Lack of communication, don’t make me laugh

Author: Kevan Hall

“I visited a company recently where a project was running late. People spent 30% of their time in meetings, received an average of 95 emails and 11 telephone calls per day and had conference calls with their colleagues three evenings per week. I asked the manager what he thought was the problem – he answered, “I think it is a lack of communication.

I laughed out loud – all they do is communicate, when do they get to do any work?”

Lack of communication is a problem of the past – the challenge now is how to disconnect from the mass of trivia in order to see what really matters. People in complex companies receive an average of 57 emails per day and estimate that 56% of these are unnecessary.

This means that the average FTSE Company pays its people to write, send, read and delete over 240,000,000 pointless emails per year, at least a third of a million hours of unnecessary work.

My Speed Tips on improving communication

1. Divide your email communication into “Push” (information that needs to get to someone to do their job or take a specific action) and “Pull” (information people might need for information or interest).

2. Send “push” messages direct “To” recipients (no cc’s), think carefully about what you want them to know, do or feel as a result of the communication and and put the action you want in the subject line.

3. Post all “pull” information on your intranet site or team room so people can see it if they need it. If people rarely look, don’t worry, this means they don't need the information to do their jobs and you can safely stop supplying it - saving even more time.

4. If you receive unnecessary information – send them a copy of this tip.

Communication volume, thought surely not quality, is set to boom with new communication methods such as instant messaging being adopted in the corporate world. If you do not take control of communication now, expect the number of incoming messages you receive to triple over the next few years.

For more ideas on taking charge of your communication see Chapter 3 of our book Speed Lead.

Last updated: 08/03/07 05:02pm