Entrepreneurs: The Power of Open Communications
by Miki Saxon
Remember Sun Microsystems? In 1998 they had a great ad that should bed on the wall of every startup and the goal of every manager, especially founders. It said, “Information shall circulate as freely as office gossip.”
Open communications is the basis of an enlightened workforce and enables world-class performance, unleashing creativity, and promoting a good working environment.
Great leaders/managers start with three basic assumptions:
- People are intelligent, motivated, and want to help their company succeed.
- People are required to act with initiative.
- People’s performance is directly impacted by the quality and quantity of the information they receive.
Open communications means
- managers providing employees with all the information they need to do their job
- sharing knowledge between employees. The double goal being to encourage employee growth and substantially reduce the time they spend reinventing the wheel.
- eliminating one of the two pillars of political power.
- documenting. Good documentation plays a role in every part and process of a company. Without the knowledge of what has been done in the past, it is difficult to fulfill the demands of the present, let alone make viable decisions for the company’s future. Documenting is as much attitude as action, so it is critical to continually develop the mindset among employees that no project is finished until it is documented.
- making sure that people can easily understand information. Visuals, from a manager’s quick sketch, to the detailed drawings used by engineering to describe a product to manufacturing, are the fastest and easiest way to present information to busy people. Processes and information that can not be represented visually are probably too convoluted and bureaucratic.
Make open communications one of the core values on which you base your company’s culture.
Image credit: Communications Network
