| You can’t have too much communication |
Don’t assume that everyone knows what is going on
Philip B. Crosby, quality guru, and author, originator of such concepts as “zero defects”, writes of an experience in helping to write and produce a new company brochure. Several creative and production people worked on it, taking photographs, preparing the layout, assuring accuracy. Hours and days were spent with paper merchants and a whole week with the final proofs and a commercial printer.
When the final, printed products came back, everyone was delighted. Brochures were rushed to the executive committee who provided applause and congratulations.
A few weeks later, in the lobby of the company’s building, Crosby ran into a long-term business acquaintance who had just been in to see one of the senior people about doing business together. Crosby noticed that he had a brochure under his arm, but it was the old one, the one they were replacing because it was out of date.
As soon as it was polite to do so, Crosby stole away to the administrative manager to ask why they were still using the old brochures. It turned out that the company still had a few boxes left so the administrative staff had carefully stacked the new ones behind them. None of the new brochures had been sent out to clients, to the company mailing list or to regional or international offices.
. . .They were just sitting there.
No one had told the administrative manager anything about the decision to scrap the old and mail out the new.
This is an example of a lack of communication, one that occurred, as Crosby wryly observes, in an organization built on communication. Crosby notes that organizations of all sizes make most of their own troubles and inefficiencies. They work hard at the wrong things, they keep everyone off-balance. Poor communication is at the root of most of these problems.
Communication breakdowns are far more frequent than one would think in all sorts of companies. So much so that ensuring good communication is a basic aim of such systems as the Baldrige criteria and ISO 9000.
Some forms of communication have been legislated into the ways we work. Lockout/tagout is such a form of communication. Lockout/tagout is intended at least in part, to make up for deficiencies in communication. Yet communication is important even here. So long as everyone knows the importance of lockout/tagout—and even if they don’t—the system has built-in fail-safe mechanisms so that a person working on potentially hazardous equipment is protected.
Productivity, safety and quality all depend to a large degree on good communications. But communications, left to their own devices, can, as Crosby points out, degenerate to the point where no one is telling anyone else what they are doing.
Whatever the system, good communication takes place in an atmosphere of openness and trust.
Crosby suggests the following:
- People have to care. Care however, travels in several directions. People will care for the results of their efforts if they feel their leaders care about them, care about the product, care about the company, and care about its customers. Leaders have to care that their associates will be successful. They have to provide the tools to do the job as well as possible, and to provide a path for team members to grow beyond one job into the next. The concern shown by management for employees and all those who touch the enterprise must be abundantly evident.
- Share all information. There is virtually no information that cannot be shared with all employees at all levels. There must be an absolute compulsion to share information. Tell others on your team what you are doing. Learn what they are doing. Tell them what their associates are doing, and encourage them
to communicate freely with one another. Tell team members what happens to their work after it leaves their work area or work station.
- People do not fully appreciate their personal responsibility for the process unless they are told about it. This is part of sharing information. People have to realize, for instance, what happens
to the rest of the place when they decide to skip a day of work, or goof off on some project. They need to know how their attention to safety details, such as wiping oil off a piece of equipment or tool at the end of a shift contributes to the safety of another worker. They have to know how their part of the
work fits into the overall product or service. They should know how customers feel about the product; whether or not they find it highly useful, or if they are putting up with it until something better comes along. Good communications are the basis for all well-run systems, the foundation upon which to build better products and provide better services into the future, and of paramount importance in maintaining a safe and healthful workplace
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