Communication Breakdown

What do you think is about to happen with these 2 outfielders? A collision of course; but more importantly, they dropped the ball because of poor communication. Are you and your team dropping the ball because of communication?

Remember when your business was small and it was commonplace for everyone to talk with each other. It seemed like information just flowed all throughout your company. You got good news (and bad news) almost immediately. As the company grew you didn't have those conversations as often. Good news seemed to come in normally, but bad news didn't come as fast (if at all). It seemed like you no longer knew as much about what was going on with the business.

It's very common for growing companies to have a problem with communication. Typical causes can be:

• Increased workload for everyone

• Number of people has increased. Including off-site people

• Business has become more complex

• Managers stop paying attention due to lack of time

So what can you do?

Try implementing a weekly flash report system. Start with your core team. Spend some time with each one of them and discuss the important information that should be shared. Set some requirements, such as:

• Keep the flash report to one page

• Spend no more than 15 minutes a week on it

• Let them choose the day they submit it: Monday or Friday

• Follow up immediately if the flash report isn't submitted

• Review the flash report timely and communicate back often

I suggest you start small and build upon that. If you start off with too much, it won't be sustainable and you will have wasted everyone's time. If you are the leader of the company, think about how you can share information back to your team on a regular basis.