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In business, successful communications are planned

by Stephen Hawley Martin
for Virginia Business
June 28, 2006

It's amazing how many otherwise intelligent business men and women leave communications to chance. It seems they sometimes forget communication is a two-way street. In a successful organization, communication is not a random event. It's a planned process, just like any other business function.

More and more organizations are organized into interlocking teams, the primary team includes the top executive and the heads of each functional area of the business. Everyone in the business should be on a team, and all teams should link back to the one at the top. In this setup, everyone will have a home team, and many will have a team they chair. For example, the head of each functional area will chair a team made up of his reports, and they in turn will chair teams made up of individuals they lead.

For information to cascade in an organized way throughout the organization requires a thorough communications strategy. Here are some key elements to incorporate in order to focus meetings on action -- rather than endless discussion -- enable participation and provide a consistent flow of information that will keep everyone informed.

Minimum frequency. Since the primary two-way communication vehicle is the home-team meeting, the primary team establishes the minimum frequency standard, based on business cycles and needs. In most companies minimum frequency is once a week, but some teams may meet briefly every day, and sometimes twice a day, such as at the beginning and again at the end of a shift.

Purpose and outcomes. Define in advance the business purpose and outcomes you desire from your meetings. Specifying the purpose and outcomes of meetings enables focused preparation and clarity around topics and defines the level of urgency for activities that result from the meeting.

Agenda. Plan every meeting around an agenda, which not only lists the topics to be discussed, but also the time frames in which to discuss them and the person who will lead the discussion/presentation. A structured agenda reinforces the business focus and sense of urgency for communication and action relative to the business topics.

Processes for effectiveness. Determine how the communication should occur. What information needs to be passed up/down to all home teams and by when? What information needs to be brought into the meeting from other home teams? The agenda must include a status update of outstanding actions from the previous meeting as well as a verification of new actions that arise during the meeting so there is complete clarity about who is doing what and when.

Roles and responsibilities. Meetings need a leader, a recorder and a time keeper. These roles must be identified and filled before the meeting so that individuals come prepared to fulfill them. Filling these roles makes sure that someone is ready to facilitate the agenda, document actions, capture pass-up/pass-down information and document decision and key discussion points.

For routine, standard meetings a rotation plan for filling these roles among participants ensures that meetings are governed by process and are not dependent on personality.

Behavioral parameters. These are the ground rules for that define acceptable and unacceptable behavior in meetings. Some examples: no interruptions, be on time, respect one another, stay on the topic, everyone participates and cell phones off.

Audit process. The audit process applies a continuous-improvement mindset to the communication strategy. A simple audit is to ask, at the end of each meeting, "What went well during this meeting?" and "What needs to be done to improve the next meeting?"

Always keep in mind that communication only occurs face-to-face. Any other "communication" is advertising, which reinforces and supplements the face-to-face process, but should never be expected to replace it.

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Stephen Hawley Martin is a former principal of The Martin Agency in Richmond and the author of more than half a dozen books including his newest, Lean Enterprise Leader: How to Get Things Done Without Doing It All Yourself. He is editor and publisher of The Oaklea Press, a book publishing business dedicated primarily to helping business executives increase productivity.