5 Ways to Keep Your Team In the Know

So you’re a leader and you're responsible for managing one or many employees. You know that information is power and without the right information, your employees won't be able to perform their best. The importance of keeping your team in the loop can't be understated. Building a successful company is all about the people, and that includes everyone.

Here are a few ways to help you keep your team in the know at all times.

• Giving employees access to information can help them better understand business goals and help them advance their careers.

Giving employees access to information can help them better understand business goals and help them advance their careers. If you're a manager, it's important to recognize that your employees aren't mind readers. They need you to be transparent about what's going on in the company and how their role fits into that picture.

If you think about it, this concept is about more than just keeping people informed; it’s also about helping them understand their work as part of a larger process, which makes them feel more engaged with the organization’s mission. When managers are clear on what they expect from each team member (and when they explain why), they give themselves the opportunity to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable asking questions instead of guessing or ignoring problems until they get big enough to deal with later on down the road.

• Give your team full context.

You might worry that giving context will take too long. If you have a meeting scheduled with your team, why not skip the pre-meeting and jump right into the agenda items? But if you do that, people will leave confused and frustrated, and they won't be able to contribute as effectively at the meeting itself.

In fact, even if they're all in the same room together, it can help to give everyone some context before diving into an agenda item. For example: "We're trying to decide how much inventory we should keep on hand." This gives everyone some background on what's happening before they jump into talking about solutions or solutions of their own (and saves time by eliminating the need for discussions about what this problem is).

• Encourage team members to seek answers themselves.

Have you ever been in a situation where you had an answer for something and no one asked? You just didn't feel comfortable sharing it, so you kept it to yourself. That's the problem with keeping information from the people who need it most—they won't know what they don't know.

This is especially true when your team members are new on the job or still learning how things work. You might think they'll figure everything out on their own, but unless there's a clear path for them to follow and plenty of opportunities to ask questions along the way, they may never get around to asking anything at all!

• Use data dashboards whenever possible.

Data dashboards are a great way to communicate with your team. If you’re not familiar with what they are, they’re basically visual presentations of information that help you see how your company is doing over time. Data dashboards can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or as complex as a customized software program.

If you use data dashboards, make sure your team knows how to interpret the information presented and what it means for their jobs. Don't just show them an overview of sales figures; give them context around why those numbers are important in relation to each other, which departments they're coming from, and where they're going next (so if there's a spike in sales from one department but none from another). Data dashboard tools like Tableau will allow you to create custom visualizations based on specific metrics so that you can really drill down into what matters most for each individual employee—and what's happening at every level of the organization.

• Set up an internal "Ask Me Anything" forum, then ask questions of your own.

?The next time you have a question or something to share with your team, don't send an email. Instead, head over to the "Ask Me Anything" forum and ask away! In this way, you can encourage everyone on your team to feel comfortable asking questions and providing answers for each other. Not only will this help them feel like they're working together and as part of one unit—which is always good for morale—but it also gives them a chance to learn from each other's experiences.

By asking questions that will help your team understand how they can help you achieve your goals, you'll be able to make sure everyone knows what's expected of them moving forward. This kind of transparency encourages people at all levels of the company (may, even across different departments) to work together toward common goals in order to achieve success as a whole.

In order for your team to perform, they need to know all the details of your company's goals and expectations.

The best way to keep your team in the know is by giving them access to the information they need to advance their careers.

If you're an employer and you want your employees to be successful, then they need access to all of the resources they could possibly use. This includes everything from training opportunities, networking events, and even simple things like what's happening at the office which can help them understand how their work fits into your business's bigger picture. If this sounds like you and you want to help your team reach their highest potential schedule a clarity call with me.