I loved David Zinger’s comments today at Slacker Management on Guy Kawasaki’s hilarious take on a list of management theories. (I’ve loved Guy’s commentary on the world since I met him in 1999 when his first book, Rules for Revolutionaries, came out, I still have my autographed copy).

Guy says, “You can use the page as a test: Anyone who knows all these theories is someone you shouldn’t hire.”

David says, “Go ahead, let’s see you communicate and obfuscate at the same time.”

My first thought when I saw the list was, “what an addition to the BS Bingo matrix!”

Take the time to read the posts because I’m not going to rehash them, but I would like to take it a step further and talk about why it’s so crucial for managers to truly communicate with their people.

For managers, communications is about more than talking clearly, it’s about providing all the background necessary for people in the company to understand why they are doing their jobs, as well as what jobs they are to do.

Think of it this way, operational communications provide people information on how to do their jobs, while management communications tell them what their jobs are and why they do them, giving form and purpose.

Many of the problems that managers face daily are created by their own poor or inaccurate communications, often as a result of using jargon in an effort to sound sophisticated, knowledgeable and with it.

This doesn’t work for two reasons. even if you, as a manager, really do understand the jargon—often not the case—it’s unlikely that all of your people will. Worse, they may have their own individual understanding that has nothing to do with your intended meaning. This happens frequently enough with words of one or two syllables, let alone multi-syllabic management-babble.

You can eliminate a propensity in this direction by remembering three points…

Your goal is to provide your people with all the information needed to understand how to perform their work as correctly, completely, simply, and efficiently as possible.

You do this by providing clear, concise, and complete communications at all times.

Your results will be to make your company more successful, you a more effective manager with better reviews, and your employees happier and more productive.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Communication, management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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