In this lesson, you'll learn about the importance of communication skills to your employee's performance. You'll also learn about the role of communication in your success as a leader.
How does the pace of today's world impact communication? Think about your e-mail. Have you gotten into the habit of writing partial sentences? In your haste, do you sometimes forget the salutation?
In communications with employees, how often do you feel like saying, "Just do it this way"? How often do you actually use that approach?
Time pressures cause us to place greater emphasis on "doing" than on "communicating." Unless we're working we feel that we're falling farther behind. Our employees feel the same way. Yet if I were to ask you and your employees to identify the single greatest cause of workplace problems, your answer most likely would be poor communication, and you'd be right.
Tip
When you are tempted to use shortcuts in your communiqués, ask yourself how long, it will take the person to redo the job if it's done incorrectly. Then ask yourself how long it will take you to give the proper instructions.
The vast majority of rework performed is the result of poor communication. It's not that employees' skills are inadequate, it's that they don't understand what's being asked of them. Rework is a drain on productivity. In a world where speed is a competitive advantage, there is no time for rework.
So far I've focused on your communications with your employees. It is equally important for your employees to communicate well with you, their teammates, and co-workers in other departments. Every employee has the potential to create rework through poor communication. It's your job to help them improve their skills. The performance appraisal can help. To see how, let's examine the impact that communication has on our lives.
The dynamics of personal interaction are affected by the way we communicate. We can ingratiate ourselves with others and in doing so garner cooperation whenever we need it.
We also have the ability to offend others. How much cooperation do you give people who've offended you? Do you do just enough to keep yourself out of trouble? That's a natural reaction, but it certainly doesn't promote a constructive work environment.
We could spend time discussing how poor communication creates frustration, adds stress, promotes conflict (sometimes to the point of violence), but you already know these things. Let's focus on how the performance appraisal can help your employees become better communicators.
Here are some of the things that you should be observing in order to improve your employees' communication skills:
Completeness of their communications.
Their ability to listen while communicating.
Respect for others.
Style: dictatorial, cooperative, submissive, or parental.
The impact their mood has on their communications.
The tone of the communiqué.
Let's explore each of these in more detail.
Does the employee regularly communicate all that the listener needs to know? If not, what types of information does the employee fail to communicate? The answer to the latter question will provide powerful insights into your employee's motivation.
Usually incomplete communications are quite innocent. The speaker simply credits the listener with more knowledge than he has. The absence of malice doesn't alter the fact that this assumption has the potential to create a lot of problems.
Lost productivity is a problem we've already discussed. Another problem is the effect this error has on the relationship between the two parties. The listener may feel betrayed, set up for failure, even though there was no such intent.
This attitude is contagious. The listener tells other members of the team of the betrayal and warns them to be alert so that it doesn't happen to them. The effect on morale is devastating. Amazing, isn't it? A nasty situation like this can arise from an innocent mistake.
Make your employees aware of the disastrous effect incomplete communiqués have on themselves and their co-workers.
How often have we heard that a good communicator is also a good listener? The questions and comments we get in response to our communiqués are the keys to effective communication. That's the good news. The bad news is that listeners offer us a wide array of feedback other than questions and comments.
Listeners who lack confidence don't often ask questions. They are afraid of appearing stupid. Instead, they'll restate what you said. Paraphrasing is their technique for eliciting more information. If the restatement is broad, they're struggling with the whole concept. You need to start over. Explain the goal and each step that you envision in accomplishing that goal.
If the restatement is specific to one area of your communiqué, then you need to elaborate only on that area. Attempts to review the whole concept will be viewed as condescending and reinforce the listener's feelings of inadequacy.
As strange as it may seem, overly confident listeners also don't ask questions. Their problem is that they don't think about the approach they'll use. They simply act. If you know that your listener has this tendency, make your communiqué more detailed than you might normally. You cannot rely on this listener's feedback to assure effective communication, so don't.
Tip
If an employee isn't asking questions and you're not sure whether he lacks confidence or is overly confident, try to recall the employee's actions toward similar types of activities. His past performance will help you identify his current mindset.
One of the most unusual situations I encountered as a leader involved one of my best employees. Her performance was solid and she was happy to do anything asked of her, but whenever I gave her a new project I'd have to repeat the entire instructions at least twice. It was maddening. We discussed this problem in earlier performance appraisals, but unfortunately neither of us could pinpoint the source of the problem.
Since this was the only individual on the team who posed this problem, I kept wondering what I was doing differently in my communications with her. One day while we were discussing a new project, I noticed that she was looking at the outline I'd provided. She didn't seem to be listening to what I was saying. From the look on her face it appeared that she was forming questions that she wanted to ask. That's when I realized what was happening.
Her mind was so busy developing questions that she didn't have the ability to listen effectively. That's why I had to repeat everything to her twice. I stopped my instructions and shared this insight with her. She quickly confirmed what I'd surmised. At that point we both knew what the problem was. Here's the solution we created.
I promised to allow her as much time as she needed to ask any questions she might have. In return she promised to focus her attention on my instructions as I provided them. It worked beautifully. We were both relieved of frustration that had plagued us for a couple of years.
My point in relating this story is that not all feedback is verbal. Pay attention to facial expressions, hesitation in the voice, and posture to help you evaluate the clarity of your message. Then teach your employees these skills.
We have a right to be respected until we fail to respect others. Are your employees respectful of the feelings of others? Do their communications
Indicate a respect for the other person's abilities?
Credit others with the ability to learn quickly?
Indicate an interest in the other person's welfare?
Recognize that the ideas of others have value?
Attempt to elevate others or tear them down?
These questions should be asked and answered in the performance appraisal.
People exhibit four styles of communication:
Dictatorial
Cooperative
Submissive
Parental
Tip
Each of us exhibits all these styles at one time or another. What you need to look for is the style the employee exhibits most frequently.
Dictators dominate conversations and demand that their ideas be accepted. Dictators tend to irritate, frustrate, and incite to riot those with whom they work. If your employee exhibits this style, take action immediately. This person's development plan should have persuasion skills as the top priority. It's your job to teach your employees that communications that influence are more powerful than those that control.
Employees who demonstrate a natural instinct for cooperative communication are golden. Theirs are the voices of sanity in times of disagreement. They are the ones who find the common ground, gain agreement, and move the team forward. This is the style that you want to see in all your employees.
The submissive style is at the opposite end of the spectrum from the dictatorial style. Employees who prefer this style often suffer silently, allowing others to impose their will on them. On the top of their development plans should be assertiveness training. Get them the help they need to develop a cooperative style. Their current style robs them of job satisfaction and deprives you of ideas that might enhance your team's success.
Most of us hate the parental style almost as much as we do the dictatorial. Parents tell us what to do. This is fine when we're small children and don't have a lot of experience from which to draw. It's condescending and downright irritating when we're adults. If you see an employee exhibiting this style, explain to him what he is doing and the reaction others have to this style.
A person who is normally upbeat and supportive might, on a bad day, become abrupt, insensitive, and sometimes downright belligerent in his communication. If you see this happening, simply say, "It appears that you're having a rough day. We all do from time to time. I'm not asking you to put on a false face, but do you think it's right to take your frustration out on your teammates?" Usually this is enough to get the person to ease up on his co-workers. It may even help change the troubled employee's mood.
People who are regularly in a bad mood exhibit the abruptness, insensitivity, and belligerence mentioned above; they also discourage communication. The absence of communication will inevitably lead to errors, missed deadlines, and a diminution of team effectiveness.
Foul moods are also contagious. If you don't take action, you'll see your absentee rates rise, a can-do attitude replaced with a can't-do attitude, and a rapid decline in productivity. You also risk the loss of your best performers.
Why? Top performers gain energy for others who share their upbeat outlook on life. It's important to their success. They're not going to get that from someone who is riding an emotional roller coaster.
Identifying the cause of mood swings is generally beyond the expertise of most leaders. Your responsibilities are
To make the employee aware of the problem.
To suggest counseling.
If your company employs resources for this purpose, make the employee aware of these resources.
To tell the employee that this behavior will not be acceptable in the future.
To tell the employee that you are always available should she want a friendly ear.
To do nothing more than listen if the employee takes advantage of the offer in number 5.
To make mood improvement a focal point in performance appraisals.
Is the tone of your employees' communication upbeat and encouraging, factual and unemotional, or critical and discouraging? Obviously, you prefer the tone to be upbeat and encouraging. You can tolerate factual and unemotional. The critical and discouraging part must change.
People who consistently criticize others are often burdened by their own feelings of inadequacy. Tearing others down is, in their minds, a way of making themselves look better. This is another situation in which counseling may be needed. I suggest using the same approach outlined for frequent mood swings.
Transforming employees who prefer the factual, unemotional tone into encouragers isn't difficult, but may take a little time. First, model the behavior you would like to see them adopt. Second, ask the employees the following questions:
How do you feel when someone encourages you?
Do you enjoy working with people who encourage you?
Are you more likely to help someone who is encouraging?
Is that how you would like others to view you?
The key is to get your employee to see how he reacts emotionally to someone who is encouraging. That makes it easy for him to understand how others react to this style. This approach, getting people to examine their own reactions, is one of the most powerful I've ever employed.
Tip
The technique of asking questions that help others understand their emotional reactions is one that will serve your employees well in their communications with others. Add the acquisition of this skill to their development plans.
Now that I've identified the aspects of communication that should be evaluated in performance appraisals, let's see how performance appraisals improve communication with employees.
The performance appraisal is your safety net in the world of communication. It allows you to recover when you drop the ball by failing to
Recognize your employees' accomplishments.
Correct recurring errors.
Communicate expectations.
Indicate your interest in their success.
Provide guidance on their personal development.
The performance appraisal is a time to rectify these failings. Please don't misinterpret that statement. I am not suggesting that you wait until the performance appraisal to communicate with your employees. Performance appraisals are no substitute for the daily communications your employees need. You must communicate new expectations, provide feedback on performance, recognize success, and help them deal with their problems each and every day. Once every six months is not enough.
Having said that, I realize that even the best leaders are going to drop the communication ball from time to time. There will be some aspect of performance that should have been communicated, but wasn't. Performance appraisals give you the opportunity to correct this oversight.
In Lesson 1, "The Goals of Performance Appraisal," we discussed communication triggers. These are valuable tools, especially for those of you who have not developed the habit of communicating on a regular basis. Here are a few suggestions for their use:
Use multiple triggers.
List the triggers on your calendar.
Follow up religiously on all communication triggers.
Plain English
Communication triggers are dates, performance goals or other quantifiable measures that, when reached, require you to communicate with your employees.
Over the years, I've witnessed a lot of pain and heartache caused by the failure to use multiple triggers, specifically the failure to combine performance goals and deadlines. I can assure you that if left unstated, your deadline and your employee's deadline will be completely different.
Here's an example of how to combine performance goals and deadlines. The goal is to have our department's budget complete within three weeks. All proposed budgets will be completed by the end of the first week. By Wednesday of week two, the individual budgets will be combined into a departmental budget. At the end of week two we will evaluate the departmental budget in light of strategic goals and the targets set in our initial meeting. All budget revisions must be submitted by Wednesday of the third week. The budget will be finalized at the end of week three.
There are five communication triggers in this budget process: the end of week one, the middle of week two, the end of week two, the middle of week three, and the end of week three. Each of these offers you the opportunity to monitor your team's progress on the budget. Each creates another reason to communicate with your employees.
I'm not suggesting that you constantly look over your employees' shoulders. No one likes that. I'm saying that you have reasons for communicating on each of these dates.
Obviously, you'd prefer to see your employees report to you on those dates. If they don't, you have good reason to follow up with them.
Tip
It's important for your employees to know that you want advance notice if they are having problems. Tell them that you'd much rather take time to help them solve their problems than have them miss the deadline.
If one of your employees fails to tell you that he's having trouble, the communication triggers help minimize the damage, but only if you follow up. Mark the triggers on your calendar, then follow up religiously. You'll save yourself and your employee a lot of unnecessary pain.
Here's another reason for following up. If you don't, you send the message that the deadline is frivolous and you invite the slide of all future deadlines. Employees don't like having their time wasted with deadlines that appear to be whimsical. It's insulting to them and makes you look like a power monger.
Tip
The behavior of others is dictated more by our behavior than by our words. If our words and behavior diverge, others will take their cue from our behavior.
We've already discussed the importance of tone in communication. I'm not going to revisit the entire topic again, but I do want to include a reminder here. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of letting your employees know that you want them to be successful.
The more you praise your employees' abilities and encourage their growth, the more likely they are to respond favorably to your leadership. Take advantage of every opportunity to make them feel good about themselves. They'll appreciate you for it and they'll take an interest in your success as well.
Good communication is vital to good performance.
Communication is an aspect of performance that should be evaluated in the appraisal.
Every personal development plan should include communication skill improvement.
Performance appraisals allow you, the leader, an opportunity to correct any errors you've made in communicating expectations, providing feedback, or recognizing success.