Consistency of Communication

What consistent actions do you think leaders can take to improve team communication, especially today’s increasingly virtual environment where we’re talking to each other on the screen, the way that you and I are?

I do think communication is so important. And some of it may go back to the fact that I have some communication background, just from my previous chief marketing officer role that I think you can’t underestimate the importance of communication and frequent communication. So, needing to make certain, to your point in, this virtual environment, I don’t think you can over communicate, especially since communication is personal. So, one team member may think they’re getting everything they need, and another team member may need more detail or more information. So, what I have found is making certain that there’s frequent communication.
And to the point, you know, I’ll give another pandemic example, to the point when COVID hit in March of 2020, we ended up creating at first, which was a daily stand-up meeting, that we ended up calling COVID Community. So, it was our community of our team members who were solving all problems COVID. They started half an hour to an hour. And then over time, they went to once a week, and then they went to every other couple of weeks. But that continued consistency of communication was really important.
And then being able to have other sources of communication. So, if there are some people who want more information, you know, we use newsletters, I do videos, even just brief videos, because people take in information in different ways. And then thinking, too, about team communication, giving opportunities, especially in this virtual environment for team members to communicate in different ways.
So, we started something called a Coffee with a Colleague. And that’s where you can sign up, it’s 15 minutes, really brief, and you’re randomly matched with another team member for Coffee with a Colleague. And it has been such a great way for people to maybe meet people they never would have met in other parts of the company. I had somebody internationally, someone outside of the US I ended up randomly being paired with. And then one time, I was paired with somebody I’ve worked with for 20 years, but I haven’t seen in probably two years since the pandemic. So it’s just a great way to also have more of that personal communication in addition to the business communication.