Regular and frank communications between colleagues allow everyone to be better informed about results, proposed changes, day-to-day problems and so on. They also help to develop trust and build better relationships. Here are some suggestions:
Help your team members to recognize and use their colleagues’ sources of information. Make sure that you are not the only disseminator of information in meetings. Actively involve others in keeping everyone up to date. Encourage information sharing informally on a day-to-day basis as well as in meetings.
Encourage team members to share and work out problems together.
Let people know in good time about information that affects them. Respond quickly to questions and requests for information. Encourage others to do the same.
Encourage a climate where team members feel comfortable about expressing contrary viewpoints. Open debates on issues, but not personalities, allow for options to be explored thoroughly. Better decisions usually result. People also prefer to work in an environment where their views are considered. Team leaders usually remember to do this with the professionals but, sadly, sometimes forget to do so with the support people.
Make it a significant part of your leadership job to help your team members to gain access to individuals and information that they need from other parts of the firm.
Be generous with information. Give much more than people actually need to do their jobs. Encourage a sense of belonging by avoiding secrets.
Ask your colleagues if they are getting all of the information that they need and want from you. Ask them what else they need to know.
Don’t be burdened by the notion of confidentiality other than in very exceptional circumstances. Firms usually suffer much more damage from poor communications than from information getting into the wrong hands.
Pre-empt the grapevine by making sure that your colleagues receive accurate information ahead of garbled versions picked up from others.
If your colleagues like the idea, hold periodic informal no-agenda gettogethers such as team lunches for informal catch-up communications.
Provide monthly activity reports both in writing and at team meetings, to highlight results, potential new clients, progress on new developments, people leaving, people joining, status of projects, achievements of individuals, process changes, reorganizations and so on.
Be frank about things that go wrong. Keep all team members fully in the picture. Encourage them to offer positive ideas on solutions and remedies.
Encourage people to tell you when things are going wrong or when major mistakes have been made. Work with your team members to put things right and help them to learn from mistakes. Let everyone know that the unforgivable sin is to keep quiet. When it happens, take a tough line.
Finally, and probably most important of all, lead by ‘walking about’. Talk and listen to people over coffee. Drop by their desks or their rooms and chat for a few minutes. Give some thought beforehand about what has occurred recently and should be passed on. Take the opportunity that informal chats provide to get these small but significant messages across. Find out about how things are going. Take an interest in current work and personal activities. Talk about successes, achievements, hopes and aspirations. Discover what things are troubling people. Yes, this is time consuming but it is the essence of good leadership. You learn, your people learn, problems are nipped in the bud and in the process you build better relationships and establish a higher level of trust.
Team leaders in two very different professional service businesses explain how they foster open communications. David Law, a Pricewaterhouse-Coopers partner leading a team of accountants providing services to the London insurance and investment management sector, says:
I block out time in the diary on a regular basis to walk the floors. I really do believe that chatting to people, one to one and in small groups, is so very important. It is too easy to hide away in the office. Of course it is a problem to find the time because there is the pressure of client work. You have to be disciplined about it. Getting around the office regularly, for sustained periods, is the only way that I find out what is going on and what is worrying people. It is also a great opportunity for me to get my thinking across to my colleagues. Meetings are fine but I think that this informal contact is better.
Ian Pearman, Account Director at advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers, puts it this way:
I think that there are a couple of good things to do to encourage communications in the team. The first is to spend time in touch with everybody, listening and talking. It sounds obvious and it is, but you have to make the effort to get up from your own work and make contact and you have to keep doing it. The second thing is I like to have open debates with the team about assignments, the way we work together, our procedures and so on. I don’t mind what people say; in fact, anything goes. I want people to put all sides of the argument. In this way we can keep each other informed. We can work out problems together and we can agree on the best course of action. Sometimes we have these debates in the office and sometimes over lunch. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to set aside time regularly to do it, not in a formal way but just whenever it is necessary.