Communication in Business

Communication in business is critical to success in business; but not just any business communication, you need effective business communication.  How you communicate in business is just as effective as what you say.

Communication among friends and family used to be limited to verbal face-to-face, written letters, phone calls, and the subtle (or not so subtle) non-verbal signals and body language.  Add to that now text messaging and email.  It’s a little more complex, but still not unmanageable.

Communication Complexity

Communication in business, however, incorporates so many more aspects, creating a complex skill to master.  Businesses communicate through print media, television, radio, billboards and signs, advertisements, internet, email, and even word of mouth.

The reasons behind business communications are numerous, too: marketing, branding, public relations, corporate communication, employee engagement, customer relations, and more.

Communication in business is used to advertise services, woo clients, smooth ruffled feathers in customer service, explain team directives, present annual reports, deliver personnel reviews, set attainable goals, and even more.

Communication and Your Team

There are many important aspects of using emails and communication to help your team.  Let’s say you have a couple hundred employees, or even a handful, one of your people sends an important instructional email that was a great snapshot of an important change.

What do you do?  Just read it and keep going?  How about sending them a “Thank You, Jim!” “That’s a great help!” or forwarding it to the team and supporting “Jim” and putting a note from you saying “Team, these are some great points” and mention one of the points.

What does that do?  It starts of empower your team and makes them feel valued.  It also validates what they are doing to others that may help ensure your team follows the tips.  It ensures everyone is looking at the emails.  They may not read emails from others but they most definitely read yours, having your name on something puts an extra weight behind it.

Just forwarding an email doesn’t have the same effect. I’ve tried it and so had a lot of other people.

In fact, years ago when I was a middle manager running the Administrative end of a $40 million a year business I used to send out updates to changes in policy or whatever.  I made it short, with bullet points so the staff didn’t have to try to read a long memo and figure out what it means to them (which was what I did).

Well…….  My boss sometimes would forward the emails I sent out to my peers.  That was okay, but guess what?  I didn’t feel appreciated and no one paid much attention. So a few years later when I was an executive level manager and I had Admin staff doing the things I used to do, I supported them. When they would send an update I would use my “muscle” to help them get “buyin” and say,

“Team, this is important.  Steve makes some great points.  Any questions on this please see Steve or myself.  Make sure to imform your teams.  Thank you Steve for taking the time to send this out.”

Thank people for sending out communication in business.  Make a big deal of it with your whole staff and they will all start communicating more effectively.  They will all start to look for ways they can get “a pat on the head”, some recognition, or as I used to call it, a “Skoobey Snack”.

Soon my whole staff was doing extra things and working together.  Was that the only thing I did to get that to work?  No, of course not.

Some other stuff

Be consistent with your praise.  If you give one person recognition and miss another that person WILL feel slighted. You are also once again limiting the synergy and momentum that can build in your team.

Think of it this way….

If you have a team you are trying to build up you need to make big deals of every positive change.

Imagine a baby taking it’s first steps, as a parent or relative your face lights up and you make a big deal don’t you? What does that do?  Encourages the baby to try again, they smile with glee when you make a big deal out of their accomplishment.

What happens after awhile?  The little steps become bigger and longer steps and soon it’s automatic and you are on to something else to get excited about in the babies development.  The same kind of encouragement works with teams. Don’t believe me?  Try it. I have run many successful teams in several different industries, I promise it works!  IF you are consistent!