When was the last time your organization claimed that “improved communication” would solve its troubles? Last year? Last quarter? Last month?

Take a walk down the hall into the room with the coffee and the copier. Scan the walls. Do you see it? The sign citing “communication” as a an organizational priority?

Are you sick to your stomach yet?

I’ve come to find that the statement “we just need to communicate better” is code. It says more about about organizational culture than about communication skill, effectiveness or frequency. It says more about the person/group proclaiming it than about the person/group receiving the proclamation.

To help you decode the real meaning behind the message the next time hear it, here are my 5 favorite translations of “We Need Better Communication.”

1: We talk to each other. But we don’t listen to each other.

It’s true. Communication requires speaking and listening. And it requires both actions by both parties. If you think this is what you’re being told, consider yourself lucky because this tends to be the easiest challenge to take on. People listen better when they feel they’re being listened to. Start showing that you’re listening and you’ll get the same in return.

2: I’m communicating with you, but you’re not doing what I tell you.

This one’s trickier, but typically easy to spot. People tend to throw this coded message around when they’re frustrated by lack of progress, success or follow-through by the people who work with and among them. The best way to solve this one: conclude conversations by clearly summarizing (and documenting, if possible) the content and conclusions of the discussion. Be sure to include any decisions on next steps and the persons responsible for those actions. Sometimes being a parrot has its perks.

3: We don’t have time or care to bother with communication.

Even trickier. This coded message implies something about hierarchy. In other words, the person on the receiving end is being told that they’re not worthy of the time and effort required by the act of communication. They are also being told that they will be held responsible for any lack or failure of communication. Solution? Set forth a mutually agreed upon process and schedule for communication. Knowing that you’re working with a resistant party, keep requirements to a minimum. At all times, keep to the process and refer to the process when you’re lacking the information that you need from the other party (or parties). Maintain iron-clad documentation.

4: We’re an open book. You just don’t pay attention.

It’s common for people or groups to believe that they provide better information than they actually do. Or, that outside parties understand where to look/who to consult for necessary information. A good solution for this one: information trees. Document the areas where you or your team most frequently are frustrated when trying to find or pass along information. Then identify the primary information resources (personal or electronic) that are most likely to fulfill your most common needs. From there, drill down and document a tree of deeper and deeper sources of information, knowledge and expertise. If the person or team you’re working with truly is an open book, this should not be hard for them to compile.

5: We gave you the information. Doing something with it is your job.

I call this one, “informational sabotage.” Some people make a habit of turning information into hand grenades; as soon as they throw it over the wall they don’t care what the consequences. To tackle this one takes 1-part finesse and 2-parts hard-nosed project manager. When not given proper time to manage and process new information, you and/or your team are put at risk. So, think like a steel magnolia: as sweetly as you can, tell the other party that you understand why the information came in so late and of course they just couldn’t help it. Stroke their ego. And then take pains to figure out what it will take to make sure it never happens again.

So, last week I argued that effective leaders function as individual, walking, talking sales and marketing teams for the interests they represent. To make my argument I referred to a post by John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing blog titled, “Those idiots in marketing just don’t get it.” In it, Jantsch provides his personal definitions of marketing and of sales. He writes, “marketing is – getting someone who has a need to know, like and trust you. Now let’s blend in my definition of sales: sales is – taking know, like and trust and converting it to try, buy, repeat and refer.”

So, how should the leader as communicator plan to balance their marketing and sales efforts? It goes without saying that I have a theory on this. Shoot for 30%. If you’re effective with the group you lead, you shouldn’t have to invest more than 30% of your time maintaining a sense of like-ability and trustworthiness. But invest less than that and you’ll run your well dry.

Take a look at what I mean (finally, a chance to chart!).

Getting Swampy

The leader who spends the majority of his/her time getting known, being liked and gaining trust doesn’t have much time left to motivate others to “buy” their concepts, to move on their ideas. Concentrating on the relationship is perfectly appropriate during certain leadership phases such as taking on a new group or a new role. But once they know you, you’ve got to get selling. You’ve got to use the capital you’ve earned. Like water in a pond, too much attention spent on being liked (and not enough on putting ideas in motion) and you’ll overrun your borders, turning the fertile farmland of your relationships into a swampy slog.

Forecast: Drought

Just as being overly concerned about relationships can dampen your influence as a leader, a lack of concern for them can drain your well of influence dry. No matter how established and successful a relationship, asking someone to invest their time and energy on your behalf is ultimately a one-sided proposition. People who hold great amounts of trust and respect for you may occasionally be willing to act and take risks on your behalf without asking much in return. But even the greatest devotion is finite. Spending time to understand how others stand to benefit from acting on your requests keeps your relationships well-irrigated and tended.

As Goldilocks said, This One is Just Right

So, how did I settle on my 30% rule? Primarily because it just feels right. But there is a little more to it. As a general rule, companies looking to grow their sales and market share spend about 25-30% of their operating budget on marketing. As a business professional, you’re not likely looking to stay in your current position for the rest of your career. You’re probably looking to grow, and in order to do so you must increase your level of recognition, power and influence within your organization. That means a good 25-30% of your time is marketing. But let’s face it, a business isn’t a business if it doesn’t sell and a leader isn’t a leader if he or she doesn’t get things done. So, what’s not spent on establishing and maintaining relationships has to be spent on selling.

Like I said, 30% — it just feels right, doesn’t it?

While I don’t consider myself a true marketer but rather an organizational communication expert, I see marketing as an essential element of org comm, particularly of leadership communication. Effective leaders understand (intrinsically or otherwise) that communication requires sound ideas, supported by a demonstration of humility and integrity and an active pursuit an audience’s trust.

Effective leaders (at every level) function as individual, walking, talking sales and marketing teams. I myself hadn’t separated the communication of the message from the sell. Here’s how they’re different. Effective communicators:

• Not only pass a message along, they invest personally in the grand ideas within it (idea + relationship).

• Not only understand (are not told, but understand) what message needs communicating, but also who needs to hear it (let’s face it: over-communicating is as fundamental a problem as a lack of communication).
• Not only communicate the big idea to their audiences, but move their audiences to action, to “try, buy, repeat and refer” the idea (communication + sell).

The point to me is ownership: ownership of the idea (you don’t have to originate it to have a stake in it) as well as ownership of the relationship with those who need to buy it. If you as a communicator feel as sense of ownership on both sides of the equation, you’re chances of a successful close (sale) are high. It’s when you lack ownership that your buyer begins to see right through you.

Is it getting nasty out there, or is it just me? Here are some of the tee shirts and bumper stickers I saw this weekend:

• Shame on you. Yeah you. The one looking at my chest. [expletive deleted]
• If you want your husband to listen to you, you’ll have to pry his head out of his butt. [expletive also deleted]
• Oh, I get it. You’re stupid.

Maybe I should wonder about my neighbors.

So, is communicating with each other getting so difficult that we have to turn people off before they speak to us? I contemplated approaching the woman wearing the “You’re stupid” shirt when I saw her in a local store this afternoon. Ultimately I didn’t; I figured I’d embarrassed my kids enough for the day. But I was curious. Why did she choose to make that statement? What did she want people to think? That she was funny? That she was angry? That she encounters such flocks of stupid people that she can’t function in her daily endeavors?

The 2007 results of the Harris Interactive Poll shows that 56% percent of Americans feel a sense of alienation. The annual poll studies how much control people feel they have over their lives. 2007 showed the highest sense of alienation since 1999. So, not the highest sense of alienation in history. But over half of Americans polled indicate they feel a sense of powerlessness and isolation. That’s significant.

I have a hunch. It’s not that we walk among the functioning stupid. It’s that we’re out of touch. We’re alienated and isolated. And consequently, socially illiterate.

So, the question becomes this. When isolated and out-of-touch, do you choose to engage or withdraw? Do you choose to maintain an open posture, or a hostile one? Is the world around you stupid, or a puzzle which you have yet to piece together?

Once you answer those questions for yourself, think about the implications they have on your employees.

Gather your thoughts and drop me a line. I’d love to hear what you came up with.

I thought my desk was clean. Then I read today’s blog entry from business coach, Jack Bergstrom. Check out the pictures and see for yourself. Or just let me describe it to you: clutter-free. His desk is clear of papers. He keeps five active paper files, each dedicated to his primary business tasks. His bulletin board has only a few, meaningful images. And his computer desktop has five active folders.

His point? “Everyone performs better, achieves more, with less stress, when they focus on one thing at a time,” writes Jack. “You can quote me on that!” I just did. And I agree with him. I think we focus on so many things in our lives that we actually mistake being only marginally cluttered for being organized. The contrast between my desk and Jack’s desk proves it.

You can consult Jack’s website on how to de-clutter your personal and professional life. But since you’re on my blog, take a minute to think about the communication streams within your own business. How cluttered is your organization’s communication? How focused are you, really?

Try to account for the following:

• How many projects does your average employee take on at once?
• How many different teams are your employees interfacing with?
• How many “priority” and “mission critical” initiatives do you have going right now?
• How many internal communication channels (web, email, bulletin boards, flyers, team meetings) do your employees need to consult to stay abreast of company information?
• How many external information channels inform and shape the work going on within your organization?

No matter how large your company or how it’s organized, this is bound to be a long list. We rarely lack for information. What we lack is good information. How can you de-clutter the communication streams at your company?

Here are a few ideas:

• Be on the lookout for communication turf battles. Don’t let the web site be the sole domain of one department while email is dominated by another. Find a way to merge competing streams, making one reliable pool of good information.
• Take a look at your strategic initiatives. How appropriately are they communicated? Is the information about them timely and trustworthy? Does the messaging conflict with messaging about other initiatives?
• Engage employees in the streamlining process. Get a feel for how synchronous or conflicted their sources of information are and how they navigate those sources. Get a feel for how they then forward information along. Get your employees to recommend changes — and then take them up on it.
• If the above seems overwhelming, a professional communication audit may do wonders for you. A communication consultant can help you understand how communication functions within your organization, where it breaks down, and make recommendations for enhancing it.

I, for one, have been thinking about my own company’s messaging for quite some time. I think it’s a bit cluttered. It’s getting better, but it still needs help. Even communication consultants, I suppose, find that communication is an imperfect game. But one worth striving to improve, nevertheless.

If I could only transfer that to my golf game. . .

?4U. RU DL w/txtg? UR? XLNT! TTMOT, FMOCL. UKIT.

Enough already. For those of you who were able to read the above statement without a web translator, you’re likely under the age of 25. For those of you who glanced at the first line and thought my blog had succumb to technical errors, here’s a translation:

Question for you. Are you down low with texting? You are? Excellent! Then trust me on this, I’m falling out of my chair laughing. You know it’s true.

Believe it or not, I’m not writing this to rip into the communication tools of the text monkeys out there. But I do feel much older as a result of this post. . . No, the point here is to highlight a frequent tendency in the business world to rely too heavily on the mysterious, coded world of acronyms.

Just last week I was handed a 14 page presentation that had *16* words in the whole deck. The rest of the 14 pages of content consisted of acronyms. I had no idea what I was looking at. RUDLWT?

Acronyms play a key role in business lingo, yes. But here are a few rules to keep in mind:

1. Words come first. Unless you meet colleagues in the hallway and ask them if they “put the DBJ on the KC before BLN,” don’t write like that – in presentations, emails, memos, anything. There are very few acronyms that can be used interchangeably as words. For all others, spell out the entire word for the first mention followed by the acronym in parentheses. You may then use the acronym for the rest of the document.
2. Don’t go making things up. Look, there’s enough to keep track of these days without getting new acronyms thrown at you. I once worked with a guy who made a game of seeing how many new acronyms he could introduce into our team lingo. And he was pretty darn successful at it! But, please, keep the unnecessary lingo at a minimum and save the good ones for when you really need them.
3. Keep it at work. I once turned to my husband and asked if he’d “completed his latest CMAP.” You should have seen the look on his face. And then you should have heard him tell me to “please not consider me one of your clients.” He was right, and I’m thankful for being married to a man with such a good sense of humor. UKWIM?