Welcome to this week’s Discuss HR, the HR blog written for and by members of Human Resources UK.
Firstly, a bit of group business. Look out for the announcement tomorrow when I will release details of the forthcoming networking events. As always they’re free to attend; just for those involved in HR; and are sales free environments.
I promised last week not to make any mention to the Olympics, but I’m afraid I have been completely swept up by how amazing it has been. The performances of the athletes has been nothing short of outstanding. One of the performances that impressed me most was that of Etienne Stott and Tim Baillie who won GB’s first ever gold medal in the Slalom Canoeing. I was so amazed out how they both knew exactly what the other needed to do to traverse the rapids and it was clear their communication skills are exemplary. Which takes me very nicely into this week’s post written by regular writer Una Doyle who looks at what makes good communication. (Ed Scrivener)
The 7 C’s of Great Internal Communication
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| (I always seem to misunderstand... Ed) |
Before I share these Cs with you I need to get something off my chest.
Just because you communicate every day doesn’t mean that you are automatically great at it…
Ouch! I know it hurts, yet I won’t apologise for that statement because I see time and time again how people believe that because they email, hold conversations, attend and run meetings every day that they are somehow an expert communicator. That’s like me thinking that because I drive to work everyday I could race in Formula 1 tomorrow!
Though these seven points can apply to all communication, in this article I want to pay attention to how HR and management can improve the quality of their internal communication, particularly in this time of constant change.
The fact is that poor internal communication leads to misunderstandings, wasted time and effort, ineffective change and even disengaged staff and cynicism. According to research by author Russell-Oliver Brooklands all this could be costing your organisation hundreds of thousands every year (free ebook with financial audit of your internal communication: http://www.internalcommunicationmodel.com/ebooks.htm).
1. Communication vs Communications
That extra ‘s’ at the end can be the difference between thinking of communication as a discipline and thinking of it as a bunch of materials. The former is about looking to use communication to support achieving your organisational objectives, the latter is “I need a leaflet for this project”.
Communication is often an after-thought. For instance change programmes often bring in a communication professional late in the process after the damage has already been done. Give the importance of communication some consideration from the very beginning.
2. Clarity
Whether you are communicating in writing or in person keep sentences reasonably short with one point per sentence and one theme per paragraph or slide.
Look at the structure of what you wish to communicate. Is it in the right order? Are all the points necessary? What questions might be asked when somebody reads or hears this?
Another tip from Brooklands is to drop the ‘we’ and ‘our’ as much as possible. His research has shown that because people don’t necessarily know who the ‘we’ or ‘our’ refers to they subconsciously switch off.
For instance when you say ‘our’ does that mean ‘our team’, ‘our department’, ‘our organisation’ or even ‘our industry’? Be specific about which ‘who’ you are actually referring to.
3. Credibility
Where the credibility lies can vary from organisation to organisation and team to team. In many cases it will be the senior management team, in some, the local line managers may have more impact with staff if there is a lot of cynicism and mistrust of the top team.
In a world of over-communication, don’t underestimate the importance of endorsement in making a message stand out. After all, that’s why celebrities and sports stars are paid millions to endorse products in advertising.
4. Consistency
The positive impact of people from different departments sitting down to lunch and discovering they’ve been told the same thing by different people in the organisation is immense! Look to create situations where this happens all the time and you will be amazed at the results.
Be a part of the grapevine rather than it being an underground swell of alternative messages. This means that you really need buy in from middle management to communicating these messages.
Sometimes this is more challenging if they don’t buy in to the content of the message. At Intel they have a motto ‘disagree then commit’ that allows staff to air their views for discussion, however once a decision is made everybody commits to seeing it through.
This does require that the key messages of every programme and initiative are thought through and the relevant ones go through every communication like in a stick of Blackpool rock.
5. Congruence
This is the C that is often the most challenging because it involves people and their character. Help leaders and managers to move from “Do as I say not as I do” behaviours to doing what they say.
Why should employees behave the way they are asked when they see others not doing so? Alignment between the organisation’s values, the integrity and behaviour of senior staff and communication is vital for it to have a positive impact.
6. Call to action
This often-missing C can have a big impact on the outcome of your communication. Before you begin to put something together decide on what you want people to do as a result of it. So often with internal communication people will say that they ‘just want staff to know’. Great internal communication will be much more specific.
Some examples of specific outcomes could be:
- To apply a new health and safety procedure
- To use a new process
- To increase buy in to the organisation’s values
- To understand a new structure so they know who to work with on different things
7. Comment and feedback
Communication is not a one-way street. It is essential that staff get the opportunity to safely ask questions and provide feedback. Some great ways of facilitating two-way conversations are one-to-one meetings, team briefings, director Q&A sessions, staff forums, suggestion schemes and surveys.
It is imperative to report back to staff on feedback received from them, ideally by demonstrating how the organisation is acting on it or at least explaining why no action is being taken.
To open up further dialogue, I’d like to ask you, "In what ways could you apply these points to improve your communication results?" Please share your ideas, I would love to hear from you.
About the author
Una Doyle is an accredited Talent Dynamics Performance Consultant and an award-winning speaker, coach and consultant. Una has worked with organisations such as Argos, Asda, Yorkshire Forward, Kodak and local authorities from a one-to-one basis, to groups as large as 2,000. She is passionate about helping to create intrapreneur teams; getting the right people, in the right place, doing the right things with ownership and commercial acumen. Una has learned how to apply many of the world’s top-thinkers’ ideas in a way that is simple, profound, gets massive bottom-line results and a more empowered, motivated and engaged workforce.
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Discuss HR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIn group for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be written by experienced HR Director Sheena McLullich.
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