You’re struggling to communicate with your team. How can you get everyone on the same page?

Para identificar a causa ou causas raiz de problemas de comunica??o com seu time é fundamental que primeiramente seja fortalecida a rela??o de confian?a entre pares (membros da equipe) e entre líder e liderados (você e seu time), sem essa rela??o de confian?a e um princípio de transparência relacional pode existir foco nos efeitos da comunica??o n?o eficaz e n?o nas causas. é importante destacar que cada membro pode ter um estilo de escuta e as causas da má comunica??o podem ser específicas para cada membro, entretanto se o ambiente for saudável e propício a diálogos difíceis será possível identificar as causas de grupo, individuais e melhorar a comunica??o dentro dessa equipe.

To identify the root cause one needs to be hearing what is going on with those in the front lines - whether they are associates doing work or the customer. There is an informatic that shows leaders of leaders have 10% or less knowledge of problems and those on the front line are at 100%. As a leader you need to listen - I disagree that is the fourth step; it should be the first step. Those on the front line living the problems already know the root cause and have ideas on how to solve them. To understand, you need to engage and listen. When I engaged in a listening tour paired with lots of questions to understand and any available metrics, the root cause was identified... typically with creative, innovative solutions already thought out.

Providing clarity is key to setting goals but dictating specifics will stifle innovation. It is a balancing act to provide enough structure around the goals but enough room to be creative and break boundaries when needed. How I have approached this is by setting a vision that paints a picture of the future - there are many different approaches for a vision but I have found the simplest is the best. With a vision to focus upon, next orient on specifying your Intent or the why but not the how. Engage the teams around defining the how and put measures for progress. Be careful with measures as they can also dictate an intent that will stifle creativity and close doors on potential innovations. OKR's pair quite well with the above approach.

In the world full of speakers, be a listener. This can help you to build a conversation in an effective manner. However, choose the topic which is common to both and try to integrate the information that you wanted to convey to them.

I have used many techniques to bridge understanding to action. I have found some of my most successful engagements is by creating a fun exercise. Example, I had an organization of 21 teams where the drive was to innovate but innovation meant coming up with the best idea and getting that recognition. Only a small percentage of innovations come from this approach; something like 96% come from bad ideas. So I created and led what I called a Bad Ideas workshop where we took suggestions for bad ideas, voted on the worst, and then together we built upon that idea to make it better. It underlined that great ideas come from a team effort to build upon each others ideas. We had an uptick in our innovation metrics in the coming quarters!

Take a step back. Walk away from your desk and get some fresh air. Perhaps sleep on it. Come back fresh and you might discover another way to communicate. Or perhaps you might discover that the thing you were struggling to communicate isn’t as important as you had initially considered. Time and energy are precious. Look after yours and others.