Listen and talk

Could hidden communication failures be weakening your company?

Entrepreneurs often mentally map out their plans and fail to inform others about their objectives. They understand where they are going but few other people do.

This vacuum of communication may lead to anxiety, tension, and poor morale within the organization as employees feel left out of the decision-making process. To the entrepreneur, the route to success appears clear; to everyone else there does not even appear to be a route.

I have seen businesses grow to significant size (annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars) and still suffer from poor communication. To their credit, the communication breakdowns are usually internal and remain hidden from the external customer.

The comparison of internal and external satisfaction surveys for these companies illustrates the situation. While external customer surveys indicate that the company is performing exceedingly well, employee survey results reveal lagging morale and a feeling that the management team is not listening or is incompetent.

Improving communication within a company requires a complete process change. There is no quick fix. The business owner must strive to:

n Create a continual flow of information to employees.

n Keep them current on what company leaders hope to achieve.

n List resources that will be involved.

n The time frame for attaining goals.

n Who will be accountable for achieving those goals.

Employees want to know they are valued, trusted, and involved in things that will make a difference for the company.

Express appreciation

A company with an effective communication process continuously expresses appreciation for employees.

Improving communication within your organization begins with changing your individual communication habits. Steven Covey's "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" training includes techniques to help you become a more effective communicator.

One of the seven habits Covey teaches is "seek first to understand, then to be understood." Strong leaders develop traits that empower them to fully understand the needs of subordinates and, in turn, communicate the needs of the company to them.

Effective communicators put listening first so they are better positioned to respond to the needs of others and express themselves in a way that has meaning for others.

Understand their needs

As a business owner/manager it is important to understand the needs and perspectives of employees. Employees may be experiencing training deficits, resource limitations, or personal issues that affect their performance.

When you listen, understand and respond with the required solution, you do more than meet the immediate need of the employees; you act as a mentor, helping employees develop good communication skills, too.

There are lots of other tools and techniques offered to improve communication. When I conducted a Google search on "effective communication," it turned up 130 million hits.

Discovering methods of improving communication is easy; putting them into practice is a far greater challenge.

Start simply and build more skills over time:

n Become more aware of what you are saying and how you are saying it by asking for feedback from the receiver of the message.

n Advance by learning to take time to think through your response before making a statement.

n Train yourself to monitor the body language of the person (or persons) you are addressing.

Becoming more effective as a communicator takes time, but you will experience steady improvement if you commit to the goal and continually develop your skills.

We are all guilty of being ineffective communicators at times. Even those who have completed the Covey training find themselves failing to convey their message every time, all the time.

I hope I have communicated the necessity of effective communication to you. If you want your business to be more successful, improve your communication with employees and provide them with the training to better communicate with your customers.

The results will amaze you.

Bud Gayhart is interim director of the Center for Innovation and Business Development at UW-Whitewater.