The Most Effective Communication
As we continue our series on teams, we would like to talk about the most effective way to communicate with teams. One of the biggest challenges for even the most successful organizations is their ability to communicate to their people.
I think you would agree that communication is a vital aspect to teamwork. Your team members want to be kept in the loop and updated on organizational news and operations.
Communication to the teams does not have to be a daily task, on the other hand, in the day-to-day dealings with the organization there should be some form of contact. For consistent communication to all teams, there are several ideas that organization’s can implement to make communication more consistent and keep everyone on the same page all the time.
Here are five tools that help you maximize your communication effectiveness and maybe even your organization’s productivity.
1. On-Line Chat Rooms. If you are the type of leader who is out of the office frequently, online meetings or online chat rooms are the ideal tool for keeping communication flowing and interactively communicating with teams. These types of meetings are also great for employees who are not in the local area or are not available to be in the office at a particular time.
There are many options for online meetings and online chat rooms, from free versions to subscriptions that have security features. Monthly, bi-weekly or even weekly meetings can be pre-scheduled so that everyone knows when they are expected to participate. Checkout http://www.dimdim.com, http://www.skype.com, GoToMeeting and WebEx .
2. Live Group Meetings. Nothing can take the place of a face-to-face live group meeting. Monthly or bi-monthly meetings can be used as update sessions or even training sessions. Using live meetings gives team more of a feeling of belonging to the company than emails or online chats.
If your organization doesn’t want to do live meetings on a frequent basis, there should at least be quarterly meetings that are held to update and inform the team members.
3. Email Blast. Team leaders and organization leaders can set up a weekly email blast – an email that is addressed to the entire company. If there are very little hands on contact during the week, this could be set up as a weekly task to be completed by the end of each week. A creative idea is to do the email blast in blog format from team leaders.
4. Conference Calls. Conference calls with teams are another effective method of communication within the teamwork foundation. The only thing to be cautious of is communicating with one team and forgetting to communicate the same information to the other teams. If possible, a conference call could be set up where all the teams are involved.
5. Set Up an Intranet Page or Password Protected Web Page. Create a private network or web page that is only accessible to team members. This format is great for creating an online magazine and a forum where team members and leaders can exchange ideas.
Special Considerations
Leaders need to understand that in today’s high tech world information reaches people faster than ever before. Employees can learn about impending events that affect their organization before they have been announced to the organization through social websites where people share information – often not even realizing that they shouldn’t. This makes it even more important for leaders to keep teams informed and up-to-date.
Benefits
Leaders who take the time to be consistent in communicating with their teams will find that they have a better working relationship with their people. If the teams feel that they are important enough to be included in communications they will take ownership of the common goals of the company and be more productive overall.
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