A Simple Formula for Impoving the Likelihood of Success
It starts with communication
The chance of success in any given situation varies on a multitude of factors. Some we can control but many others we cannot. Sometimes it pays to just be lucky. But, that isn’t what this article is about. This post is about how communication is foundational to achieving desired business outcomes.
At work, we communicate. There is very little that is accomplished that doesn’t involve communication at one point or another in the process. The more effective you become at communicating, the more effective you will be at your job. I don’t care what your job is — learn to communicate better and you will improve at it and be recognized for it. A big piece of working includes the ability and willingness to work with others. You won’t work well with others if you can’t communicate.
Communication, then, is required for collaboration. And collaboration is that big piece of work that requires you to work with other people. Working on an individual assignment is great; however, that isn’t they way most knowledge workers get things done today. Collaboration is about teamwork, and teams get projects done. Even when workers execute individual assignments there is typically some collaboration that happens on the front-end (designing the end product) and back-end (finalizing the end product) of the work. Working with others makes us more productive. And it just so happens that productivity is the next ingredient in the formula.
Collaboration makes us more productive. And productivity is what leads to improving our likelihood of success. Let’s define productivity as the effectiveness of effort. Being more productive then is consistently being more effective with your efforts. Collaboration takes what you can do on your own and adds to it what others can do on their own. A majority of the time, the results exceed what any individual could accomplish on their own. You know…synergy and all that. The more productive you are the greater the chances that the things you produce will have meaning, achieve objectives, and garner results.
Here is that simple formula:
We communicate to work with others. We collaborate to better get things done. The more we get done, the higher our productivity. The more productive we are, the more likely we are to achieve success.
What does this have to do with the digital workplace or the future of work?
The applications employed by enterprises today need to enable workers to easily work together. They must focus on enabling communication and collaboration simply because doing so makes employees more useful and effective. Often, improving internally used applications is seen as unnecessary and low priority. The thinking goes that if employees are able to get the job done, then there is no need to invest in new technology to make their work lives better. This is wrong. Investing in new technologies for internal workers is imperative for companies to succeed.
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