Team Member Retention --- Part 4

Dear Uncommon Leaders, 

Hope you each had a great Thanksgiving and are now ready for the final month of the year! Merry December! 🌲

As we round out our Team Member Retention series, and begin to round out the year, continue to challenge your leadership.

Have a great week!

Your Sunday Nugget

This Week's Question:

How effective is you and your leadership team’s communication with your workforce?

This Week's Challenge: 

Most organizations, when asked what is one of their greatest needs for improvement, will say it is a need for better communication. That’s a big topic, isn't it? It’s challenging to even know where to start when we want to improve communication, yet when people feel like they aren’t “kept in the know,” they are likely to leave. That means when we improve in this critical area, we are more likely to improve our staff retention.

As a leader, there are many ways you can impact the overall health of your organization or team’s communication, but here are three tips that can help:

1. Listen well. Make sure you are an active listener. That means you genuinely care to hear about your team members’ feelings and perspectives and you seek them out. The better you listen, the more you’ll be in the know and the better you can respond to what you hear.

2. Be as clear and as concise in your communication as possible, without being unprofessional. We all are bombarded with so much information! Sometimes in the spirit of trying to improve communication, we “pile on” to what is an already information-overwhelmed mind.  Simplicity helps. Try to prune your messaging to get to the point and to be as clear as you can. Get clear first and then share.

3. Adapt your style and methods as needed. Not everyone hears or learns the same way. We communicate best when we adapt to our audience. If I am speaking to someone who is more direct, they may hear a message better if I’m more direct while others may need more of the context or why. As we learn to adjust to our audience, our communication can become more effective.

Your challenge this week is to work to improve your skill in communicating with your team members. Try practicing these tips to help keep your team members “in the know.”

This Week's Quote to Ponder:

“Communication works for those who work at it.” - John Powell

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Until next week,

LET'S GO BE UNCOMMON!

W. Kevin Harrison

Founder and Executive Coach

Uncommon Influence