The Importance of Workplace Communication Systems

Workplace Communication Looks Different to Everyone

A couple of years ago, I made what many today would consider a radical decision with my life. I sought to reduce the amount of time I spent messaging others drastically. Whether it be social media, texting, phone calls, or email, I wanted to trim the fat and direct my focus more productively. Sounds crazy I know. While many people perceive these types of exchanges as necessary for personal and professional relationships, the truth is that most of the time they are not productive. Rather they have often been a source of conflict and used as a crutch to supplement resourcefulness and critical thinking. What do I mean by that?

With the rise of technology in recent years, many people don’t realize that their expectations of others have changed drastically. We now expect a level of availability and responsiveness from others that in past generations would have never even been considered. While our computers and cell phones are equipped to process this amount of information, the human brain is not. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that the average number of stable relationships a human being could maintain was 150. This theory has since been coined Dunbar’s Number.

His theory is based on a number of different research methods including historical, sociological, and neuro-mapping of the brain. While the exact number has been debated in recent years, the principle still rings true. Human beings have a cognitive limit to how much social information they can take in. This brings us back to my decision to channel this information in better ways.

The problem many organizations are experiencing today is that we have an abundance of communication channels and many different expectations for each. Think about it. How many different cultures and generations do you have represented at your workplace? They probably all communicate in different ways, with different tools and methods. They also all have different underlying assumptions about how communication is supposed to be done that they are unaware of. Take the stereotypical example of the millennial who doesn’t want to call anyone or the baby boomer who only emails in 1 sentence responses. Every day these differences are causing conflict and miscommunication in your organization. Not to mention that the endless hamster wheel of messages is a constant source of distraction, and hinders your team’s ability to think critically. In the search-happy world of Google, it can be easy for people to treat their coworkers or boss like just another source of information, and never actually stretch themselves to find an answer. This all adds up to one big damper on your performance.

So the question is how can leaders address this problem?

Creating Structure for Workplace Communication

While I sought to reduce the time I spent on different communication channels, I was no less effective because I directed my energy and time in the right way. I created a system that allowed me to stay responsive to the needs of clients, while still protecting time for other priorities. In life, we often create a structure for the things that are important to us. This may look like setting up automatic payments for your cell phone or internet bill. My wife and I have a regular date night we schedule at the same time every week. Contrary to what some may think, the routine does not limit our relationship but enhances it. Similar to having a gym routine, we are making time to regularly invest in an area of our lives so we can reap a future reward.

The problem is that we rarely take this approach to communication. Organizations have a plethora of systems, metrics, and SOPs to drive performance, but we never consider having one to protect the relationships of our people. This is where having a Workplace Communication System can be so powerful!

A Workplace Communication System creates a set of unifying principles and expectations for how communication is done in an organization. Having this kind of system will give you several benefits including:

• Preventing conflict and miscommunication

• Improving efficiency

• Empowering your people

• Increasing employee engagement

It will also help you avoid many of the teamwork-related problems I outlined in a recent article. Many companies will have something built into their vision and values about caring for their people. If that is true, then it only makes sense we could demonstrate that through real-world policy. In the next section, I have outlined a few key pieces that should be part of any effective communication system.  

The Parts of a Successful Communication System

1. Choose your Channels

A communication channel is any method, tool, or form of media you use for communicating. This could include things like email, text, phone, Zoom, Slack, social media, company memo boards, etc. An effective communication system will have a set of clearly defined channels. Furthermore, it will not overwhelm people with too many channels. An ideal number for any organization would be around 3-5 depending on size, and the nature of the work. This is important because often, organizations utilize far more channels than they realize. If you were to get your team together right now and make a comprehensive list of all the different ways people communicate with each other, the number would probably surprise you. So the first step is to settle on 3-5 channels that are ideal for your team and make sure these options are clearly communicated across your organization.

2. Define the Expectations for Each Channel

Once you have decided what your channels will be, you want to define the expectations for each. This could include things like when you use this channel and the expected turnaround time. So perhaps you decide that email will be used when something needs to be captured in writing and as a team, we expect a 24-48 hour response time. Meanwhile, text or phone calls are for more urgent matters and the expected response time is within a few hours. This article by 4Sight Group on hybrid teams has a good section on communication best practices as well.

3. Implement and Reinforce

When it comes to practically rolling out your communication system, there are a couple of best practices to keep in mind. First, you want to give your team ample runway. Start communicating about this coming change well ahead of time. You want this message to come in multiple ways (email, in person, etc.) on several occasions leading up to implementation. Ideally, you would like your team to hear the message 5-7 times, which is a standard practice for change management. This may seem like a lot, but if you consider the fact that many people don’t fully read emails, or pay full attention during meetings, it means most people will only remember half the information you give them.

Secondly, once you have initiated this change, you also want to reinforce it often in the early stages. Many leaders make the mistake of conflating change with transition. Just because you have made a change, doesn’t mean your people have transitioned into the new normal. Habits take time to form, and new habits only form through repetition. Until they start experiencing the benefits for themselves, it will be easy for people to fall back on the old way of doing things.

Workplace Simplicity

So this may seem like a very simple framework, but like many things in life, success comes from consistency, not intensity or complexity. That is why making things simple can be so powerful. It empowers your team to be more consistent, thus eliminating a huge source of conflict and miscommunication; our differing assumptions and expectations. Often we focus on equipping our teams with individual communication skills like asking good questions, and active listening. This is important. However, this keeps us in the micro level of communication. The macro level involves building out a system.

You can of course tweak this communication system model to fit your unique needs, as long as you stick to the basic building blocks we unpacked in this article. With a little consistency, you will start seeing huge payoffs in the way your teams work together!

If you are interested in improving communication at your organization, or you could use some support in building out your communication system, I would love to have a conversation about the solutions I offer. Feel free to go ahead and book a free Discovery Call with me to start the process.