Highly conductive communication with employees can power more than internal business activities. Employees don\u2019t just work for your company. And they don\u2019t just buy your product. They buy into the very idea of your company<\/i>.<\/strong> Hopefully, you hire the smartest people you can find. But smart people have options. The fact that they choose to invest their time (which is much scarcer and more valuable than money) working for you can and should be incredibly humbling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When dealing with major organizational change, often driven by technological innovation, efficient communication can provide the \u2018electrical grid\u2019 for powerful and rapid insights to solve problems and navigate the obstacles in the way of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So if the benefits are clear, what\u2019s the issue? Better communication is like our electrical grid, it requires endless work to expand, improve and maintain. But something interesting happens when we raise this topic to senior management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most business owners will tell me that they do a great<\/i> job of listening to their employees. \u201cI have an open-door policy!\u201d they\u2019ll say. \u201cEverybody on the team gets a 360 degree review every year! I do an employee survey!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet when I spend time talking to people on the ground, the sentiment is invariably different. In businesses undergoing significant growth, crisis, or transformation, listening to employees is one of the very first casualties. When the pressure\u2019s on you as an executive, it\u2019s easy to have your own ideas executed and assume that if no one loudly objects, then everyone\u2019s on board and feels heard. This is the exact opposite of what is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the earliest indicators of chronic non-listening is feeling like your employees aren\u2019t listening to you. They may have reasonable issues that they simply don\u2019t raise because they don\u2019t think you\u2019ll listen, care, or actually do anything about it. Other symptoms of not listening to watch out for:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Coming back to the diversity issue: your team is likely composed of a range of personalities and talents. And that\u2019s a good thing. The reason you\u2019re the B-O-S-S comes down to your ability to deal with ambiguity, take risks, and make decisions with incomplete information. But what makes a good CEO isn\u2019t necessarily what makes a good engineer or a good product manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Understand that not everyone thinks and acts the way you do. Some people need a bit of coaching to say what they\u2019re really thinking. Also:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Effective and high volume communication with your people can power your efforts to execute on your strategy, drive innovation, and lead organizational change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Communications in organizations are a dynamic and flowing human system Organizations are problem solving systems. Countless decisions are made each day by employees, teams, management, vendors, partners and clients that impact an organization. Executives and employees are the \u2018electrons\u2019 in the circuitry of these systems, travelling via the \u2018wires\u2019 between the organizations components: the people, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[38,39,40,41,42,43],"class_list":["post-3846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team","tag-communication","tag-customers","tag-employees","tag-listen","tag-listening","tag-staff"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fervent-snyder.66-181-74-78.plesk.page\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Chrish-Becker-NE.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSo how can you tell if you\u2019re listening effectively, and not just paying lip service?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How do you listen in a way that helps your employees actively contribute?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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