Monday, July 12, 2021

Results-Oriented Communications Are Now Emerging

 It is becoming painfully evident that traditional communication channels are just not making the grade in these days of group innovation and fast-moving change. Organizations are dealing with communication challenges that are accelerating in today's demanding world. If you have ever had to manage, influence, guide, or participate in or with groups of various people inside or outside your organization, you know how severe communication issues can be. These issues can only be solved by communications focused on results while all participating can be moving towards results in synchronization. The shift from messages only to include pertinent data tracked to results is the best way to find the straightest line to desired outcomes.


The Need for Outside-In Perspectives

Today customer, partner, community, employee’s needs are becoming more prominent in the most successful organizations. The outside-in approach introduces new sources of communications that will be necessary for organizational progress and success. However, it adds more complexity to an already overtaxed and unfocused set of communication channels, methods, tools, and techniques. 

The Need for Laser Focus

The world will not wait for organizations to untangle their communications messes that are growing in complexity by adding more communications on older point-to-point capabilities like email, messaging, voice, project management, and broadcasting tools. Unfortunately, none of these channels is guided by a common set of expected results or goals, leading to a lack of momentum and focus. Often the results are surprise deliverables that the sponsors did not desire or expect. All of this because of weak and unfocused communications and lack of consistent visibility.

 The Need for Broad Skillsets

The overwhelming need for better customer, employee, and partner journeys with shared goals, policies, and guardrails drive more multi-disciplinary teams that break down organizational, skill, and digital domain silos. Of course, specialized skills and training will still be needed, but lateral thinking and rich sets of compound skills assisted by digital bots or knowledge agents will be the norm.

The Need for Innovative Dynamic Experimentation

A world driven by "do it, try it and fix it" is putting additional pressure on the communications infrastructures that exist in organizations today. With iterative methods being all the rage and new digital technologies that deliver incremental results during development, communications take on new importance for keeping all the team members on point. Change is only accelerating and continues to compound communication issues.

The Need for More Collaboration

All of the above puts tremendous momentum in and around collaboration. It is why point-to-point collaboration tools have taken off, and group video tools are all the rage. Unfortunately, not all the team members can be available to keep themselves in the loop, and they will have to scramble to stay pertinent and on point. Imagine a result-oriented approach that prioritizes the critical content and messages under one roof.

Net; Net:

The need for speedy and innovative solutions is driving organizations towards results-oriented communication infrastructures that share meta-data, data, and traditional messaging methods. We are moving away from unguided point-to-point communications that create tangles and confusion to result-oriented communications that share messages, content, and data under a unified infrastructure—all of this synchronized communication leads to a shared pathway to results. The days of "willy-nilly" communications are numbered. Watch this space for more on results-oriented communications, especially in this hybrid work environment ushered in by COVID.

 

 

 

20 comments:

  1. Very well articulated Jim! These are the key challenges all over the world, communication wise.

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  2. Very interesting article. I think you are ahead of time writing about this problem. What I feel is, that many companies have not identified the problem, yet.

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    1. Maybe, but I have certainly experienced it as a worker, manager and executive

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  3. So true. Was just thinking about this yesterday. Ironically Email is a productivity killer because it is so efficient at scattering and diluting everyone's finite amount of daily mental energy/focus.

    We never go deep anymore on one work task exclusively for even a half day, much less a whole day or multiple days.

    We've gone super broad in how many plates we have spinning on poles but those plates are thin and near empty.

    The result is now minimal or no results while we tread water in a foam of outcome-free communications.

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    1. You obviously have seen this in several situations

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  4. Thanks for expressing this so well, Jim!

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  5. What could be better than the straightest line to the desired outcome? Really good content, Jim. I'll be watching this space for more on results-oriented communication.

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  6. Broad skillsets as lateral thinking os the way to increase results in nowadays

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  8. This post is very timely as we drown in a deluge of poor misaligned communication. I will be sharing this far and wide to encourage discussion. Thanks Jim!

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  9. communication nightmares. Overwhelmed with communication channels - how to sift through what is important. technology has to be the answer.

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  10. It seems to be a reactive job we all get saddled with on a daily basis

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  11. Tacit knowledge and lightening-speed communication make very poor bedfellows. It's time to architect what we know and how we express it. And that starts with structered business vocabulary -- what we call a concept model. That's the human side. Then the opportunities on the technology side are boundless. Yes, agree, Jim. In the Knowledge Age, the issue is communication.

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  12. Thanks for the comment. A common business vocabulary is a must for sure. Some seem to think that it just evolves.

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  13. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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