It’s an exciting time for your company! All cylinders are firing and you’ve just received the go-ahead to add headcount or purchase the new software you’ve been waiting for.
Depending on the magnitude of change, this could be a potential make or break moment, impacting how you are perceived as a leader and your ability to execute.
Communication is key whether you are growing or scaling your company (yes, there is a difference!). This article explores the key communication considerations for leaders within growth or scale companies, and what aspects to focus on to optimize success.
Communication 101
In a recent blog, we explored the importance of communication in a business setting and why it should matter to every leader within the organization. To recap, poor workplace communication wastes time and money:
- Approximately 7.47 hours of time wasted per employee per week
- A whopping $1.2T cost to US businesses per year
Meetings can be a point of leverage to drive momentum, inspire, and accelerate results within a company. As leaders, transform your organization’s meeting culture, and you’ve just created a roadmap to cement your legacy.
In today's fast-paced business environment, effective communication is critical for leadership success. Leaders need to pay attention to all aspects of meeting communication – what is said pre and post meetings as well as spoken and unspoken forms. This holistic approach ensures clarity, fosters collaboration, and drives productivity.
Growth vs. Scale and Why Communication Matters
Growing and scaling companies are not the same though people often use these terms interchangeably.
Growth means adding resources. Examples include hiring new headcount, purchasing equipment, or expansion through a merger or acquisition strategy.
Scale refers to improving efficiency and ensuring that the company can keep up with increased demand for its products and services. This involves shifts in processes, policies, and procedures.
This is a great article outlining the key differences in growth and scale.
For leadership, communication is essential during either growth or scale because both phases involve change.
Leader Communication Pro Tip – Share More
As a manager, striking a balance between saying too much and not sharing enough is key. Research shows that bosses who share too little are likely to be perceived as uncaring while those who over-communicate are viewed more favourably and as more empathetic by their direct reports.
While this may seem counter-intuitive to managers who believe that information overload negatively affects employee performance, it clearly highlights that discussing communication preferences with your team can improve your relationship with your direct reports.
Organizations that are growing and scaling require adaptability and flexibility among teams. Shifting priorities is often necessary, and the way leaders and organizations approach and communicate these changes plays a critical role in maintaining alignment and ensuring overall success.
But adding more meetings or extending invites to additional team members should not be the default approach to communication. Consider a meeting alternative first. If meetings are necessary, ensure that participants feel their time is valued and their attendance is necessary for the purpose of the meeting. For example, is their input required for a decision or to brainstorm solutions for an existing issue?
In general, employees appreciate the time and effort their managers take to keep them informed on company related goals and objectives. As leaders, ensure that the information you convey is shared in ways that are constructive and not counter-productive to your team’s workflow.
Change is Exciting but Proceed with Caution
Most managers would agree that adding resources or introducing new processes, policies, or procedures can be daunting and challenging. Typical growth and scale activities can potentially alter the flow, speed and efficiency of communication within an organization. For our visual thinkers, consider how fast the lines of communication multiply when headcount grows.
Source: https://www.runn.io/blog/growing-vs-scaling
But there are ways to protect your organization from potential confusion.
Meetings to Mitigate Rapid Change
During periods of change within an organization, every minute counts. Poorly run meetings impede productivity and are frustrating for everyone involved.
In a recent podcast titled ‘Why Your Meetings Suck (and How to Fix Them)’, leading organizational psychologist and meeting culture expert, Dr. Steven Rogelberg highlights ways managers can leverage meetings to ensure employee engagement and efficiency. He stressed that leaders are stewards of their employees’ time and need to ensure that every meeting and interaction reflects that.
We’ll do a deeper dive into the power potential of 1:1 meetings in a future blog.
Voices Here, There, and Everywhere
The popularity of hybrid and virtual meetings have exploded in recent years, adding to the growing list of considerations for managers. Research indicates that team performance is related to member participation, and how involved employees are during hybrid and virtual meetings depends on:
- Online meeting chats – are they enabled as a parallel form of communication during the meeting? Attendees can actively participate in the conversation without interrupting the speaker through written contributions. Leaders can encourage questions, discussion, resource sharing, and engagement with the speaker or one another via chat functions.
- Job status – the higher employees’ job level or hierarchy is within the organization, the more likely they are to engage in meeting conversation. As leaders, recognize this and set the tone for inclusivity by ensuring all attendees are encouraged to participate in meeting discussion.
- Gender differences – higher job level women use chats more while men in higher jobs tend to contribute more verbally. Research also reveals gender differences related to decision making power, positions of leadership, discussion participation, and receiving positive vs. negative statements.
- Psychological safety – there is a direct relationship between how ‘safe’ employees feel and their level of meeting chat participation. The more supported and inclusive employees feel their workplaces are, the more likely they are to take risks, share ideas, and contribute to discussions.
This article explains the concept of ‘psychological safety’ and why it is an important consideration in the workplace.
Additional Ways Leaders can Improve Meetings
There are several considerations for leaders and ways to improve meeting culture that are relatively easy to implement. These include:
- Reduce adhoc meetings – don’t just have meetings for the sake of having meetings.
- Consider non-meeting alternatives – not every decision or collaboration requires meetings.
- Pay attention to details – specifically, the duration and timing of meetings. Research shows that shorter back to back meetings facilitate ‘deep thinking’ – necessary for focused and productive work, as well as enabling true creativity and innovation.
- Switch it up and consider new ways keep ideas flowing. For example, share a pre-read in advance of a meeting.
- Advocate for a Chief Meeting Officer (CMO) – a role focused on improving all things meeting related at a company level. Recognize however that meetings are a joint responsibility between business leaders and their teams; we’ll explore ‘followership’ in a future blog.
Shifting the meeting mindset within an organization can be daunting. The tactics above support positive change but transforming meeting culture requires a holistic approach combining data and analytics to identify actionable insights, and guidance on tools available to drive change.
Want to learn more about shifting meeting mindsets within your organization? Contact the Kairos team of experts for an overview of the options available, and we will show you how to optimize your organization’s meeting culture to create a true competitive advantage.
