It’s no secret that good communication is everything in the workplace.
Without strong communication, your business can lose direction, momentum, productivity, and alignment with expectations. So that’s why we are here to explain the concept of over-communicating for clarity and why this helps you become the leader your business demands.
Make the Transition From Doing to Leading
A major theme we are focused on right now is operations/production and creating duplicatable systems to build a business that is not dependent on you or anyone else for that matter. You can read our previous blog to better understand how to systematize your business for sustainable success. But for the purpose of this blog, we are going a bit further.
As entrepreneurs and business owners, most of us start our journey wearing many hats.
Meaning that:
A: There is A LOT to do
B: There rarely is enough time to actually do it all
Over Communication is Key
In business leadership, over-communication of business goals, objectives, and missions is key to sustainable and enjoyable success.
Without over-communicating there will be mistakes. Mistakes cost money. Often when the mistake is traced back to its root cause, we find that miscommunication and misunderstanding are the top causes of mistakes.
If we want to reduce mistakes then we need to communicate.
“I did.” You say.
“How many times.” I ask.
“In what form, and with what means?”
“Did you confirm understanding?”
Taking these extra few minutes to ask the right questions, communicate clearly and clarify objectives can save your business thousands. But more importantly, it is the key to scaling and growing.
If you want to become the leader that your business needs, you’ll need to get comfortable with repeating yourself and feeling like you are communicating too much.
There is really no such thing as over-communicating when it comes to business objectives.
Don’t Worry About Insulting Your Employees
Luckily the truth is that no employee leaves an organization because their boss communicated too much. So you don’t need to worry about insulting your employees by over-communicating or repeating yourself.
Many leaders are afraid to communicate, let alone over-communicate. According to a recent study, 69% of managers are not comfortable communicating with their employees in general. (HR Technologist)
Believe it or not, leaders should repeat a message as many as seven times before it really sticks deep down. (Communicating Clarity)
What does over-communicating look like?
- Daily Huddles
- Weekly Operational Updates
- Monthly Strategic Meetings
- Quarterly Review Meetings
Uhm, I don’t understand…?
Exactly. Neither does your team. Let’s break it down (thats code for over-communicate)
So in order to get where you want to go, YOU first have to know WHERE you are going.
Communicating WHERE you are going, is the key element of over-communication in this context.
For example:
- Want to grow revenue by 10%?
- Want to add 4 new accounts each month?
- Want to increase throughput by 15%?
Each of these examples are a WHERE that should be clearly communicated.
Each meeting should start and end with a where.
Where we want to go, is determined at the strategic level.
How we plan to get there is the operational initiative.
Who does what & when they must do it takes tactical focus.
Are We There Yet?
Daily huddles and the overall dashboard help us from veering off course and catch issues before they lead us astray. Quarterly review meetings make sure our strategic course is still on track.
As the business leader, this is the stuff you are communicating and repeating over and over.
This is what you will want to coach your managers to do with their teams and this is what you hold everyone accountable to.
This stuff is repeated because it helps.
It helps because it creates confidence in everyone’s actions. It helps because it increases focus. It helps because it leads to success.
That is over-communicating. It helps.