Introduction
Leaders need to seek better communication skills not only for themselves and their leadership teams, but as part of the organization’s culture. Successful change management requires getting everyone moving in one new direction.
People will be talking with one another while you’re trying to drive change. As a leader, you want to make sure those conversations are out in the open so that objections can be addressed and people will grow confident in your leadership.
Better Communication Skills at the Organization Level
What do we mean when we talk about the communication skills of an organization? At the individual level, we know how to describe communication skills. We talk about someone’s style, their subject matter knowledge, their ability to adapt their message to their target audience, their preparation, etc.
In an organization, better communication skills are something we seek to build in the culture. To be specific, we’re seeking to create a cultural norm of frequent, open dialogue. When that’s the norm, people feel safe in raising concerns and objections, knowing that they will be heard.
They also recognize that they are obligated to participate in dialogue, whether in meetings or less formally among their peers. It’s part of their job, making sure they are contributing not only their labor but their expertise, insight and ideas whenever possible.
Leaders need to look out for the two biggest barriers to better communication skills in an organization: silence and violence.
Recognizing Silence
Very simply, silence means people are not participating in the dialogue. Said another way, important conversations are not happening because people are choosing not to engage in them.
Why is silence a problem?
Hopefully you’ve hired smart people. It only makes sense, then, that you want and need the insights of those smart people when you’re leading a change program. Smart people always have thoughts and opinions. When they go silent, you lose the benefit of knowing those thoughts and opinions.
Besides not having the input, when people are silent you don’t know where they stand. Do they understand what you are trying to accomplish? Are they committed to working with you and your team, or do they have reservations? Without clear understanding and commitment, how will you bring these people along with you?
Addressing Silence
First and foremost, make sure you’ve created an environment where it’s safe to speak out. Many people who turn to silence do so because they feel they may be ignored or worse yet criticized for speaking up.
Examine your behavior — what do you do when you are challenged? Do you fight back right away? Or do you give considered answers and act respectful when you disagree with the challenger? Check the same behaviors in your leadership team, and within the organization in general. You’ve got to make it safe for people to engage. Your behavior will set the tone.
If you’re sure it’s safe and you see individuals are still reluctant to add their input to the dialogue of the organization, coach them individually. Let them know how much their input is valued and needed, and thank them when they open up.
Recognizing Violence
In this context, violence can be described as the tendency of one or a few individuals to dominate conversations. When there is violence, there is no chance for open dialogue. The dominators, if there are more than one, may argue their points without effectively listening to one another. And those who are not dominating the conversation will end up going silent, out of frustration or boredom.
So in the end, violence begets silence. How do you address violence?
As a leader, maintain your own objectivity. You’re a participant in the conversations taking place, but you must also be an observer. Learn to step out of the discussion from time to time and assess what’s happening. If you observe individuals dominating to the point where others are checking out, you need to intervene.
The degree of intervention depends on just how “violent” the dialogue is getting. It can be as simple as reminding someone to ease up a little and open themselves up to push back from others. Or it can go all the way to having to call a time out and taking people aside to help them see that their passion is overwhelming others and suppressing good dialogue.
The Result of Silence and Violence
One of two things is going to happen when you don’t have open dialogue in which everyone is actively engaged.
You’ll stall. Some strong people will argue and debate ad infinitum, while others check out. And your change strategy goes no where.
You’ll move forward. Not everyone will be participating, but strong people will drive and dominate the dialogue and the resulting actions.
Stalling will be very clear to you, and you’ll need to intervene to create safety, get people engaged, help break logjams, etc.
Moving forward might not seem so bad, but beware. Depending on just how many people have gone silent, there may be a time bomb in your implementation plan. When things go wrong, as they do in any change initiative, there will be a number of people who will have effectively positioned themselves to wash their hands of all responsibility.
As we noted earlier, just because they go silent doesn’t mean they don’t have input and opinions. When the plan goes forward and they’ve been shouted down, or chose not to engage because they felt it wasn’t safe, they will be in a position to say “that wasn’t my idea”.
Even though such behavior should be unacceptable, it happens way too often. Prevent it by setting expectations around organizational communication, specifically creating a shared value for open, honest dialogue without repercussion or disrespect.
By: Tom O\’Dea
Posts Tagged ‘People’
Better Communication Skills — Silence and Violence
January 28th, 2010Assess Your Commitment to a “Culture of Customer Service”
January 27th, 2010What is an organization’s “culture?” It is simply a critical mass of the attitudes and behaviors of its people and groups. The fifteen statements below each reflect an important “cultural” reality impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty. They have shaped our customer service program’s success. Do they shape yours? How is your customer culture?
1. T / F: In our organization we operate under the assumption that customers view customer contact persons as “the organization” and representatives of what the organization means to them personally.
2. T / F: We communicate regularly the importance of realizing everyone in our organization has customers: external (“paying”) customers and internal (work group/ inter-work group) “customers.”
3. T / F: We design our processes and train our people around 2 things customers want to know: (1) Do you do what you say you will? (2) How do you handle problems?
4. T / F: Realizing that organizations choose, consciously or unconsciously, to be financially driven and/or customer-driven, we make decisions remembering that organizations working from a short-term, financially driven philosophy are not as effective in service situations.
5. T / F: Since front line persons make most customer service decisions on a daily basis, our top management understands their key role and allows them to inform the organization about customer needs.
6. T / F: We promote the status of front line customer contact people to a position of value and respect—they are not considered the least educated, trained and paid.
7. T / F: We allow our customer contact personnel, not management, to control the quality of the service product.
8. T / F: Management believes in the importance of good service and actively supports it.
9. T / F: We measure customer service results in a way that leads to greater focus on the importance of individual efforts.
10. T / F: We emphasize that customers perceive service to be “good” when positive individual interactions occur—crucial encounters that can be considered “moments of truth.”
11. T / F: “Customer first” behavior is rewarded and encouraged to be repeated.
12. T / F: Customer service skill training is wall-to-wall.
13. T / F: Our corporate culture supports continuous improvement of customer service processes.
14. T / F: “Customer first” attitudes, along with results communicated continually to all employees in simple terms create a climate for quality customer service in our organization.
15. T / F: Corporate goals, policies and procedures reflect a “customer first” mind set, while we foster a rewarding service-focused climate.
YOUR CUSTOMER CULTURE STRENGTH…
13-15 “TRUE” — You are likely experiencing customer (and employee) loyalty and advocacy.
10-12 “TRUE” – Do you have good customer satisfaction scores, but customer loyalty is strained?
Less than 10 “TRUE” — Are you struggling with customer satisfaction, loyalty and brand reputation? Do you have low employee morale and high employee turnover?
By: Bob Davis-Mayo
The 12 Types of Communications Training that Can Transform Your Career
January 10th, 2010Do you need communications training? Everyone needs to know how to communicate well. Whether you are an employee or an organization leader, there will inevitably come a time when you need some form of communications training. Even people who feel that they are already quite good at communication can benefit from additional training. If you feel that you need communication training, do not worry – there is hope for you yet.
Why is communications training important for organizations? It is because organizations are usually broken down into sub-groups which may experience difficulty communicating with one another since:
1) Each sub-group has its own sub-culture and way of communicating with its members.
2) The different sub-cultures and individual ways of communicating may clash when members who belong to one sub-group have to relate with members of another sub-group.
3) The leader of the organization may lack the knack for understanding how to get sub-groups to relate well with one another.
There are different areas in the life of an organization in which communications training could focus on:
1) Presentation Skills Training – everyone in an
organization will inevitably have to conduct a presentation at some point. Additional training will turn average speakers into better speakers.
2) Assertiveness Training – the right kind of assertiveness is required when you have to deal with difficult customers or contacts. Employees need to learn the right way to be assertive and unlearn bad assertiveness habits.
3) Business Networking Skills – If you are a point man for the organization, there will be occasions when you have to walk up to strangers who work in the same field and create long-term contacts. This is where training in Business Networking comes in, to improve your ability at forming business relationships with other people.
4) Business Relationship Management – if you already have business relationships with various contacts, you may need guidance in how to maintain your relationships with these people and organizations over time.
5) Change Management Training – all organizations face impending change nowadays so everyone in the organization would benefit from training in how to manage change at all levels of the organization.
6) Communication Skills Training – everyone will have to learn how to communicate the right message at the right time to the right audience. Even the most confident member of the organization should possess the right communication skills.
7) Conflict Management – accept it, conflict is an unavoidable part of life for all organizations. So people have to learn how to manage incidents of conflict so that they can arrive at mutually beneficial resolutions.
Corporate Events Communication – the way you communicate on a daily basis may be alright in the confines of the office but when you are attending a corporate event, there is a right and a wrong way of communicating with corporate event participants.
9) Customer Service Training – if you find that sales are down, you may have to submit your customer service crew to a seminar on proper customer service communication.
10) Facilitation Skills – believe it or not, many executives dread having to conduct a meeting. That’s because they may lack the proper facilitation skills to open, manage, and close a meeting. Such executives could benefit from training in facilitation skills.
11) Interview Skills Training – who has not had to go through a nerve-wracking interview? But it is okay to be a little bit nervous, so long as you keep your head during the interview and use the right interview skills.
12) Management Training – one trademark of a great manager is competent communication skills. If you lack this, your management capacity could be questioned.
These are just some of the fields under communications training. If you see a field or fields in which you could hone your skills, make an effort to get the right kind of communications training that you need.
By: Peter Murphy
