You cannot NOT communicate. Communication happens all the time, whether you like it or not. The question for leaders in professional services firms is: Do you want to manage communication or do you want it to manage you?
XL Insurance, a commercial insurance firm, found that communication was the No. 1 reason for liability claims among A/E firms. The company studied 24,000 closed claims that paid out more than $1 billion. Of those claims, 80% were non-technical. Twenty-seven percent were directly tied to communication issues.
What is strategic communication?
In many firms, information comes from the top and conveys to employees and shareholders what is happening. Information is limited, one-way, and often reactive. And when nothing appears to be going on, nothing gets communicated.
Strategic communication, on the other hand, is proactive. It is designed to help a firm fulfill its strategic plan. A firm’s leadership manages its communication in an open, candid way so that employees know what is going on. Management understands that employees need critical information so they can make the best decisions that will support the company’s strategic direction. Here are some tips for practicing strategic communication.
Design a communication philosophy
What is your firm’s philosophy for communicating? Who gets what information? Some companies are tight-lipped and do not willingly share information. Other firms share everything. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being “hoards information” to 10 being “full disclosure,” where does your firm fall?
What level of disclosure are you comfortable with? How much do you trust your people? How much do you want clients to know? The executive team needs to determine the answers to these questions. Those answers will guide how and what you communicate.
Start with your company culture
Your company culture drives the behavior of every employee and the message each employee conveys. The culture, developed by the leadership team, defines your vision, mission, and core values. Companies often devote considerable time to developing their vision and mission. However, too often the values are put together quickly, without examining what they really mean.
According to psychologists, the values drive our behaviors that deliver business results. Are your company values really doing that? Does every employee know how to act in any given situation based on your company values?
Are your values truly aligned in your firm? If teamwork is a core value, do you reward individual performance or team performance? If teamwork is a value and you reward individual performance, you are sending a mixed message. This needs to be addressed.
Link people with your strategy
When employees understand how they fit in your company, your firm will be more successful. In its WorkUSA 2002 study, consulting firm Watson Wyatt found that the return to shareholder was four times higher when employees
· understood the business,
· understood the impact of their jobs,
· supported the company’s direction, and
· understood the steps needed to reach the goals.
“When communication is managed well, we decide and act in ways that help the business succeed. When communication isn’t managed well, we don’t,” writes Jim Shaffer in The Leadership Solution.
Link processes to your strategy
In its study of liability claims, XL Insurance determined that 64% of the communication claims resulted from a lack of processes or procedures to identify or address conflicts, omissions, or errors on the job. Do you claim to do the job right the first time, but then face lawsuits due to faulty work? What does that communicate to the staff?
If you say that you are customer-focused, what procedures do you have for dealing with communicating with customers, ensuring customers understand you, ensuring you understand your customers? The clarity needed for successful projects doesn’t happen by chance. You focus on developing a communication process that will ensure understanding. And then you teach it to your managers and every employee who works for them.
Good business sense
If you invest in strategic communication, you will reap the benefits. In its WorkUSA 2002 study, Watson Wyatt found that companies that communicated well, according to employees, had a return to shareholder value three times that of firms that didn’t communicate well. The employees considered the following in answering this question.
· Management seeks the opinions and suggestions of employees.
· Management acts on employee suggestions.
· Management provides information about the company’s performance compared to its financial goals.
· Management explains the reasons behind major decisions.
· Management encourages employee involvement and the sharing of information and ideas across the company.
Hewlett Packard also found financial reasons for investing in strategic communication. Knowing that employees cite their manager as the number one reason they quit, HP set out to determine what was behind that. HP found a direct correlation between a manager’s communication effectiveness and an employee’s job performance. If you want to keep your top performers, invest in their managers’ communication abilities.
