Why am I hearing communication sucks in my team?

How often do you hear concerns from your team about lack of communication and think to yourself, “where is our disconnect, because I’m providing information and answering questions or concerns all day long?” When you hear this, do you get that feeling of disbelief, say to yourself “no way, this is not me, I’m very open to feedback?” As I partner with leaders to coach on personal leadership skills, team building, and culture, communication comes up often.

The discussion I like to have with leaders comes straight from employee conversations I have after interacting with their team. Some of the most common examples I hear, “I’ve said it before, but nothing was done” or “who cares, they don’t listen anyway,” with the “they” directed at their leadership. But why does this happen when the leader is accepting feedback and communicating to the team? How can they work to get to the root of this concern?

One of the interesting aspects leaders I work with figure out is that their communication is not routinely reaching the full audience it is intended for. We learn that there are unintended filters between them and their entire team. To give a quick example, I have observed leaders provide responses, or direct actions, to address feedback in a meeting, but then skip the part of directing how the information gets to the intended audience. Many times, it is an implied intent to go communicate with the rest of the team.

So, what can you do to improve this communication breakdown and get it to where you want it to be? Here are a few methods some of the leaders I have worked with have come up with, plus some I used during my 20 plus years leading small teams to large organizations.

• Personalize the information. Use the name of the individual providing the question or concern. Change the dialogue from “they said” to “Judy recommends.” Then provide specific direction on who and what gets communicated back to Judy and the team. An additional point I’ve learned specific to getting a name, only push to this standard when there is trust in the organization.

• Write yourself a note or reminder that for the next time you interact with that individual thank them and verify they are satisfied with the answer returned to them. This will also verify your expectation of communication standards were met.

• If the suggestion or comment was of such a nature that it “saved the day” in your opinion, go seek out the originator as soon as possible and discuss the value of the information they sent up.

• Make yourself a routine on your calendar program to get out of the office or conference room and go talk to various people in the organization. Many leaders I work with find outstanding value in this. It gets more personal, and the more they are out engaging their teams, they start providing more questions and solutions.

• Hold team town halls from time to time. Get the entire team together if possible, or work through in smaller groups, and get in front of everyone. Provide the latest and greatest information and then let them ask questions in an open forum, hearing directly from the leadership team as much as possible.

• One last suggestion I’ve seen provides value is to take the time and send an email to the originator. Just a small note to acknowledge the team member goes a long way.

These suggestions may sound simple and you probably think your team is sending the information back to the originator. I would agree in a perfect team dynamic all information sent up would then have proper follow through going back down. But let’s face it; in today’s do more with less environment that is not always reality. A leader needs to take the extra steps to set a standard, and a routine, to ensure concerns raised are properly addressed and communicated back to the team.

What are you as a leader doing to communicate back after receiving information? How are you validating the information is supplied back to your employees to their satisfaction? Taking the time to develop a plan, along with diligent follow through, to get these two questions answered and into practice for yourself will normally provide huge dividends.

I have witnessed positive organizational growth after a leader has become consistently engaged and deliberate in returning feedback and answers to the entire team. The culture shifts to “our boss listens to us.” Team members have trust in those above them, ownership and engagement improves and a positive questioning attitude occurs across the team. Think of feedback as a boomerang; properly used it works in both directions.