Commit to Communication

Cave drawings, gestures, grunts, verbal ability, words, and storytelling are all part of the evolution of human communication. A growing civilization signaled the need for more sophisticated systems for communicating such as drum beating, smoke signals, messengers, the telegraph, telephones, radio, television, and now the web, and social media. As businesses sprang up and grew, it became obvious that communication systems were required to deliver important messages to employees and customers. So why is there still miscommunication, misunderstandings, and why have Frank and Wanda become problem employees because they can’t seem to get along?

What’s in Your Communication Funnel?

A communication system is like a funnel. At the top, there are quite a few elements to address, a lot of people with a lot of ideas, many communication venues to select from, budgets to meet, and time schedules to fit everything into. The information and ideas pouring in from the top must filter through opportunities, options, and opinions. Representing the smaller end of the funnel, the people or person there, needs to be able to receive that information and understand it. Receiving the information and feeling certain they have an understanding of it, now Frank and Wanda need to discuss and implement it. But they have their own communication issues, don’t get along, and now conflict and chaos spew from the end of your communication funnel and productivity and profits are funneled down the drain.

This is the scene that plays out when leadership cooks up a program, they believe will solve an issue, conduct a roll out in the form of town hall meetings or their intranet. However, when the rubber meets the road and employees in another country, state, city, township, or department fail to relate to it, the program has no impact, it falters, and the problem still exists for them and your customers. The filters are working overtime.

More Filters in the Communication Funnel

Disruptions can add more filters and make your communication funnel less functional. Our current situation has many lessons about factors that can make communication more difficult. The loss of seeing facial expressions, virtual meetings, and chaos from confusing information, and the unknown. Disruptions in our communication is no stranger, we experience it in the form of generation differences, cultural misunderstandings, and poor leadership. Strangely enough, Frank and Wanda do not have any of these issues. Their disconnect is simply between their own personal filers and communication styles.

Our Personal Communication Funnel

In Wanda’s communication funnel, information enters, it spins around at warp speed, detail falls through the cracks in her funnel, she looks for the quickest way to get results from the information, sends it off and moves on to the next piece of information coming down her funnel. Frank, on the other hand, sees the information coming into his funnel, slows it down, lets every detail flow through several analytical filters, keeps going back to the top of his funnel for more information to send through his analytical stations, takes the information out of his funnel, unwraps it, discusses it with other people and what they think of the journey of the information through their funnels. Meanwhile, Wanda is showing Frank her funnel telling him or maybe even yelling at him that everything they need is right here in her funnel and to just get the information out of his funnel and run with it as she paces up and down the office floor.

Clearly Frank and Wanda need some additional information in their funnels. Each of these co-workers needs information about the communication style of the other. In addition, Wanda needs to put some slow-down filters in her funnel, while Frank needs to snip off a few of the filters in his funnel to speed things up a bit. Once Wanda and Frank have a better understanding of each other’s communication and behavioral styles they can adapt to each other styles, reach a happy medium in terms of speed and analytics and be more productive.

Filling the Communication Funnel

Leadership has the responsibility to feed the communication funnel with information. However, a clear understanding of as Stephen Covey said, “Begin with the end I mind” is part of that responsibility. Some questions to ask are:

• Does leadership understand the change(s) we want to make?
• Does the change and the communication of that change keep our strategies and goals in mind?
• How do we find the balance for our system of communication in today’s environment?
• How can we use our communication systems to build high performing teams?
• How can we better understand the needs of leaders and employees?
• How can we better understand the behaviors and communication styles of every individual?

No doubt, you can come up with additional questions unique to your organization and circumstances. The point is to commit to communication by building a communication funnel, fill it with relevant and accurate information, ensure that everyone receives and understands the information flowing out of that funnel, and finally, create programs that help employees understand one another.

Thank you for reading this blog. If you would like more help assisting your teams with communication efforts, Let's get started

Graphic Credit: BigStock.com