COMMUNICATION, AGAIN AND AGAIN

Communication in business is one of the most powerful success factor. People cannot even think of becoming a leader if they do not really enjoy expressing themselves, are afraid / bored to be repetitive or if they have no courage to express their opinions, especially when it is something which is not good news to the interlocutor. The secret is to be able to sense the best moment and the best words to verbalize statements or information. But, if a mistake is inevitable, it is much better to sin for the excess than otherwise. People keep doing a constant mental symbiosis between their own beliefs, values and interests against what the company is trying to embed as a philosophy. The conflict can be relevant and create great confusion in the workplace. The fastest and effective way of overcoming this hazard is the use of the simple but useful technique of the repetition. No matter how you decide to do this: verbal, signs, messages or through one of the most effective ways in my opinion -- "the walk the talk" method. One must repeat and repeat again up to the point where most of the collaborators have assimilated the full sense of the message. But, that would not make any sense if what you do does not personally support what you preach.  When this is finished then a new phase must start. It is also quite important to make a random check if the story captured is really aligned with what the company wanted to express. Remember that communication is not the output but the assimilated message. They can be different some times, especially if this is not done personally by you. I used the method that I called Ping-Pong. After a couple of days in which a message was launched to be cascaded down, I use to go personally to some sectors of the company and ask what the workforce actually understood expressed in their own words. This technique was very powerful and effective.

It is always useful to find a good representation of the essence of the message through an image. Real cases in which can be recognized by the group is an efficient form of materializing the argument.  

Finally, to complement the strategy, it is essential that you have the informal leaders mapped. By this I say that you must know the people and their natural leadership behaviour, especially the ones that have no formal leadership responsibility.  They must be attracted to participate in company programs and transformed in company culture disseminators. They will be able to transform and transmit the formal language from the top in to informal ways of interactions.

In simple terms, leadership is mission impossible if communication is not effective, and by that I say:

·  Repeat the message as many times as necessary to forge it through all levels of the organization

·  Endorse the message by personally giving the example

·  Connect the dots by illustrating the message with real cases, paint the picture

·  Identify the informal leaders and transform them in multiplication agents  

Coaching - Uma outra abordagem para o Sucesso!