Streamline your Business Communication in 4 Easy Steps
Do you feel as though your business communication isn’t as good as it could be? If so then now is the time for you to make a change. Take a look below to see what steps you can take today.
Information Accessibility
A lot of people hear the word “communicate” and automatically think of things being smoother, and slicker in terms of employees. Don’t forget that a lot of communication streamlining stems from eliminating the need to have conversations in the first place. If you use Google Drive to keep all of your important files in one place then this is great, but you do need to make sure that people know where to look. If your team are constantly having to ask each other where certain files are then this will make it much more difficult for them to work efficiently. Get your teams to stop putting information files in notebooks or email inboxes and get them to put it into a format that can be easily shared. It may be that you spend some time finding the right cloud to cloud backup too, so you can make sure that important files and conversations are never lost.
Use a Project Management System
There are now more communication channels available for you to choose from, so it’s safe to say you should be using them. When people have their personal preferences, things can get somewhat fragmented. This can lead to duplicated work and messages that are scattered everywhere. There is some good to come out of this though. Project management systems are now available so you can keep all of your chats in one place.
Assign a Person for Projects
How often do you find projects faltering or even stalling because people assume that the ball is in someone else’s court? If you ever find yourself having to step in because you feel the need to see how things are going with a certain project then you may benefit from assigning someone to that project instead. This is a two-way street because you are going to be empowering your team so that they can take extra responsibility while also providing them with clear deliverables. The result is you resolving confusion or issues, without having to slow things down.
Clearly Document Action Points
Communication isn’t about dialogue. It’s about clarity of purpose and it’s also about transparency. Have you ever had your team agree on direction, or a general plan of action only to find that nothing is happening? You may also find that things are much slower than they should be as well. You need to give people their task list and you also need to make sure that people meet the highest standard possible. If you can do this then you will create pressure, but at the end of the day, this is sometimes the best way for you to ensure that there is a strong sense of clarity between people, while also ensuring that people always know what they are doing.
