Communication – an opportunity for continuous improvement in every organization.

An organization that has a well-thought out, consistently practiced communication strategy to keep everyone in the organization informed supports team member engagement and empowerment. When team members clearly understand business direction and goals, organizational change and reasons for such they can:

• Understand where they fit in to the “big picture” of the organization
• See how they impact customer satisfaction and the bottom-line
• Identify innovative ideas and actions they can take to contribute to the organization’s success and growth
• Show agility in change implementation

When team members see evidence that their ideas and actions are valued by leadership, team members:

• Give more than 100% of their discretionary effort to their work, achieving a high level of personal, team and organizational performance – evidence of engagement
• Appear, and report on employee surveys, a high level of satisfaction and happiness with their work, positively impacting employee morale – another evidence of engagement
• Take actions to continuously enhance their performance by gaining new skills, knowledge and experience to move the organization beyond where it is today – evidence of engagement and empowerment
• Continuously look for and present, with excitement, innovative ideas to grow the organization – evidence of engagement and empowerment
• Inspire others, through their high performance and level and enthusiasm, to follow suit – engagement and empowerment become contagious!

What does your organization do to keep everyone informed of where the organization is headed and what’s going on – real-time? What does your organization do to solicit upward communication?

Meetings? Web-based communications? Are communications clear and concise? Do they inspire and motivate? Are upward communication mediums in place?

What do your leaders do to communicate and make communications personally meaningful to their team and each team member?

Regularly scheduled team communications, involving all team members and not just the leader speaking? Coaching discussions? Feedback on ideas – implemented or not? Performance feedback – constructive and positive? Are change initiatives clearly explained, along with the reasons for and benefits of the change? Are team members recognized for high performance, extra effort and innovative ideas? Do your leaders listen?

The power of communication translates to the power of the organization.