What you think is a communication problem may be an alignment problem

Sometimes communication problems are communication problems. And sometimes they are not. Or at least not the type of communication problems you are thinking of...

About a year ago, I was troubleshooting with a client about what she thought was a communication problem with her staff. By now, I know to test those assumptions, so I started to dig into the issue with her a bit more. She explained that some people weren't doing what they were supposed to.

We explored it a bit more and I asked if she had ever sat down with an employee and spoke about expectations regarding certain things she wanted them to do. She nodded. I then asked if, at the end of the conversation, she had mirrored to them what she thought they agreed upon. She nodded again and said the employee agreed - they were on the same page.

I asked her if it had ever happened that, after their conversation, even though they had committed, the employee still didn't do what they had agreed upon. She nodded again. I then asked her if it was possible that she could be asking them to do one thing and the employees' line manager could be asking them to do another. She said, "Oh my gosh, that just happened yesterday!"

You may be smiling at the familiarity of this situation because, unfortunately, this is such a common problem! If the priorities of the people in your leadership team are different, when they go and work with their people, situations like these will happen.

The reality is that employees spends more time with their line managers - so they want to do what the line manager asks them to do! Competing priorities can cause quite a bit of frustration and be the perfect breeding ground for politics. And politics kills morale and productivity!

The key here is alignment, getting everyone on the same page and rowing in the same direction. If you see you have an alignment issue, and not just a communication issue, here are two tips to foster it in your leadership team:

1. The Leadership Team is the most important teamWhile you are the CEO, you can't do all the work! The LT is responsible for making sure that happens. Help them understand that they have to prioritise the overall priority of the company over their own. Sometimes, they may have to reprioritise, and it may be painful to go to their teams and change things up. In the end it is better that everyone is on the same page. When it is time for accountability and rewards, focus on the overall company - not just the department a particular LT leads.
2. Come up with one priority for the companyIn Patrick Lencioni's book, the Advantage, he speaks about six critical questions that every team should answer. Question 5 is "What is most important right now?" In other words, what is THE priority? Sometimes, we can feel the temptation to have 3 or 4, but what happens when it is time to choose one over the other? Which one takes precedence? That should be the priority for the next month or two. It doesn't mean that you are not doing anything else. It just means that that one thing is the priority right now. And communicate the priority repeatedly so that everyone in the company knows what it is.

Next time you think you have a communication problem, don't take it at face value. Dig a little deeper. You might find it is an alignment problem after all.