeting" are that they are regularly scheduled and on everyone's calendar well in advance and that an agenda is sent to the team before the meeting begins. I've asked many leaders if they have a "routine" staff meeting, and they immediately respond with a "yes." But when I ask when the next one is scheduled, I more often than not get a response like, "We try to have them every week or two." In other words, the leader hasn't committed in the form of a standing appointment on the calendar. The team must know they can count on a regularly scheduled forum for communication and coordination with other team members. The agenda piece is just good practice. People need to know what will be discussed and have the opportunity to add things to the agenda if they want.