How To Fix Workplace Communication
Communication in the workplace is a pretty messy deal. Line up 100 people from random companies and industries. Then ask ’em “What’s the worst thing about where you work?” I would guess the answers would be:
(1) and (2) are logical. (3) is work martyr bullshit. And (4) is why pay transparency will never go anywhere so long as rich, white guys run the business world.
But let’s get back to communication in the workplace.
There are two major problems, IMHO. (Really there are dozens, but I’m trying to keep this simple.)
Since communication in the workplace has been a tough issue for roughly 3,000 years or more, is there anything we can do? Let’s try.
Communication in the workplace: A six-tier approach (the good way)
Cool article from Northwestern here called “Six Tools For Communicating Complex Ideas.” In reality, a lot of business is digital paper-pushing — it’s not “complex ideas” — but the rub is that many people think what they do all day is strategic and complex, so this article still works. Want to know the six tools?
Big fan of this six-tier approach, especially stories — business storytelling is crucial right now — and participation. In every one of the 1,592,873 articles on Google about communication in the workplace, maybe six-seven mention “participation.” The very word “communication” implies a two-way street. You can’t have communication in the workplace if it’s just up to down. That’s command and control. It doesn’t work so well anymore, and your turnover will gag a horse.
OK. So these are the six things you should be focusing on for better communication in the workplace. Now let’s turn to how many managers would view this list.
Communication in the workplace: The bad side of the six-tier approach
This is based on managers I’ve had, my friends have had, and my family has had. Some managers are great and “get” all this. Many, however, are not. And when a manager is bad — which is apparently the case 8 in 10 times — they’re usually bad at communication above all else. Let’s break down the six:
So what we’ve got is six logical ways to have better communication in the workplace — and six ways a typical manager would undercut them. You see a problem here?
Communication in the workplace: Let’s do two quick funny stories
Everyone who’s even worked for a single day at a company probably has some bad/funny “communication in the workplace” stories. I have about 7.3 million, but here we’ll only do two.
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Data: I told this story in a post on business metrics , but here goes. I once sat in a meeting. There were two sides of people. One wanted “A” and one wanted “B.” (Doesn’t even matter what those letters represent.) The data was presented, and “A” was the clear option going forward. What did the “B” side do? Instantly — within seconds — they claimed “the data is wrong” and/or “Someone messed up.” That’s classic management. It’s basically management 101. “I didn’t get my way, so let me claim someone else lied and then find a scapegoat.” I feel like I just summarized getting a MBA in one sentence. Anyway. See the problem here? We can’t have better communication in the workplace if the first reaction is “No, that must be wrong.”
Pictures: I once sat in a presentation with 29 — count ’em all — stock images, including a smiling bi-racial family. People really need to be taught how to make better decks and pitches, you know?
How do we get better communication in the workplace?
The easiest way would be “promote empathetic, self-aware people to management.” Since that will never happen, we need a new plan. Here goes.
Style: Half of communication in the workplace — if not more — is about the style in which you deliver it. There’s some decent to good work on that from a former Google and Facebook executive.
Importance: You can’t bonus an executive off “You communicated well this quarter,” so the incentive system here is skewed. But poor communication usually leads to bad leadership, and that usually leads to money being left on the table — or money going out the door via turnover. Here’s some stuff on that idea. A traditional exec will never really care about communication in the workplace, but constantly tying it to money is a start.
Consistent and organic: Most major workplace technology — i.e. email, collaboration tools, etc. — really just allow lazy-as-all-hell managers to hide behind those tools instead of really talking to employees. That’s the essence of why we have bad communication in the workplace. It’s in pixel 1s and 0s form and not human-to-human form. Go talk to people and see where they’re at on projects. It’s not rocket science.
Blow up the performance review: That’s another thing bad, lazy managers hide behind — and it prevents effective feedback, which is the engine you get improvement from. If you blow up performance reviews, you’ll develop employees faster. Plus: the standard performance appraisal is barely accurate at predicting employee performance.
Let your team solve your problems: I’ve never understood this about work, right? Every manager has problems. They have stuff their boss is on their ass about. That manager then has a team. But so many managers think only they can work on the problems from above. That’s dumb. Why do you have a team, then? Bring your team together, explain what your boss is all over you about, and ask for solutions. That’s empowering. It’s also effective communication in the workplace.
Effective communication in the workplace and harsh feedback
This is an important final section. Here’s some new research from a Harvard professor. I won’t lay out the entire methodology here, but essentially, here’s what happened. She set up research around two groups. One gets harsh, critical feedback. One gets comforting, more positive feedback. Eventually, there’s a second task.
For the second task, there’s a 4-to-1 ratio of someone who got harsh feedback saying “Hey, can I have a new partner?”
The underlying idea is that we move away / distance ourselves from people who are consistently critical and harsh on us.
Now, this is a really tricky place in terms of work. An organization must be critical internally — because ideally you’re trying to push out the best product or service possible. But how critical? You can’t be fluffy, but you can’t be Stalin either.
The problem is: a lot of managers are terrified of being seen as “the friendly boss” and they go too far in the other direction. They become the “mean boss” because they think the “mean boss” gets the results. This is the pervasive problem with deifying Steve Jobs culturally.
In reality, the mean boss gets some results — yay! — but burns out and alienates his/her people — boo. There’s also never effective communication in the workplace with the harsh boss, because that dude is banging his fist and demanding results. No time to actually communicate! Read my mind, peon!
What else you got on effective communication in the workplace?