Tips to Take Your Team’s Communication to the Next Level
Teamwork is impossible without communication. Therefore, the better you’re at it as a group, the sooner you’ll reach your goals — and the easier it will be to work in harmony and develop a strong bond.
Because effective team communication is crucial for organizational efficiency, we’ve gathered a few tips to help you bring your team closer together:
Build Trust & Openness
Lead by Example
Employees can develop excellent communication skills simply by observing how their managers communicate. Specifically, ensure that your leadership team addresses any concerns in a reasonable timeframe and that they don’t forget to offer praise when it’s due. This helps create a culture of open, two-way communication that employees can freely be part of.
Introduce an Open-Door Policy
An open-door policy helps reinforce the idea that anyone can voice their concerns, ask questions and pitch ideas at any time. This helps build trust within your team.
Conversely, if management is inaccessible — or perceived that way — junior employees may feel undervalued. To address this, consider removing any obstacles between employees, which also helps develop a sense of mutual trust and encourages the free flow of ideas.
Build Trust Through Task Delegation
Actions speak louder than words, and delegating important tasks to your employees is one of the best ways to show them that you trust them. It also comes with the added benefit of boosting their sense of responsibility. Sure, it takes two to tango, but you can start with lower-risk tasks and gradually entrust them with more and more important duties. This way, you can start building strong foundations even with new employees that you’re just getting to know.
Additionally, cloud-based resource management and project-tracking tools can be a great tool to allocate tasks as they allow you to reduce unnecessary check-ins and the negative communication culture it can create without sacrificing visibility.
Enhance Communication Flow & Strengthen Team Dynamics
Choose Effective Communication Channels
Depending on your team’s functions, choose communication channels that align well with what they do. Some of the channels to consider include collaboration apps, email, video conferencing, instant messaging and more.
When choosing the right channel, the main things to consider are the purpose of the communication and your desired outcome. Whatever you do, always choose a medium that’s accessible and easy to understand for everyone involved. Remember, it’s about removing obstacles, not adding more.
Encourage Purposeful Communication
Engaging in purposeful communication saves valuable time and sets your business up for success. To establish a clear communication purpose, determine your desired outcome and refer back to these objectives whenever necessary.
After all, communication is only efficient if it’s on-topic and easy to follow. To t hat end, be sure to keep work-related chats and email threads streamlined. There are plenty of other channels to discuss everything else.
Engage in Team-Building Communication Exercises
Team-buildings are inherently about communication with the whole point being to get to know each other better. So, why not kick it up a notch? For instance, you could introduce targeted exercises that help strengthen the communication skills that each team member needs in their role and then package it as a fun, creative game.
Plus, looking at everyday problems in a different context always helps shine a new light on various aspects, which can then spark new ideas and give birth to new, more efficient solutions. Isn’t that what thinking outside of the box is all about?
Empty interactions and unproductive meetings are a luxury that no aspiring business can afford. Use these tips to enhance the effectiveness of your team’s communication and free up bandwidth for real problem-solving.
