5 steps to building a confident communications culture

A confident communication culture is as much about the psychological safety to make one’s voice heard, as the communication itself.

In a confident communication culture,

• ideas flow freely, the metabolic rate of innovation increases.
• nothing stays wrong for long, in fact it gets right faster.
• everyone’s voice can be heard, and everyone can say they belong.

I once worked in an executive team where we used to joke that to say what you were really thinking was the fast track to the ‘dead bin’.? I say ‘joke’ - but it wasn’t funny, or fun.? Over time we watched as successive colleagues ran the gauntlet of speaking up, only to experience the blow-torch of counter-challenge until they exited the business within months.? Not, I think you’ll agree, a safe space to say what you want.

So how do you create an environment in which:

• people ask each other for help
• challenge is not only accepted but encouraged
• colleagues celebrate each other's work
• innovation just happens
• employees don’t need anonymity to share an opinion
• nor to ‘refer up’ before saying something

Here are 5 steps to creating a confident communication culture:

1. Measure the current state

The first step is to understand your culture now, by listening.? Run a staff questionnaire to understand how confident colleagues feel about speaking out - across a range of topics, to a variety of colleagues.

Eg. You may find that people prefer to speak to HR rather than direct to their line manager; or that questions on strategy simply aren’t on anyone’s agenda.

The second component is pooling anecdote from leaders - what’s their experience of communicating with their team members, what topics are particularly prevalent, but perhaps most importantly what topics are never mentioned?? Silence rarely means all is well!

You may find that your survey has to be anonymous in order to get a quorum of answers. In an ideal world you'd want people to be able to put their name by their contributions. As you develop your confident communications culture, the need for anonymity will fall away, but in my experience it can be a struggle to get things started. As collective confidence grows, I've observed team members encourage their own colleagues to drop their guard.

2. Show you’re listening

Next you need to demonstrate that you’re listening and play back what you’ve heard, and to my point above, what you’ve haven’t.? It won’t be the first time you’ve heard that good communication starts with listening.? The point here is that people don’t say anything if they don’t think anyone’s listening.? So by showing you’re listening, colleagues are more likely to communicate with you.? And if your team(s) listen to each other, then they’re well on the way to communicating better with each other.

3. Set out your stall

Having shown you’re listening, you can rightfully expect others to listen to your vision of the confident communication culture you want to build.? What does it look like?? How would you like it work?? Why do you think it’s important? What’s in it for your colleagues? How are you going to make it happen, and what role does everyone have in this?

4. Make meetings great again

Meetings are where any business’s communication culture is most on show.? Our working lives seem to revolve around them.? While there seems to be a universal truth that we all have too many of them.? While I wonder whether some people think that work is about having meetings, meetings should only exist to help people do better work outside meetings!? Whatever you think of them, your meetings should embody your confident communications culture, so make them great.

There’s a whole separate article about meetings which will come soon, but for now - this:

• Make sure every meeting reflects your confident communication culture.
• Be clear whether you even need a meeting in the first place - in a confident communication culture, you should have the confidence not to have a pointless meeting at all, when you can distribute information more efficiently another way.
• Also be clear what your meeting is for, and what you are expecting of those who participate in it.
• If you want people to contribute to your meeting, then make sure that they all can. Mind that the most vocal don’t get all the air time.
• Be aware of neurotypes who may not feel comfortable speaking in front of a big group, or who may need longer than a gap between sentences to process and respond to what’s been said - for some the conversation may not be over after the meeting has ended.

My favourite book on this topic is Nancy Kelvin’s ‘Time to Think’ - I highly recommend it.

5. Lead by example

Be your business’s best exponent of your confident communication culture, both as a giver and a receiver:

• So be the best listener in the organisation - the quality of your listening will have the bigger impact on your communication culture. ? But also:
• Make your meetings the best in the business
• Give and accept challenge graciously
• Make sure your own communications exemplify best practice in an every medium.
• And make a habit of giving constructive feedback to help colleagues improve and give them more confidence in their communications.? A confident communications culture is also a healthy feedback culture - by definition in fact, because feedback requires confident communication.

After 6 months, take another measurement to find out whether your communications culture has grown in confidence. What's working well, what needs more work? Keep the conversation alive.

With a confident communication culture, you have the foundation for truly effective learning and development beyond the training session, for continuous innovation, and for talent to shine through hierarchy - in short, a foundation for a thriving business.