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 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.
Very well articulated Jim! These are the key challenges all over the world, communication wise.
ReplyDeleteThanks my friend
DeleteVery 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.
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but I have certainly experienced it as a worker, manager and executive
DeleteSo 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.
ReplyDeleteWe 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.
You obviously have seen this in several situations
DeleteThanks for expressing this so well, Jim!
ReplyDeleteThanks :)
DeleteWhat 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.
ReplyDeleteThanks :)
DeleteBroad skillsets as lateral thinking os the way to increase results in nowadays
ReplyDeleteThanks
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ReplyDeleteThis 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!
ReplyDeleteCertainly true
Deletecommunication nightmares. Overwhelmed with communication channels - how to sift through what is important. technology has to be the answer.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to be a reactive job we all get saddled with on a daily basis
ReplyDeleteTacit 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.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. A common business vocabulary is a must for sure. Some seem to think that it just evolves.
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