Is Your Business Suffering Because Of Poor Team Communication? This Is How You Can Fix It

If there's one thing high-performing teams are built on, it's effective communication. It doesn't matter how disruptive your technology is or how grand a vision you hold — if your team doesn't communicate well, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. Poor communication wastes time, breeds mistrust, and causes unnecessary complexities and stress — all for an often-mediocre result.?

In an ideal workplace, communication between employees would be open, friendly, and professional. Projects would get completed successfully and on time since all key players would be fully informed of their roles and responsibilities. Questions would be asked freely and answered clearly in a timely manner. All of the cogs would run smoothly like impeccable clockwork. smoothly like impeccable clockwork.

Unfortunately, the majority of workplaces do not operate quite that smoothly. Misunderstandings, arguments, and missed deadlines all add up to quite a bit of stress for everyone involved. But the ideal is worth striving for, right? So how can you improve communication and create a strong team to get things done the right way?

Methods Of Communicate

Communication is more than just talking face-to-face, although this form of communication should never be neglected. However, individual people and projects may dictate different types of communication. Technology plays a big part of our communication toolbox and, when used effectively, can save time and help team members work more efficiently.

Experts define good communication as being effective both in the content of your communication and the coverage of your communication. The content of your communication is both what you communicate and how you frame it. As a manager, you should be communicating with your direct reports about both short-term priorities and long-term development on professional and personal levels. You also need to present this information in such a way that your direct report understands and can easily take action. Coverage of your communication is both who you’re communicating with and when, or on what cadence. A manager should have frequent and consistent communication with all of their direct reports.?

Normally a combination of methods works well on most projects, but the key here is how to increase the overall communication across the whole team. By implementing a few simple strategies, you should start to see an increase in team interaction.?

To give you a head start, we’ve come up with some tips, but don’t stop here; be creative and think out of the box!

Open Door Policy

An open-door policy in place sets the precedent that anyone can ask questions, voice concerns, and pitch ideas at any time. This is an important part of building trust within your team. Making management inaccessible sends the message to employees that they are not as valuable. Keeping the doors of communication open is crucial. This also offers the team a message of transparency, an important concept for building trust and clarity. Your team should also know that they can come to you at any time for help and guidance, and that you encourage interaction between colleagues.

The other positive with open door policy is that it encourages communication on a regular basis, rather than as a blast of communication (as often seen in meetings). With an open door policy, the status of the project can be continually discussed, leading to issues resolved immediately.

While you’re opening figurative doors, open literal ones as well. Removing physical obstacles between employees creates a sense of mutual trust and encourages the open exchange of ideas. Problems can be presented and resolved as they arise instead of waiting for the weekly company meeting.

Encourage two-way feedback

Constructive criticism is meant to be just that – constructive. In order to get the most out of feedback, it is important that it be clear to all parties involved. A simple “fix this” in response to a submitted project isn’t helpful to anyone. To be effective, feedback needs to be clear and detailed. Knowing how to give detailed and constructive feedback comes into its own as a method of increasing team communications. Learn how to offer feedback that coaches your team members rather than creating extra boundaries.

Although verbal feedback can be a positive experience for all, encouraging a two-way conversation that enables your team to self-evaluate, it is difficult to retain all the information this way. Make sure you back it up with a written record, whether via your task management system or individually. If you are using task management software, feedback is visible to all which can help increase the overall communication and productivity.

Provide role clarity

One of the most effective structural ways to improve the content of communication on your team is to invest in role clarity. It helps everyone on the team know from the beginning which content is most relevant to discuss with different team members. It’s important to remember that role clarity is not the same as a job description. A job description describes the “job” in a vacuum; it doesn’t provide any insight into the role this person is taking within a team. It’s difficult to have effective communication on your team when these fundamentals are not fully defined.

One of the simplest ways managers can promote role clarity is by explaining to each employee what metrics will be used to define success in their role. When individual contributors are clear on what is expected of them and those around them, organizations reduce friction and can hold team members accountable.

Build the team spirit

Building a team spirit not only gives everyone the opportunity to get to know each other better, but helps to create an environment where everyone feels they have an investment in the outcome. According to team bonding specialists this in turn improves communication channels. nurture situations where you can gather the troops in an informal social atmosphere. Meeting together socially gives the team a chance to relax together without the boundaries of the work environment. You may find it effective to all go out to lunch occasionally, or have “dress down Friday”, or even a weekly fitness class one lunchtime a week can be enough to break the ice.

Be careful of the medium and tone of your words

Remote communication is, for the most part, written. It naturally lacks things we take for granted when talking to someone in person — facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc.

As we're all aware, thoughts can come across much differently in text, and even on calls, than they would in real life. So, make it practice to pause before sending your messages and reread it for tone. On the other side of it, encourage your team and your coworkers to speak up when they feel like somebody is coming across the wrong way. These small things make a real difference when you don't have a face to put to the words.

Cultivate intra-team communication

When cultivating intra-team communication, it’s your job to make sure everyone is heard. This means making sure that those who are less likely to speak up are able to express themselves.

Did you know that studies show that women and people of color are more likely to be interrupted during a meeting than their counterparts? To address this challenge, a manager could implement a “no interruptions” rule for meetings to encourage equitable contributions.

Other dynamics will likely also be at play. For example, the millennial workforce prefers continuous, actionable feedback, while other generations may consider weekly team-wide discussions about how to improve less important. Being cognizant of the diverse needs of their teams helps managers create a better environment for intra-team communication.

Conclusion

Whether you are working with a remote team, or in an office environment, good communication is an important factor to the success of any project. Therefore increasing effective communication should be high on the agenda of any business manager. Managers who constantly seek to improve their team’s communication (and set the right tone themselves) create a happier working environment for their employees and deliver better business outcomes. Challenge yourself to incorporate these tactics into your team’s routine and set the standard for great communication in your organization.

By utilizing these tips, you can bring your team together, improve communication, and generally make the workplace a more enjoyable and stress-free place to be. These factors lead to an improvement in project quality, better control over the budget and increased satisfaction from clients. When the workplace becomes a second home and co-workers become a second family, that cohesiveness translates to your team being at its most productive.