Leverage your vision and strategy as a baseline for consistent communication, reducing confusion and frustration.
Have you ever come out of a meeting and asked a friend, “Is that not the exact opposite of what we were talking about a month ago? What just happened?” Or, “I thought we said we weren’t going to do that. Did something change?” Or even worse, “I literally just finished my work based on what I thought we said last time we were together and now it doesn’t tie to what we just talked about.” Over a long career, many of us will experience situations where we discussed one thing and then, without clear explanation, the direction changed and threw our work into disarray. This can occur for any number of reasons including:
- a lack of an established vision, strategy, and clear outcomes
- poor planning
- not connecting the dots from one discussion to the next
- a better idea came along
- new information that alters prior decisions
Ultimately, the reason for it doesn’t matter. The result is the same: spin. Team members spin, waste time and effort, and become frustrated. So how do you maintain a level of consistency in your communications in an ever-changing world? The best way to accomplish this is by having a vision for your organization. What are you trying to become over a multi-year period? When you have a vision, it is much easier to communicate consistently as your communications have a stable reference point. As an example, for one of my organizations we focused on becoming a digital company. The single multi-year focus allowed my leadership team and me to communicate in a consistent manner, set clear guardrails for the team, and create a baseline everyone could understand and from which our communications could evolve. If you have a clear, compelling vision your communications become easier, and you have a platform for consistency.
Leaders have an incredible amount on their minds. The context switching from one discussion to the next can be difficult to keep up with. In 30 minute increments, a leader may go from a financial discussion to a compliance discussion to a one-on-one with a team member to an operational update to an HR issue and so on. It’s easy to see why they may forget decisions made in meetings and how they can miscommunicate the direction that comes from those conversations if they do not take good notes. Misses happen. Perhaps our minds wander a bit during long meetings, or we focus on something said a few minutes earlier and miss what was just stated. And when someone moves from meeting to meeting with a lot of context switching, there is great opportunity for inconsistency in decisions and trouble for the team.
Perhaps you have seen a situation like this: in a mid-year financial review meeting a leader is focused on reducing expenses and identifying every opportunity to slow hiring and the start of work to bring financials back in line with the budget. But the next day in a program delivery meeting the same leader hears the business case is being negatively impacted by the slow ramp up of work and states in the meeting the team should do “whatever it takes to move things along quickly.” Or maybe you have participated in a meeting that highlights Priority 1 as delivering a new product to market in three months but that overlaps with another organization priority focused on resolving a compliance issue (also stated as Priority 1) and there is a conflict between the two efforts. In one meeting, nothing is more important than resolving the compliance issue and in another the product delivery is most important. In either of these cases, which conversation takes precedence? Is it the first or the last? How should the team respond? You gain your team’s respect and trust when you speak up to resolve inconsistencies. And you win their hearts when you don’t create them. Knowing where you are headed through a clear vision and how you plan to get there via a well-defined strategy will help you avoid a great deal of inconsistency that arises when it’s not clear where you are going or how you will get there.
What if you are a new leader and do not have a vision and strategy worked out with your team, yet? This certainly does not prevent you from being consistent in your communications with your team. Rather, you need to create a different baseline so your communications do not vary substantially and confuse people. For many leaders this often translates to priorities. For example, you could state you have three areas of focus in the near-term: (1) improving relationships with key partners, (2) identifying productivity opportunities, and (3) automating two key processes your team executes. Although not a vision, it is a clear set of priorities that could be consistently referenced. Communications could be framed around these three priorities, and you could begin describing the outcomes you are trying to achieve with each. One highly effective approach for communicating a vision or priorities is to use a From This – To That construct. Describe what you are moving to from where you are today. Then as things change, you can return to this view making it easier to understand and act on the changes. I will discuss this tool more fully in an upcoming post.
Whether you have a vision, a set of priorities, or another point of reference, the key is to have an established baseline for consistent communications. Consistency in communication is important for team members to perform their work efficiently in alignment with your direction. Where there is confusion there is slowness. And, further, if others view you as a flip flopper because of perceived or real inconsistencies in your communications, they will not listen to you for long.
Share your thoughts below.
How do you ensure consistent communications with your team?
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