One for all and all for one
Have you ever wondered why many small businesses and startups struggle? One key issue that causes many businesses, even large multinational corporations fall is teamwork. The company doesn’t work together towards a common goal but compete. This prevents businesses from achieving targets causing money to be wasted, processes to slow down, customer experience to suffer and employees to resign. In this article I’ll address areas that businesses of all sizes at all stages should be working on to improve in order to develop and thrive.
Communication is key
You may have read in the news that SAS Airlines filed for bankruptcy due to pilots going on strike, leased aircrafts standing unused, pandemic and post pandemic chaos and Asian route shut due to sanctions that prevent flying in Russian airspace. The negotiations failed as no common ground was found. This is something that happens often and it costs businesses tens of millions of dollars every year. If a business has investors and stakeholders, there is pressure to please them and keep things going no matter what. However, if the communication is effective only with them and employees are forgotten about, there is a storm in the horizon.
Communication is something a company should never neglect. Lets imagine that the company x has had a bad year and they need to restructure the company. Expenses have to be cut and employees hear this. First reaction is fear of being made redundant. Instead of having a proper dialogue and trying to come up with viable solution minimizing the risk of letting employees go. When there are issues, it’s vital that the whole organisation is included to the discussion. Leadership should listen to the staff and their concerns. For any business to overcome challenges, there needs to be effective, open and transparent communication across the whole organisation. All parties need to be listened and their best interest needs to be taken to account. A proper communication strategy is vital for every business and it should be always humancentric.
It’s a team effort
These days for any business to operate properly, management has to understand that it’s a team effort. Manager has to be also a leader and a coach supporting, inspiring, motivating, guiding and leading through example. Micromanaging has been source of issues for decades and managers often want to ensure they stay in power as long as possible. This leads to lack of support for aspiring talent and potential future leaders which in turn decreases employee loyalty and productivity not to forget the negative impact to performance. Honest, constructive and positive dialogue is vital for the success of the team and organisation as a whole. A manager needs to show that he is part of the team instead of a scary monster that looks after his own interest. Leadership has to be always humancentric. Would you like to have someone looking over your shoulder at all times waiting that you make even a smallest mistake to start complaining and correcting? I’d imagine you wouldn’t. If you’re like the most, you’d want a manager who is there for you when you need advice or guidance. You’d want someone who solves issues instead of causing them.
Conclusion
In the end, success boils down to communication and teamwork. Everyone needs to be heard and everyone has to work together towards a common goal. Challenges are way easier to overcome when you put in the effort to work together and listen others instead of forcing your own ideas without caring what others think. Employees are assets who can help you come up with innovative solutions to issues but without appreciation they won’t be motivated to help you. If we look at price of poor communication in numbers, we talk about 60+ M USD on a yearly basis that businesses leave on the table.
Are you investing in communication and your team?