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We're continuing our examination of the profile of a 'complete' manager - one who daily achieves Predictable Success® for herself, her team, and the organization she works for.
Over the last couple of months we have seen that the foundation of a complete manager lies in their ability to enhance their productivity. More specifically in the areas of; time management, priority management, crisis management and delegation.
We progressed in the series to look at the second group of key skills; Developing Others. In this area we have demonstrated how the Complete Manager provides consistent, on-going performance assessment, ensures their team receives appropriate mentoring and coaching and finally, empowers their employees to make decisions.
We are now looking at the third group of key skills; Teamwork. We've looked at area of Conflict Management. and last week we saw the need to develop your skills in Difficult Conversations.
(If you want to follow along the connections between the 14 characteristics, you can download a copy of the Complete Manager Brain Map - a pdf version of the graphic at top right).
You can track the series using this progress bar:
The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished. - George Bernard Shaw
The age of email has been superseded by the age of continuous communication.
Whether it's formal presentations, voicemail, face-to-face meetings, vidoeconferencing or just a corridor conversation, you are incessantly assessed on the quality of your communications.
With the volume of information involved in management, it's not optional for the Complete Manager to have exceptionally strong communication skills- written, verbal, listening and presentational.
Your Challenge: To be at least as good at communication as you are at your core functional skill.
Here are the five things you can do to improve your communication skills.
1. Communicate clearly and unambiguously
The handout includes five key questions to assess how effective you (or your managers) are at each of the 14 key skills of a Complete Manager.
Not a member yet? Click here to join and access this resource
Click on the image above to download a 17-page pdf workbook from the members-only resource area.
Have you ever had one of those conversations were you walk away thinking "I have no idea what the other person just said."? If so, you know that unclear communication is one of the main contributors to inefficiency and misinformed decisions in the workplace. Lack of clarity and/or ambiguity leads to confusion, mixed objectives, unclear directions - and ultimately, underperformance.
No matter what form of communication you are engaging in (face to face, voicemail, email, presentation) you must be clear on the point of the communication. What is the message you are trying to get across? What do you hope to achieve from this specific interaction? What information do you need to obtain?
Put it this way - if you don't know your MWR (Most Wanted Response) - if you're not sure that the interaction has a point - then you may be wiser not having the interaction at all.
During the communication process, the simplest way to make sure you are communicating your goal clearly is simply to ask the other party if they can summarize what you have just said. Ever played 'telephone'? You might be surprised what you hear back.
Being clear and unambiguous in your communication will align your team around the same goals - the first step to obtaining those goals effectively.
2. Listen actively to others
There is nothing more frustrating than talking to someone who is obviously not paying attention to you. If you're bad at actively listening to your team and colleagues, not only will they find the process extremely frustrating but you will also miss out on key pieces of information that will help you make the best decision at the time.
At its worst, if you are a poor listener, your colleagues and team may give up on trying to communicate with you about anything other than the most mundane matters - leaving you in a dangerous vacuum.
Here are the 6 habits we teach on The Compete Manager Program to practice active listening. (They come in a useful acronym)
Lock in on the other person
Inquire with questions
Stay on topic
Test your understanding
Evaluate the message against known data
Neutralise your feelings
Remember, merely shaking your head and agreeing is not active listening - and the person talking to you knows it.
Next time you're having a conversation with one of your team, use the 6 steps above and really listen. You'll find that you'll have more of the information you need to make an informed decision.
3. Communicate appropriate information (communicate about the right things)
There are two ways in which managers slip into inappropriate communications:
[1] Some managers try to compensate for a lack of quality interaction with their team by amping up the volume and frequency of irrelevant communication.
Email communication is a good example (but not the only one). People get enough junk mail as it is without their manager adding to the pile. Your team don't need to receive an email from you showing the "10 funniest pictures of the month" or the "joke of the day." And it doesn't compensate for failing to show up for their weekly one-on-one or missing another ridealong - in fact, it merely serves to minimize the importance you are seen to put on quality communication.
Our non-email communications can also carry a too-high amount of 'junk'. It's one thing to talk about the game at the weekend or your recent vacation, but if the signal-to-noise ratio in your communications gets out of whack you risk being seen as a time-waster and finding that your team and your colleagues are dismissing you as a lightweight.
[2] There's a time and a place for everything.
Your one-on-one with a team member isn't the time to riff on other colleagues. The monthly board meeting isn't the place to dissect yesterday's annoying customer service call. The annual sales conference isn't the forum for disciplinary action, and the rest room probably isn't the best place to start redesigning a complex compensation program...
...and yet many managers seriously disadvantage the likely success of their communications by showing a tin ear to the rhythm and appropriateness of place and time.
Of course, the greatest living exemplar of the 'tin ear' school of management is Michael Scott of 'The Office' (David Brent, if you're British) - and as Ricky Gervais, the character's creator said - "If you don't know a David Brent, it's because you are David Brent".
In The Predictable Success® Complete Manager Program we encourage (and assist) participating managers to develop their own communication skills.
If you would like to enquire about The Predictable Success® Complete Manager Program for yourself or your managers (or make a no-obligation pre-registration), just use this simple form and we'll get back to you with the details.
4. Communicate with appropriate frequency (not too often, not too infrequently)
There is nothing worse than being hounded.
Don't kid yourself that over-communication is a good thing - it's not: micro-managing is bad managing - whatever you want to call it. Your team undoubtedly have a lot on their plate already without having to return unnecessary emails and phone calls from you asking about the progress of their latest project - or even worse, being forced to submit regular 'progress reports' that are never read or acted upon.
Hire people you trust, set clear goals, then communicate in accordance with reasonable, agreed timelines. Encourage your team to come to you if anything happens outside normal expectations or when they need help and advise, but don't hound them to death with nannying follow-ups.
You do not get accountability as result of follow-up: you get compliance (from the hard workers) and manipulation of data (from the others) - two entirely different things.
There is nothing worse than being ignored.
On the other hand you cannot afford to delegate out of site and fall into a communication black hole. Your team needs to hear from you regularly (note: not necessarily 'frequently' - see above) and consistently, particularly at those points when they need your input on a decision. If you can't (or won't) respond to them in a timely fashion their performance will go south - fast.
The upshot? You need to find a balance between over-communicating to your team and leaving them in the dark.
Start by ensuring you have well-defined projects with clear goals and milestones - doing so will almost automatically identify those points of the project were communication is required.
5. Communicate with the right people (doesn't go behind people's backs, doesn't lobby inappropriately etc.)
This is pretty self-evident, so I'm not going to spend much time on it: If you want to know why Jean from accounts was not able to get the purchase order out on time, ask Jean from accounts. If you want to know why Fred isn't closing the percentage of sales you expect, talk to Fred. If getting the information you need to make a valid conclusion requires that you speak to others, then do so, transparently and above-board.
If, on the other hand, you want to get a reputation for being untrustworthy and duplicitous don't speak to Jean or Fred - or do so in a vague, passive-agressive, ambiguous way - and make sure you're seen engaging in furtive side conversations with others about Jean and Fred in the corridor. A couple of emails with 'bcc's will porbably help as well.
The Complete Manager communicates with the right people. At the right time. About the right things. Even if that does mean having a difficult conversation.
As with all of the steps above, going to the right person will make the communication process more efficient and will provide you, as a manager, the information you need to make better decisions. It will also serve to build up trust between you and your team. If they can see that you are open and honest in your communication and that you talk to the appropriate people, they will be more inclined to be open and honest with you.
Next time you need to communicate with one of your team members, make sure you communicate with the right one.
We've put together five questions that will help you to diagnose your communication skills. Take a look below to see how you're doing.
 Members: click here to download a workbook containing these and other questions covering all 14 Complete Manager key skills |
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If two or more answers are in the 'Never' or 'Sometimes' columns, consider getting help. If three or more answers are in the 'Never' or 'Sometimes' columns, don't consider not getting help!
Next up: In the next article, we'll move into the third key Teamwork skill; Difficult Conversations.
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Do You Want to Be a Complete Manager?
Do You Want Your Team to Be Complete Managers?
Then pre-register for our upcoming Complete Manager Program - a distance learning program based on all 14 'Complete Manager' characteristics.
There's no obligation whatsoever in pre-registering, and the Program is open to members and non-members alike (although members will receive a discount on the Program registration fee (which we haven't set yet). Just complete this simple form and hit 'Submit':
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