Focus on Communication – Reap the Benefits

You know Labor Day is one of those relaxing holidays for me personally. For those who work hard year round, I think it is a good idea to take the day off and rest. But Tuesday is always coming. Yesterday was Labor Day, but today we need to get back to work.

Labor Day is a great day to assess the previous year of labor, your work and what you accomplished over the last year. Today, Tuesday is a great day to implement new work habits, new goals, a new perspective on the work you do.

Here are a few suggestions on new goals or work habits you may want to implement as you get a fresh start today:

1. Develop better communication with people at all levels of your organization

2. Develop clear goals for yourself and/or your work team and communicate them

3. Develop a plan for accomplishing the work you do – Look for areas that steal your time and delete them

4. Get organized

5. Be an intentional worker – Work with purpose

I want to focus on these suggestions over the next few days. I will begin with communication today. Misunderstandings account for a large percentage of conflict in the workplace. I find that poor communication accounts for more issues within organizations than almost anything else. Consider implementing better communication with your team, your boss and others you work with in the organization. If you decide you want to communicate better, understand that others may not be willing to change right away, however, your commitment to better communication will make a difference in the overall climate of the organization. Start with people within your sphere of influence. Make sure they are clear about your expectations, your goals, your needs, your values and how what they do impacts the overall success of the goals of your department, or the jobs you do.

One of the keys to better communication is that two communication will always net you more than one way communication. In other words, create dialog, ask questions, give others the opportunity to speak into the goals and outcome of the work you do. A second key to communication is clarity. If people are not clear about your expectations, you will constantly be in a place of frustration. People interactions can bring frustrations. Especially when they are not clear about what you want. I challenge leaders to clarify expectations as often as possible. Once people are clear about expectations, than you can hold people accountable for what they do and don’t do.

Lastly, if better communication is your goal out of the gate as we move into the later part of this year, understand that strengthening communication is a process. Things may not change right away, but with a commitment to improve communication, you will see in due season you will reap the fruit of your efforts

Image Credit: sxc.hu