Ways to Improve Team Wide Communication

Teams must work interdependently and for interdependent achievement, we need communication, which is broadly defined as the exchange of information and transmission of meaning. Therefore, it is clear to note that “team communication becomes important to business performance within a diverse service driven team” and the following are ways to improve a team-wide communication.

1. Create a Communication-Friendly Space

It’s your role as a manager to encourage your team to express themselves by creating a communication-friendly environment.

• You can set the example by greeting saying good morning to your team to raise spirits and get the conversation flowing from the moment the day begins. Ask questions, challenge ideas and communicate your feelings.

• Encourage social interactions by integrating a culture that celebrates people on birthdays and anniversaries.

2. Don’t Over-Communicate

Ideally, too much of anything isn’t good. After work hours, it is important to keep track of the number of emails you send to employees. While communication is very important, it is expected to be controlled and measured over specific time frames to allow for good work-life balance. In a perfect world, people power down after work hours and stop checking their emails, but the advent of mobile devices have connected most of us to our jobs on the go and not checking for frequent updates seems unnatural.

3. Identify the vital information always needed

Within every business environment, each operational unit needs to create a weekly checklist that manages routine expectations. Routine checklist carries information such as tasks, responsibilities and timelines; this will aid proper job sharing among younger colleagues. The need to know information gets to the need to know employee as they are expected to churn them out in real time.

4. Being an active listener

To be an active listener is to encourage development. A recent study by HBR attributed listening as a key leadership quality which has helped big tech giants like Facebook and Adobe to develop sustainable business goals through Co-creation. Listening allows for understanding, aligning and refining of ideas which can give birth to a greater, much more focused one.

Getting work done through distributed teams, virtual workforces, and flattened hierarchies require having outstanding individual resonance. Good team communication is the key to optimizing operations, maximizing customer satisfaction and return on investment. The sooner you can improve the communication across your wide team space; the faster your operation will be humming!