If Your Employees Don’t Know What’s Going on, It’s Your Fault
The following is adapted from No One’s Listening and It’s Your Fault.
More than 70% of change efforts fail according to research conducted by Prosci, a prominent change management research company. Often, the breakdown in process is due to poor communication. Employees don’t know what’s going on, mistakes are made, and pretty soon, the whole project is off track.
At first glance, it might sound like employees are to blame. Maybe they aren’t listening or don’t have the qualifications required for their roles. But in reality, if employees don’t know what’s going on, there’s only one person to blame: the leader.
If you lead an organization and people tell you they don’t know what’s going on, it is your fault. Fortunately, as I’ll discuss in this article, by keeping this responsibility in mind and ensuring effective communication with your employees, you’ll avoid the project derailment that so many companies suffer.
Why Communication Breaks Down
Change-effort failure happens so often that those of us in the change management discipline keep the possibility in mind throughout a project. We are aware of the potential loss a company is facing and work meticulously to address communication pitfalls and the underlying causes that derail projects and companies. By why, exactly, do these communication breakdowns happen?
As a leader, you have access to information that may never trickle down to your employees. It’s likely that you see the big picture and can make sense of where the organization is headed. The majority of your people, on the other hand, are blind to the path toward the end goal. Your position grants you the privilege to see the future, and in return, it demands your ability to inform others of what’s ahead.
If you don’t clearly communicate the plan to your employees, they won’t be able to follow what’s happening or know what’s expected of them.
Information Must Flow Throughout Your Organization
As you work to improve communication coming from the executive level, you should ensure that information flows through lower channels, too. There are a plethora of challenges a company can face when implementing change, and many of these challenges interfere with communication at every level.
For example, for a growing number of organizations, remote work has led to infrequent physical paths crossing. Or maybe you feel the pressure of lofty objectives and it’s hard to keep projects moving forward? Or perhaps you need to expand your team to accomplish the work?
If not addressed, it’s likely these challenges will create a disconnect within your team and birth a considerable discomfort for decision-making that delays your work.
Reshape Communication
There are no simple solutions to resolve these challenges. A healthy, high-functioning organization operates effectively across its departments and understands how a shift in strategy will impact everyone. Unfortunately, current practices often do not support good communication.
Your team likely relies on email, yes? In my experience, email in particular is the most ineffective way to communicate; yet, for many of us, it’s our default communication channel. It’s time to reshape how we communicate and let go of the old defaults, especially as your organization matures and grows. The complexity of work can cloud our ability to synchronize our communications.
Part of reshaping should be implementing ways to share communications multiple times. Effective leaders understand that by communicating important information multiple times, people can grasp how that information will impact them. To ensure that the messages reach the desired final destination, you have to deploy multiple communication channels throughout your organization.
Take Responsibility for Communication
As the leader, you have access to more information than your employees. Inability to communicate your vision for change effectively will lead to confused and disinterested employees.
If your vision is to transform your organization, your team, or even yourself, don’t be frustrated with others who seem incapable of keeping up. Instead, make sure that you’re communicating with them as clearly and consistently as possible. If you create multiple communication channels to get your message out, your employees will be far more likely to hear what you’re saying and get on board with your plan.
For more advice on improving organizational communication, you can find No One’s Listening and It’s Your Fault on Amazon.
PAM MARMON is the CEO of Marmon Consulting, a change management consulting firm that provides strategy and execution services to help companies transform.
