Communications

When diagnosing organizational barriers to success the tendency is to look at functional support issues or programmatic miscalculations. However, once the consultant or in-house team begins delving into the issue, they often uncover communications as the number one issue. It is not uncommon to hear from both leadership and management that the “staff isn’t on the same page” or “our programs operate as silos with very little understanding of what happens in other parts of the organization.” More often than not, this isn’t an intentional occurrence, but something that has evolved over time as the organization gets caught up in execution or growth issues.

Assessment Questions: Is everyone in our organization on the same page in terms of our mission and vision objectives? How would the average employee define success for the organization? How do we communicate major decisions that affect the organization? How often do we meet or interact as an organization to discuss these issues? Who owns the communication process? Do the leaders of the organization consider effective communication to be a critical element of their responsibilities? Do we use multiple communication levers to get our point across? What effort do we put forth to encourage two-way communications with staff? At what level do we gear our communications? How do we accommodate the various message needs of different audiences including the board, founders and our clients? Who are the informal communication hubs within the organization and how do we leverage their status in this regard?

Intervention: Development of a communication plan that outlines a common approach for the organization, but both understands and encourages the need for this to be a living document in a constant state of assessment. In certain cases, the development of a cross-functional Communications team that becomes an ingrained part of the organizational infrastructure.

Miscellaneous: Communication skills are often developed individually and over the course of a lifetime. Basic communication skills can be taught and encouraged, but there is an element of innate ability that cannot be ignored. Therefore, systems must be balanced with the proper leverage of talent to be effective. Moreover, organizational cultures can often inhibit effective communication and may foster a sense of self-interest or disinformation, which takes time to correct. To some extent, there are some quick fixes, but staff will constantly be on the lookout for inconsistencies or reversion to past behaviors. Building an effective two-way communications infrastructure takes time, discipline and trust. Lastly, flexibility coupled with on-going assessment is key as the organization uncovers the vehicles and approaches that work best for its work environment.

Approach:

• Review past communication materials focused on both internal and external audiences including the dissemination process 
• 1:1 interviews with senior team and key staff 
• Administer communications survey and/or focus groups 
• Facilitated discussion with senior team regarding assessment results 
• Create a in-house cross functional communications team to review assessment results and develop intervention strategy 
• Identify the various communication needs of specific audiences and design an appropriate strategy vii) Research internal best practices including current and potential communication leaders within the organization 
• Research external best practices from multiple sectors 
• Create a communications planning document that builds the foundations for a new organizational approach to communications that values all organizational stakeholders and constituencies