In Influential Internal Communication, I talk about how communication can be the antidote to the difficult issues causing chaos in an organisation or team. The good thing is, we have the antidote, and it can be used any time to halt a downward spiral. Of course, there’s no quick fix, but communication really is the agent of change.
“The antidote will bring calm to the organization… it brings things under control and it brings a sense of order to the chaos. Investing in communication as the antidote is an easy investment to make. We all communicate all the time so honing those skills to ensure relationships are working well and the organization is running efficiently should be an easy decision for investment.”
Here are six business issues we frequently see and how they can be solved with great communication:
- Complete focus on financial aspects of business: this can lead to a lack of focus on people and other elements of organizational success. Build communication around the story or strategic narrative that can be linked to the purpose and the ambition of your business.
- Inability to get work done: sometimes there is a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. We can often fall into the trap of meetings without purpose or outcome. Discuss where the accountability and the decision-making is. Be clear on everybody’s roles and responsibilities and make sure things happen that drive action.
- People off with stress or on sick leave: this is so often down to the communication skills of the line manager. Listen to the people who are taking time off and find out what is really going on. You may need to address a lack of communication to help solve this.
- High turnover of employees: to understand why people are leaving your company, conduct leaving interviews and make sure to look for any trends.
- Merger or acquisition in progress: this is often solved with better communication. Be clear on decision making and allow space for people to go through the change. You must define the culture of the new organization and communicate in a way that aligns to it. Be open.
- Team friction: this may happen more frequently in organizations where people are more remote than they are together. Discuss with each team member what is happening for them and look at motivations for each person and how to get them working better together.
So much of our communications consultancy work is about creating a plan to tackle these issues head on – we do this for entire organisations – large and small – and to calm chaos within internal communications teams or where the employee experience is poor.
I also talk about this in more detail in my latest article for Forbes Business Council – Why communication is the antidote to organizational chaos. If you’re looking for some powerful solutions to tricky organisation issues, we can help so please get in touch.
