Leadership Communication

Summary:
So, you've just been appointed to manage a department or named to a leadership position of some kind, have you? And now you want to improve communication with people in the department or organization. Well, let's consider a crucial aspect of leadership communication.

What should you communicate? What subjects? After all, there is a literally infinite number of possibilities.

Here's a suggestion, one that evolved, for me at least, out of an article in Fortune magazine (What Are You Worth?, June 12, 2000). In the article, which discusses how CEOs of small businesses should set their own salaries, one expert suggests pay and compensation should reflect the time spans managers consider in doing their jobs. Managers, it's said, should look forward at least through a quarter, and CEOs should look forward to something like five years.

Good point. And why don't we use that idea to explore what managers communicate to their departments, and what CEOs communicate to whole organizations. The rationale goes this way: Tie the communication content to what managers and CEOs see as they look ahead.

Let's say you're a department manager, and you generally have a one year time horizon, a span that reflects seasonal constraints, budgeting, training plans, and other issues.

As a result of reading, talking, and thinking about the coming year, you'll develop some knowledge of the future that your employees don't have. Think of that as a framework for your leadership communication.

If you're a CEO, your time horizon stretches out five years, as you wrestle with changes in society, the economy, and your industry. Whether you do your strategic planning on a formal or informal basis, you focus further out than everyone else in the organization. Again, this suggests a natural framework for communication.

Let's be more specific, though, and add a set of functional issues that might further define the framework:
* strategy
* operations
* sales
* competition
* staffing
* finance.

Feel free to make up your own list, of course. But for now, let's see how these provide a template for regular reporting. For the sake of simplicity, I'll make this a list for CEOs, but it can be adapted for use by department managers.

Note that the list has a total of six issues, which suggests a report to employees every two months (just a suggestion that might help build a systematic program of communication, reporting on each issue twice a year).

Strategy: Will we be in the same business five years from now? Could technology, demographics, competition or some other factor change the nature of our business or industry? Employees want to know just as much as you do.

Operations: If you foresee changes in the way you create or deliver your products or services, explain the implications as well as you can. Industry magazines, for example, dedicate a lot of space to operational issues; try to pass on those ideas, after putting them into the context of your organization and circumstances.

Sales: Many companies have experienced significant shifts in sales channels and processes since the arrival of the Internet. What new trends do you see coming in the next five years? Will the Net continue to force changes on your industry's sales and service practices?

Competition: In the short-term you'll be thinking about existing competitors. But, when you look ahead five years, what are the possibilities of altogether new types of competitors? The financial services, sector, for example, is now experiencing all sorts of new competitive configurations.

Staffing: You could deal with this in several ways, including the numbers ('Will we have more or fewer staff in five years?'); training imperatives, entry level requirements, promotional opportunities and prerequisites, salaries and compensation.

Finance: How will capital requirements affect your industry and company? Do you foresee consolidations or mergers as essential? Will technology change the capital structure of your industry? If you're a not-for-profit, what is your outlook for funding? In summary. if you're looking for a framework for leadership communication, you might start with what you see in the future, from your managerial perspective. You can further define this framework by adding functional issues such as strategy, operations, sales, competition, staffing, and finance.

Applying the ideas in this article: If you don't already have a systematic approach to leadership communication, think about preparing an informal report every two months. Rotate through the functional issues we've covered here, addressing each one twice a year.

If you have a newsletter, you have a natural medium for this kind of communication. If you don't, think about an informal newsletter, a simple letter that demands no design time. It's the content and process that count.