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An effective internal communications strategy is crucial to your financial bottom line. Effective communicators and increased profits are directly related. Here are 10 mistakes you should avoid so you can stop sabotaging the way you communicate.
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Avoid These 10
Mistakes in Your
Internal
Communications
Strategy
Stop Sabotaging the Way You Communicate
created by
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
~ George Bernard Shaw
FACT Without effective internal
communication, your business is
doomed.
Without good communication methods,
companies fall behind in productivity,
profits, and employee satisfaction.
What a good internal
communications strategy
should do:
Help team members fully understand the
company’s objectives, values, and culture
Turn your employees into brand ambassadors
Build a company culture of honesty and trust
Improve employee retention, engagement, and
productivity
Provide easy access to important information so
everyone can perform their jobs well
Mistake #1
Letting information just
trickle down from the top
The traditional “hierarchy” model of
communication in which information trickles
down from top management to front-line
workers is fraught with problems. Slow
distribution, misplaced data, and lost
information are common issues.
Assume nothing. Just because the CEO told the executive manager a
piece of news doesn’t mean it reached everyone that
needed to hear it.
And when important information and ideas actually do
get passed along the chain of command, they often get
distorted and misunderstood before they reach their
final destination.
Speed up the flow of information with a good
communications strategy so that everyone stays on the
same page.
Mistake #2
Not asking for feedback
Really, the only way to measure the effectiveness of
your message is if the other person understood it.
Here’s a great definition of effective communication
from ask.com:
“Effective communication is a two-way process that includes sending the right message that is also being correctly received and understood by the other person/s who is receiving it on the other end.”
You need two-way dialogue.
Information is the simple sharing of facts,
but communication implies a two-way
dialogue.
This is a really important distinction that can
transform both your current and future
communication strategies, so let’s say it
again: information and communication are
not the same thing.
Ask yourself how you
communicate.
Do you feel like you do communicate with
your employees on a regular basis, but
they’re still “not getting it?”
Then ask yourself this question: are you
really communicating with your employees or
just giving them information?
Stop throwing information at
people.
We need to stop tossing information at our
employees just assuming they’ll understand it,
and really start communicating with them to
guarantee that they get it.
Mistake #3
Ignoring your employees’
expectations
Because of the recent technology revolution,
millennials (a.k.a. digital natives) expect to be
socially connected to everyone and everything all
the time.
This expectation not only includes their personal
lives but also extends to their workplace
environments.
What HR managers are doing:
HR managers are acknowledging the importance
of more interactive environments where workers
can engage with each other through internal
social networks and access real-time information,
feedback, and resources.
Staying ahead of the
technological curve
Because the current and future workforce is and
will be mostly comprised of millennials,
employers need to stay ahead of the
technological curve to ensure maximum
engagement, productivity, and efficiency from
their employees.
And, with 1 in 5 people in the world classified as
smartphone owners, it’s time we tap into these
digital skills and harness them for the workplace.
Mistake #4
Using outdated methods
The 1980s called. It wants its Rolodex back.
Updating your outdated, paper-based, internal
communication practices with automated and
cloud-based systems produces lots of benefits:
Reduced costs
Increased productivity
Less employee turnover
More efficient communication
Insurance against disasters
Paper is a problem.
These statistics highlight the general workplace
problems with manual paper processes:
1. Workers spend 5-15% of their time reading information
but up to 50% of their time trying to locate it.
2. 7.5% of documents are lost; the remaining 3% are
misfiled.
3. Average cost to manually process a single invoice: $24
4. Average labor costs spent by organizations:
$20 to file a document
$120 to find a misfiled document
$200 to reproduce a lost document
(Source: Going Paperless Saves Time and Hassle)
Use electronic solutions. Automated and web-based solutions allow
efficient management of forms, tasks, and employee socialization in the company culture. These 3 components are essential for every new worker.
In addition to managing these three components, an automated system can also build a network, assist with compliance training, and manage performance.
(Source: Aberdeen Group)
Mistake #5
Procrastination. Period.
Communicate early. No matter how good of a
“secret” you think the impending resignation
of the CEO is, chances are your employees are
already chatting about it.
Be proactive about communicating big
changes early on so employees don’t spread
rumors and gossip.
Decrease resistance to change.
Employees often resist change because they don’t
understand how the changes will personally
affect them. The more you communicate quickly
and honestly about what’s going on in the
company, the more you will have the support of
your staff.
Mistake #6
Not repeating your message When managers want to deliver important
messages, it’s important to deliver the same
message multiple times.
Recent studies have shown that managers
who ask their employees to perform a given
task more than once are more successful in
completing projects.
Repeat after me: repeat it.
In “Effective Managers Say the Same Thing Twice (or More)”, a team of researchers shadowed 13 managers in 6 companies for over 250 hours. The team recorded every type of communication and how frequently different delivery tools were used.
Action: 1 of every 7 types of communications were repeated but delivered through different mediums.
Results: Managers who were more deliberately redundant completed projects faster and with fewer mishaps.
(Source: Harvard Business Review)
Use lots of channels.
Effective tools that can be used to deliver the
same message include:
Face-to-face meetings
Video messages
Telephone conferences
Emails
Text and other documentation
Social media networks/intranets
Mistake #7
Having poor email skills
Email is still the #1 communication tool at
work, but it often causes more problems than
it solves, especially if you use it poorly.
One of the main problems with email is its
lack of feedback. There is little give and take
to the conversation. Because there is no
measurement of understanding,
misconceptions flourish and parties involved
become suspicious of others’ intentions.
Do it right the first time.
Since email can find its way into the wrong inbox
through a variety of careless errors, it is
important that you always use effective email
communication.
One rule of positive email conduct is to avoid
long or frustrating strings of email when a phone
call or face-to-face meeting will solve the issue in
a more efficient manner.
Learn good email behaviors.
More tips for using email effectively include the
following:
Create interesting, clear subject lines.
Never YELL AT YOUR RECIPIENT (i.e. use ALL CAPS).
Be civil and polite.
Include non-verbal cues (pictures, videos, etc.) to
increase understanding.
Be brief. Remove all unnecessary information to
keep your messages short and focused.
Reduce your “email anxiety” by scheduling specific
times to check and respond to messages instead of
switching between applications all day long.
Conquer challenges with good
email communication.
Creating and sending the right kinds of emails
will boost connections with your employees,
current clients, and potential customers.
Interactive video email, in particular, is an ideal
tool for customizing content and sending
personal multimedia messages for greater
impact.
Mistake #8
Being a poor listener
Being an effective communicator is impossible
without good listening skills. Managers should
actually listen more than they speak, because, as
we all know, talk is cheap.
Taking the time to really listen to what your
employees are saying is crucial for an effective
internal communications strategy.
Listening builds the right
foundation.
Listening is the foundation of any good
relationship. It demonstrates your open-
mindedness and genuine concern. From
recognition of day-to-day challenges to input on
larger company issues, employees greatly
appreciate being heard.
Pay it forward. In short, the most effective way to capture
employee attention and loyalty is to pay it
forward by giving employees your attention first.
Mistake #9
Making it too complicated
The best communication is straightforward.
In Made To Stick, Dan and Chip Heath discuss the
“Curse of Knowledge.” Complex information takes
time to process and take action on. Boil your message
down to its core. Make it as simple as possible without
losing the essence. This is difficult. It is easy to say a
lot and cover all the bases. It is hard to say a little and
cover what is necessary. But it’s worth it; brevity
inspires action.
Don’t overdo it. According to “You Won’t Finish This Article: Why
people online don’t read to the end,” most people read
only 50% of an email, webpage, online article, etc.,
before they bounce to the next thing they have to
read.
This implies that anything too long or hard to
understand will just be skipped, skimmed over, or
ignored by half of your recipients.
Mistake #10
Not making a plan in the
first place
Not having any communications strategy is just
as bad as having a dysfunctional one.
Organize your plan and then document it,
focusing on (among other things) the tools you’ll
use to communicate and collect feedback.
Have a goal and aim for it.
There’s a saying that goes something like this: if
you aim for nothing, you’ll hit it every time.
Don’t leave anything in your business to chance.
The communication strategies you choose impact
every area of your company, especially your
financial bottom line.
Get the results you want. Here’s the main goal of any good internal
communications strategy: turning your
employees into effective communicators that
increase your bottom line.
These two elements—effective communicators
and company profits—are directly related.
Start increasing profits. Companies with effective communicators achieved
47% higher total returns to shareholders over the
last 5 years compared to firms judged to have less
effective communications.
(Source: Edeleman Insights Comprehending Change 3.0)
Here’s the bottom line. Mastering internal communication is not only
possible but crucial to the success and
profitability of your organization. Effective
communicators increase profits.
As you consider adjusting or internal
communications strategy, make sure you
avoid these ten big mistakes.
Review: Top 10 Mistakes 1. Letting information just trickle down from the top
2. Not asking for feedback
3. Ignoring your employees’ expectations
4. Using outdated methods
5. Procrastination
6. Not repeating your message
7. Having poor email skills
8. Being a poor listener
9. Making it too complicated
10. Not making a plan in the first place
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