In sports it is clear that the most talented team or the one with the most quality on the team, do not always win the championship. Being a successful highly competitive athlete on a number of teams, I have experiential knowledge of this truth. In college, I red-shirted or sat out my sophomore year, a team with less talent, less skill and less quality achieved greater results than the team the previous year to qualify for a national playoff tournament.
So, with the research on the biggest challenges facing today’s CEO’s to unlock growth, I knew that communication was going to be one of the challenges from my experience in college and the 15+ years in business. It is a hard obstacle that requires skill, commitment, transparency, and planning to be effective. You can read the original blog post here.
Why are some teams successful and others are not? The best are able communicate effectively. Communication is defined as the sharing of information between one person to another person. Despite sounding simple, it is difficult to accomplish because it involves one person to share a thought or idea and the other to comprehend and understand the meaning. There are people better prepared and knowledgeable to discuss the nuances on the art of communication and the keys to listening, that is not the point of this blog. The point here is how to create consistent, regular communication using defined communication plans without adding more Zoom calls.
To draw you to our experience or experiential knowledge learned over a 15+ years in executive leadership with over 100 team members and $120M in revenue responsibility, it is always about having a communication plan. An intentional, documented, recurring plan that shares with the target audience your goals, plan, guidelines or any other message you want to convey. Here is the key part to the plan that significantly increases the likelihood of success! The plan may resemble an advertising campaign, brand awareness, account based marketing plan, sales strategy, HR initiative, leadership principle or even your own management style as they all share a common theme, attribute and requirement: Effective communication with these attributes:
Define goals: Where is the company, organization, department, team and individual seeking to achieve and what are the goals they are trying to accomplish. This must be in writing and with defined metrics.
Define roles: After defining the goals, each stakeholder must know what their part is, and the associated responsibility required to achieve the goal. Listen and seek stakeholders input. This is personal! A personal connection on why the goal aligns with their individual vision of their future. I wrote about this is an earlier blog here.
Shared responsibility: This is multi-faceted action to ensure everyone know and understands. It is a shared responsibility between the Leader and stakeholders. The leader must clearly, accurately define the goal and then share with the stakeholder the required contribution and role. Then the leader must listen; yes listen to hear the stakeholder is able to articulate and define the goals, objectives and responsibilities. This is a shared responsibility between leadership and stakeholders. Shared both need to accept and buy-in. Listen and seek their input by affirming their actions and successes.
Art of Communication: This is being relentless, open, transparent and using all forms of communication with simple and direct FAST communication. Each engagement should align and support the goals to discuss the stakeholders role and responsibilities. Ask questions and seek input on the stakeholder sees the goals. Listen to how they are performing to date and the success rate in accomplishing goals. Are you aligned?
Always Arriving: We are always moving towards and getting closer to achievement. How each action is focused and aligns to the destination. Encourage input as growth is a journey not a destination. You are always arriving, moving forward towards the goals. Not only the company’s goal yet also with the stakeholders goals and their personal goal(s).
Effective communication is part of every plan and every goal the organization creates to be successful. These principles will serve you and accelerate your organization to greater success and a winning culture. Decided not to provide business case examples as I wanted to share those privately with those who have an interest in learning more and implementing these principles.
Please feel free to reach out and share your thoughts on why you agree or disagree. If you want us to create a specific communication plan for your objective simply reach out to us today!
Note:
These elements that are incorporated into the post:
· Real World Experiences: Lessons learned from my experiences are always bolded and blue.
· Critical Competencies: These are tangible proven skills sets that I have developed over my career. These should give insight into my competency and are highlighted in yellow.
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