The success of a communication is measured not by how well the communicator speaks or writes but by how well the listener has heard. Managers are often astonished when employees complain about communication. "But we communicate all the time," they say. And they are right. And so are the employees. Managers communicate. Employees haven't heard. Addressing the problem with "more of the same old…" will not fix the problem at all. Organizations need to establish whether their communications are heard, and, if not, what the reason is for their not being heard.
Why is communication so often not heard or not heard accurately? Here are the five most frequent and most serious inhibitors of effective communication:
What do you feel if a person you really do not trust at all says something quite innocuous to you, like "good-morning," or even something helpful like, "do you need some assistance with that project you are working on?" The immediate response to the friendly greeting is likely to be, "what does he want from me now?" The response to the offer for help is likely to be, "what's in it for her? Why is she offering to help me?" Even when people genuinely try to mend bridges and reconstruct broken relationships, if they are mistrusted, everything they say or do will be misconstrued as having intent to harm or promoting self-interest.
Mistrust between management and employees is a serious problem in many organizations. For as long as that mistrust is allowed to perpetuate, communication will be ineffective and sometimes even negative. Increasing the quantity or quality of the communication will not improve it. Varying the media and vehicles of communication will have little effect.
Mistrust filters, and sometimes entirely blocks, communication. The result: employees either not hearing or hearing a message very different from the intended one. Even carefully crafted clinical statements of mission, values, and codes of ethics will have little impact in an environment plagued by mistrust.
Mistrust in organizations manifests in different symptoms and is caused by different issues. Organizations need to understand the reasons why their employees do not trust their management before designing trust-building strategies. These strategies will vary considerably from one organization to another. It will require deeper insight and greater skill to establish trust in an organization made up of different ethnic cultures or different corporate cultures resulting from mergers, acquisitions, or geographic spread.
Facts are heard. Emotions are felt. The flaws in corporate communication are rarely about factual accuracy. The flaws usually relate to issues around feeling the communication, its sincerity, its authenticity, its integrity, and its caring. Anybody can hear a communication: "Our company has merged with ABC Company, but no one will loose their jobs because of this." Not in every situation will that communication be felt, be trusted. To be felt, a communication needs to convey genuine emotion, not merely fact.
Works of fiction whose characters and plots convey authentic feelings and emotions will impact more deeply and widely than will a coldly accurate documentation of events. Listeners feel stories about real people and their feelings far more accurately than by receiving a cold memo or directive. Communication should inspire, not merely provide facts and information: facts alone rarely inspire.
It is difficult to inspire people in a circular memo or e-mail. Inspiring people and communicating feelings is easier face-to-face. Churchill could not have inspired his troops with emails about fighting the Germans on the beaches. An email from President Kennedy telling us not to ask what our country can do for us would also have fallen a little flat! Managers must have the courage to talk to their employees, not hide behind the cruel remoteness of their computer screens. The time it takes to talk to one person, much longer than the time it takes to send off a thousand emails, yields untold efficiencies in the effectiveness of the message and its ultimate implementation.
Not only do people not speak their minds when there is fear, they do not listen to others either. Fear, just like mistrust, filters every message. But whereas mistrust casts aspersions on the communicator's motivation, fear focuses on the listener's survival and interprets every message in that light. In the current American corporate atmosphere, fear reigns almost everywhere: Fear of job loss, fear of retaliation for questioning or bringing up bad news, fear of career limitation, fear of being labeled a "trouble-maker." Fear can overlay a company's culture to the extent that, for a time, fear becomes that company's culture. Companies' values and their visions are marginalized in the minds of employees by the ever-present feeling of fear.
It is often difficult for management to become aware of the extent of fear in their organizations. This is because fear itself hides from management the very knowledge of that fear. Not only do leaders need to know when fear is paralyzing their organization, they need to identify the areas where that fear is greatest and the reasons for it. After establishing a culture that eliminates fear, communication will flow more effectively in both directions.
People find it hard to listen with an open mind to communicators who do not themselves listen. Listening skills are the first step in communication skills and are by far the more artful of the skills. Managers are sometimes taught how to communicate but rarely how to listen. Even listening to something neutral is difficult. However, to listen to something painful in a way that is non-defensive without making the other person feel guilty for what he is saying, is much more challenging. Listening requires character and some ethical stature. Listening requires humility and compassion. These are not the qualities usually associated with effective managers! An organization that wishes to improve the way it communicates must first improve the way it listens.
"Tell Jane that I thought she did a great job," is not anywhere near as effective as telling her so yourself. You can delegate the communication of facts, not of feelings. As important a skill as delegation is in nearly every management function, it is disastrous in the function of communication. Communication is at the core of your job as a manager. If you delegate communication, who needs you at all?
How a company communicates, how trusted its communication is, and its capacity to inspire its people with its communication all contribute as much to its success as any other of its strategies. But effective communication is a function not only of managerial skill, but also of corporate and managerial character. The volume of communication and its accuracy must be accompanied by a shining corporate ethic and trusted corporate integrity.
