Communication Strategy
I've worked with a number of teams and organizations at different levels during this stay-at-home period on leadership, and one central issue that seems to be a point for discussion with many teams is communication. When talking about a leadership approach and the behavior that goes along with it, the way teams communicate with one another comes up often. A lot of questions are asked - what is the best way to communicate with each other? How do we know when it's okay to speak up? How do we avoid too many people trying to get their point across at the same time? Communication seems to be a difficult issue for many teams.
Communication can never be an issue in high-achieving organizations. As a head coach, I said that to every one of my teams - communication can never be an issue for us. We have the most efficient means of communication available to us in the history of the world. We can face time with someone in China at any point in the day. We can never have issues with communication within our own team, especially when we know it is crucial to our success.
That's not to say communication is easy. It's difficult. How many times have you asked, yelled, demanded to your team that they have to communicate more on the court? It's a challenge. And part of that is because we don't have a plan. We tell our guys to communicate, but we don't talk about how to communicate or when communication is most important. We just tell guys to talk more, and we think it's going to happen.
It's crucial for every team to have an intentional plan for communication. Yes, one of the main reasons why we struggle to communicate is because we don't communicate about it. Get your team together and talk about it. Start with how important it is to be able to communicate with each other. I'm pretty sure everyone will be on board with that. Then talk about the best ways to communicate with each other - how are we going to give the message, and how do we receive the message. We might have some guys who are sensitive to getting yelled out or hearing voices raised. We might have some guys who need to hear it at loud volume to be able to get the point across. We all deliver messages differently, and we all receive them differently. So talk about the best way to get the point across.
Context matters, as it always does. So talk about that as well. Sure, on a Sunday night when we have a day off we can all get together and talk openly about what is going on with the team. But when there's 3:00 to play in a tie game and we need to beat a ball screen, we don't have time for a team meeting. I'm going to say it differently then, to get my point across and make sure it is heard. What we do is intense, and at times our communication is going to reflect that. That's okay, we just need to acknowledge it and get comfortable with it. It's not personal. Sometimes in the heat of the action, when a message needs to be sent, it's going to be sent in a certain way.
Give everyone on the team a chance to express how they respond to messaging. Spend some time getting to know the personalities in the room, and the goal of direct communication. Come to an agreement on how it is okay to talk to each other, and what the best way is to get the message across in different situations.
Communication must resolve conflict on a high-performing team, not cause it. My sense is that communication on teams causes more problems than it solves. And that is a huge obstacle in the way of elite success. Come up with an intentional game plan for how your team is going to communicate. It's an essential dynamic for any organization.