I Told Them

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

- George Bernard Shaw

The single most important attribute of a leader, a coach, is to communicate well. A leader/coach has to have a vision and goals of where she wants to go, and she needs to align the team and take them there.  

That means "consistently" communicating to your team. I have had clients who finally set goals and wrote down a vision and then got the team together at the first of the quarter and told them what they were. Then they don't look or talk about them until the end of the quarter when I review with them how they performed. Some even tied bonuses to these numbers.

Wow what a waste of money! Either nothing is said, if we don't meet the goals, or worse, we hand out checks for something the team has totally forgotten about.

Communication takes consistency. The process I utilize is The Leadership Matrix and it instills that consistency in communications and ensures execution.

We ensure communication, follow up and execution through developing a rhythm in the business. We have team-based, weekly 20 minute Huddles, reviewing the goals and how we are doing against them, and Dashboards to ensure follow up on major tactical projects. We have weekly Coaching Conversations (10 -15 minutes long), one-on-one with direct reports to discuss how the individual is doing on their contribution to achieving the goals,how we can help them and to focus them on the right things.

Telling them once in a group doesn't work. To really communicate something we need to do it over and over with the team as a group AND one-on-one. In this way we align the team with where we are going, and we can motivate the team with the goals we have set by reviewing our progress weekly throughout the quarter.

Here's to process and consistency. 

All the best, 

Rick Wallace