Effective Workplace Communication

It could have been an ill prepared
presentation in the Forum at Pompeii that
failed to get across just how bad things
were about to get!

Many organisations actually believe that communication within the workplace is one of the biggest threats to their future success. Communication is simply too easy in the workplace and as a result there is far too much of it. I used to work with an extremely talented guy (amongst many I should add) but he had a blind spot - he could never decide whom it was he actually needed to tell something, so he pretty well ended up telling everyone - usually in finely drafted, but very long emails. Ten minutes after starting to read one of his emails you were often disturbed to find that although it was of say passing interest, you had just wasted a little slice of your life that you are never going to get back.

If I had my way the "cc:" and "Reply to all" buttons would be forcibly (maybe even violently!) removed from all e-mail software. It got so I had to tell him that I would only read his emails if they were addressed directly for my attention, not if I was on the cc: list. Then there are meetings, or as I came to think of them “spreading the blame” time. Most business meetings are set up with various mundane objectives

A lot are set up for reasons of ego massage
Some are set up to disperse culpability amongst at team, too few people at any level of an organisation are actually prepared to make a decision on their own and stick with it.
As a forum for the “I remember making this point last time….” pontificators who would still like the credit if not the responsibility at the end of the day
Then there are those that actually have a legitimate purpose and real value to the organisation, but sadly they are few and far between

OK, that's a very jaundiced view of meetings, but we have all seen examples of these meeting types, we have all had little slices of our lives wasted this way. And don’t even get me started on web meetings!

So, its not the lack of communication that worries many large organisations, it is the lack of effective communication. Estimations of the amount of time wasted by irrelevant workplace "communication" go up every year. We just cannot afford it, no matter how large or how small our organisation is.

Get you and your colleagues to take a step back and take the time to gain control of the things that waste so much of your corporate time - remember, your costs stay the same, but lets say (conservatively) that you could cut wasted time by 10% of your total staffing budget - that gives you 10% more productivity, 10% more sales activity, 10% more income - whatever it is you need to refocus on. The question becomes not how can I afford it but how can I afford not to?

The lack of effective workplace communication - how much is it already costing you?