In remote work setups and in crisis situations, leadership and management often exercise radio silence. They hesitate to communicate before they have all of the answers to every possible question.
1) Radio silence
In remote work setups and in crisis situations, leadership and management often exercise radio silence. They hesitate to communicate before they have all of the answers to every possible question. In doing so, they lose valuable time in which their employees, alone at home, start to feel disconnected and come up with their own, sometimes false answers and interpretations. Leaders should not try to be perfect. Admit when you don’t know the answer; it is more important to keep in touch, create an open dialogue and an effective communication strategy. Be there, ask questions.
2) Great tools, poor collaboration
There are great tools out there that leadership and management can look into, but they only serve their purpose if you implement them well and train your staff on how to use them effectively. Otherwise, you will have a big investment, but little returns. Also, note that you can buy tools, but you cannot buy collaboration. Align on which tools to use for which purpose: What do we use to update each other? What do we use to document things? Leadership and management should help their employees by setting clear guidelines.
3) Two parallel universes
Sometimes, C-level communicates through their own channels, focusing on their topics from a top-down and HQ-centric perspective, while the rest of the organization develops their own communication habits. This can also happen when a company treats satellite offices and their staff only as receivers in the communication process. As a result, a huge disconnect will grow - as though the head is cut off from the body. What is an effective solution for this poor communication between leaders and employees? Following an effective communication strategy that entails a change in perspective, involving people at all levels and locations, and being open and transparent! In order to improve your communication strategy, you can leverage social collaboration tools and platforms for generating an organization-wide dialogue.