3 Steps to Communicate Powerfully with Your Team
People have been figuring out ways to communicate with each other since they first set foot on the earth—from cave drawings and hieroglyphics to modern day emojis. ?
We’ve become masters of getting our ideas across. Without dialogue, our teams disintegrate. But communication requires more than the transmission of information.
On a boat flying across the bay, crew members must become efficient and effective at relaying information. Wasting time and energy, or worse, risking miscommunication, just won’t do.
In your business, what are your critical communication points? Do you speak to employees or team members in person or via video calls? Will a team member text you with a question, call you, email you, or wait until you come asking? How does your behavior influence how willing teammates are to communicate with you?
Every interaction is a potential miscommunication unless you are intentional about integrating.
The Communication Checklist
As you re-envision what you want successful communication to look like on your team, take these three steps:
1. Identify
It’s also important to identify the key people with whom you need to communicate the most—and help leaders on your team do the same with their key personnel. Everyone needs a leader who will hear him or her. As a leader, you must take responsibility for communication as far as it is within your control.
2. Adapt
Integrated communication depends on doing it in ways others understand and appreciate. Does one member love to contact you directly? Give them a chance to do so.
Are they independent and work on their own until checked upon? Be sure to check in on them at regular intervals.
It’s impossible—and not necessary—to get everyone to speak the same language. Do your best to integrate with the people you lead and speak to them using their preferred style.
3. Ask
When I’m working with turnarounds or start-ups, I like doing critical communication in morning huddles. These are short team meetings designed to communicate critical information, focus the team, and get back at it.
To make sure you are communicating effectively, consider these questions:
- What are the critical components I need to communicate?
- What does my team need to know?
- Whom should I tell first?
- Are there any critical communication points being missed?
- Is my communication one-way or two-way?
- Is the message I’m trying to deliver the message that’s being received?
People Who Listen are People Who Feel Heard
All communication is not created equal. Many leaders technically say all the right information—but they’re still not communicating. They’re just transmitting. Because if you are talking and nobody is listening, you aren’t communicating.
In the military, when somebody has given an order, the soldiers respond back with a term called “Hooah!” It stands for H.U.A. Heard. Understood. Acknowledged. Effective communication asks for an echo check from the team, a confirmation that not only have they heard, but they understand what to do, acknowledge their role, and are moving to action.
Don’t mistake leadership monologues for company dialogue. Communication means not only that transmission has occurred, but also that recipients have received the information—and they know what to do with it.
As a leader start the communication evaluation with yourself. Perform a communication audit. Ask your team members to rate your communication skills, and take what they say to heart.
Then perform a listening audit. Work to listen to your team members and use their best input.
When people feel truly heard, they rise to the occasion every time. When you start listening to them, they’ll start listening to you.