As workforces age and skills gaps widen, it's imperative for leaders to bring
together strategy deliberation and execution. According to research
commissioned by consultancies SuccessFactors and Accenture in April, 80 percent
of leaders recognize they are not doing their best to communicate strategy
through the organization. Further, according to findings from a survey of 1,400
corporate executives and employees announced in May by leadership development
and training firm Fierce Inc., more than 70 percent of respondents either agree
or strongly agree that a lack of candor impacts the company's ability to
perform optimally. As economic recovery continues and developing and
executing the organization's strategy becomes a priority, leaders should
reverse traditional information flow and facilitate a bottom-up flood of
opinions and ideas rather than one-way delegation from management.
"Conversations are the building blocks of relationships, and those
relationships either create [an] engaged or unengaged workforce - a positive or
toxic culture," said Halley Bock, CEO and president at Fierce Inc. "To nurture
cross-boundary collaboration, leaders should invite employees to be part of
executing the organization's mission and strategy. Too often, companies rely on
recognition or engagement programs to reward employees they want recognized.
The problem with that is that people don't engage with programs, they engage
with other people. The gift of your time, involving them and being specific on
how they contributed goes a lot further than leaders seem to understand."
While more than 90 percent of respondents to the Fierce survey reported
believing decision makers should seek out other opinions before making a final
decision, approximately 40 percent think leaders and decision makers
consistently fail to do so. Employers who fail to communicate their business
plans properly to their staff and dismiss their points of view are missing out
on engagement.
"Ninety-five percent of what leaders need is right there in front of their
noses," said Vivian James Rigney, president of Inside Us LLC, an executive
coaching organization. "They just need to slow down, listen and engage with
people. You get more valuable information, build bridges of trust and share
accountability much more effectively when you begin to communicate.
Organizations thrive best when there's a culture of calibrating lofty goals and
strategies with people resources and maximizing that. It's listening,
acknowledging and understanding that there's more to decision making than
listening to those at the top."
Workplace communication problems are not unique to any industry sector or rung
on the corporate ladder. Nearly 100 percent of respondents to the Fierce survey
prefer workplaces in which people identify and discuss issues truthfully and
effectively, yet less than half said their organization's tendency is to do so.
These issues are slowing down projects, productivity, employee retention and
the bottom line.
Workplaces lacking in collaboration and communication may arrive at undesirable
operational business results. According to Chieh-Wen Sheng, Yi-Fang Tian and
Ming-Chia Chen, authors of the article "Relationship among teamwork behavior,
trust, perceived team support, and team commitment" published last year in
Social Behavior & Personality, in order to cure maladies of ineffective,
closed-contact workplaces, leaders must communicate what the goals and
objectives of the organization are because employees are more apt to produce
when they are aware of what is expected. Leaders should empower employees and
involve them in the decision-making process to boost employee morale,
confidence and trust, and they should recognize, acknowledge and reward
employees who consistently demonstrate expected behaviors.
"Employees get enormous amounts of motivation from being involved," Rigney
said. "When they're part of the process, they believe they're listened to,
respected and part of something. This allows a dominant leader, an alpha
leader, to continue being the strong decision maker, but it also allows their
team to be with them and an integral part of the development of the business."
[About the Author: Ladan Nikravan is an associate editor of Chief Learning
Officer magazine.]
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