Employee to manager: “I’m starving!” Some food for thought on the difference between information and communication: employees are bombarded with information but starved for meaning.
Communication only occurs when an exchange results in shared meaning. Communication is all about facilitating dialogue. To build a successful team, you need to create a culture where it’s safe to dialogue about issues to ensure the smartest decisions possible.
What comes to your mind when you think about the world’s great leaders? Often, it’s how they inspired people or organizations to achieve greatness. Or a stirring speech that delivered a compelling message. The fact is, most great leaders are also great communicators.
In organizations, the best leadercommunicators bring their vision to life in a way that connects employee needs to company priorities and business goals. They not only plan how they’ll communicate, but also ensure they are delivering a strategic message that will inspire employees to positive action.
A client recently realized that she wants to smile more. Having seen herself on a number of corporate videos and in virtual meetings, she’s made a note that when she smiles in her delivery, she conveys her excitement more naturally, is more motivating, and overall, comes off as more like herself.
Smiling naturally is a powerful way to connect with others and can positively impact how we feel as well.
Tags: Communication Skills
When you don’t have position power in a situation, or don’t want to use your position power, which is almost always the wise choice, you need to use your influence.
Influence is the ability to impact or change how a person thinks, feels, or acts. Since communication at its finest is about moving others to action, to change how people behave, first you need to change how they think.
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What do employees want? While the answer varies by employee, our research and work reveals a collective “wish list” every boss should know.
Tags: Communication Skills
Ask any journalist and they can tell you about the 5 Ws and an H. Any solid news story covers those six basic ingredients. The same is true for communicating inside an organization, especially as it relates to sharing a compelling vision or guiding decisions about the future.
Want to ensure you don’t forget a critical detail in your communications? Think 5 Ws and an H to ensure you're capturing important perspective, sharing the all-important context, and making it relevant for your audience.
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Whether you need to leverage new technology, engage employees to deliver better for customers, or just keep meeting your business goals, good communication is critical to any success strategy. Strong leadercommunicators know that when it’s effective, communication does much more than make people feel good. It is directly linked to business results.
I firmly believe that leaders are always communicating, whether they intend to or not. And just like a leader sends a message by communicating – or not – an organization shows its commitment to communication whether it intends to or not.
That’s why, when clients come to us for help on improving communication, we start by taking the organization’s temperature. That means evaluating some big-picture indicators of its commitment to the practice and value of communication.
The answer here might surprise you.
Both can be effective communicators, if they understand the implications of their preference, and flex their style. The variables to consider are about the quality and quantity of communications.
Over the last several months, we’ve all faced discomfort in new ways – from navigating the unknowns of the pandemic and making (and communicating) difficult business decisions, to facing unconscious bias and having important conversations about race – there’s no doubt we’ve gotten out of our comfort zones in new ways. If you’re like me, I’m committed to taking these lessons forward and pushing myself to embrace discomfort even more. If you were to commit to some additional chutzpah in your communications, where might you focus your energies?
