First Thing You Need To Know As Leader Is: Communication Is the Core Activity of Work

Communication takes up more of our working hours than any other activity, and it’s the number-one skill recruiters are looking for in new hires. And yet, it’s also the most difficult skill to find.,

It is believed that 80% or more of all problems in business can be avoided with excellent communication. Effective communication is motivating, unifying, efficient and absolutely essential to productivity and corporate success. Excellent communicators are contagious. Their ability to influence, motivate and catalyze change is a well-known fact.

Begin by incorporating the following 5 items into your communications strategy:

1. Walk the Floor: Many executives hide out in the corner office to their own detriment. Walking the floor gives you perspective and insight into what is really happening in the trenches giving you a feel for the business that you would never have from solely from reading a management report.

2. Hit Conflict Head-on: Conflict is a reality of business and therefore conflict resolution is a skill set that must be honed to perfection. Always make it a policy to aggressively seek out conflict and deal with it on my terms before conflict finds me and I have terms dictated to me.

3. Utilize Technology: Communication and the sharing of information are critical for every business. Today’s environment offers more ways than ever, and the technology available makes it faster, easier, and more efficient. With applications like Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, social media platforms, chatbots, and more being leveraged daily, there are pros and cons for all of us.

4. Maximize Meetings: All meetings should be managed according to an agenda and should start and end on time. If your employees know that meetings are productive they will come prepared to add value and get things done as opposed to resenting just another time suck being imposed upon them.

5. Make the Most of Lunches: Don’t fall into the lunch bunch click of having casual “executive lunches” with the same group on a frequent basis. The lunch bunch mentality is rarely productive and can in fact become very non-productive. Much like “walking the floor” the employee lunch is a good chance to build relationships, gather information, mentor, coach and influence behaviour.

6. The ROI of Great Communication: Exceptional communication drives organizational performance returns in every facet of business operations and at every level on the org chart, including productivity, people, and revenue

7. Improved Productivity: If businesses can learn to communicate more clearly and efficiently — from the c-suite to the intern desk — they can not only gain back valuable time to put toward activities that grow the business, but they can also save significant resources simply by preventing misunderstandings.

8. Stronger Talent Management: At a higher level, when business leaders know how to communicate effectively, they can build trust and confidence with employees and encourage their teams to become personally invested in the company mission. This, again, minimizes turnover and leads to higher quality work from fulfilled employees.

9. Increased Sales

Let’s face it: it doesn’t matter how innovative a product is or how revolutionary a service is. If the sales team can’t communicate its value, then the product or service won’t sell. Sales — and, more importantly, long-term customer relationships — are built on a foundation of trust that is developed through effective communication.

There are very few areas of personal development that will produce the return on investment that improving your communications skills will provide. Work tirelessly in improving both your personal communications ability and the quality and consistency of your internal corporate communications and watch the value of both your personal stock and your company stock skyrocket,

Follow Me For More Tips