Los Angeles Business Journal - Entrepenuer's Notebook
Contributed By EC2, The Annenberg Incubator Project
Have
you ever had a miscommunication with your employees or co-workers that
resulted in costly errors? This situation is not uncommon to most
business people, but there are definite communication techniques that
can save companies money and increase their bottom-line returns.
One example of ineffective communication involves a production manager
for a furniture manufacturing firm, we’ll call him Joe, who
oversees about 50 employees who work in teams of five to 10 in
manufacturing cells. His primary responsibilities are meeting
production quotas and interacting with the customer-service and
shipping departments.
The general manager became aware that these departments were
encountering difficulties meeting quota and shipping schedules because
of production problems in Joe’s department. The manager
requested that we work with Joe to identify why these problems were
taking place.
We found that Joe’s communication style was harsh and
vague. His staff focused on his poor communication rather than
the task at hand. They would take his instructions “as
is” and work on the assignment with limited information instead
of asking questions to clarify the process. The results were
lower production, increased safety violations and poor workmanship.
Joe had a hard time acknowledging the communication problems that
management was pointing out to him. In order to clarify the
problem, we had Joe take the 16PF personality assessment inventory,
which identifies not only areas for an individual to improve upon, but
strengths and personality traits. We have found this assessment
to be a valuable tool in assisting employees [to] gain insight about
themselves. When Joe reviewed the profile results, he discovered
the same problems that the management team had identified, and became
more open to exploring ways to resolve them.
One
of the first points we worked on with Joe was how to listen effectively
to others. A primary cause for poor communication is poor
listening skills, in which the listener fails to take in all the
available information and instead relies on his or her own
assumptions. Joe found that by using active listening, in which
one paraphrases what he or she thinks the other person is saying, he
was able to avoid this kind of miscommunication with his teams.
We encouraged Joe to avoid interrupting others and to ask more
questions to ensure better understanding. Effective listening
ensures that both the listener and the speaker end up on the same page.
Another cause for ineffective communication is poor speaking skills, so
that the speaker provides vague and incomplete information to the
listener. We suggested that Joe use “I” statements
when speaking to his teams. By using “I” statements,
Joe was able to take responsibility for his comments while clarifying
his thoughts.
An example of an “I” statement is, “I feel under a
great deal of pressure when you give the client a due date without
checking with me first, because there may be some difficulties meeting
that deadline.”
“I”
statements are composed of three elements: The “I” helps
the speaker maintain the responsibility for his or her feelings or
observations; the “when” gives a specific example for the
other person; and the “because” provides the reason why the
speaker is bothered by the situation. “I” statements
help the speaker to avoid being vague and accusatory with others.
Other people can interpret poor communication as a lack of respect and
empathy. Joe discovered that he was unintentionally showing
disrespect to his staff through his harsh communication. He
needed to have more respect for his staff’s feelings and their
points of view, even when he didn’t agree with them.
The key to having successful communication is to have empathy—to
try to understand why someone is doing what he or she is doing and
feeling, what he or she is feeling. Effective communication takes
a great deal of patience. We suggested that Joe meet with his
staff to discuss any problems and find some solutions. After they
had a full discussion, he started a brainstorming session to facilitate
better teamwork, not only in his own department, but also [about] how
to work with other departments more effectively.
One idea was to have the customer-service department take a tour of the
plant to better understand the manufacturing process. This
created a sense of common purpose, a shared goal that all the people in
his department desired and could agree upon, which encouraged teamwork
rather than alienation. Joe then sat down with the
customer-service staff to look at the problems that were occurring
between his department and theirs.
The general manager and employees were very pleased by the positive
results from Joe’s communication training. Customers are
receiving their orders on time, accidents have decreased, workmanship
has improved, production returns have decreased, and incentive bonuses
were awarded to the plant.
Proficient communication is not by any means the easiest thing to
do. It takes practice, patience and respect, yet the benefits can
be immense.
Ellen and Daniel Borowka are co-founders of Lighthouse Consulting
Services, a Santa Monica-based business resource consulting firm.
Entrepreneur’s
Notebook is a regular column contributed by EC2, The Annenberg
Incubator Project, a center for multimedia and electronic
communications at the University of Southern California.Contact James
Klein at (213) 743-1941 with feedback and topic suggestions.
If you would like additional information on this topic or others,
please contact your Human Resources department or Dana at Lighthouse
Consulting
Services LLC dana@lighthouseconsulting.com.
Permission
is needed from Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC to
reproduce any portion provided in this article.
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