How many times have you heard a frustrated manager say “But I’ve already told them!”?
When I ask a client, who has just aid that, the question “When did you tell them?” I invariably get told of the specific time when it was said.
The problem is that we need to hear important things said more than once.
Whilst there is no need to be as pedantic as Tony Abbott and say everything three times in the one breath, we do have to take account for people hearing things in different ways.
We also have to take into account the sheer volume of information being thrust at us these days.
An important group of information people need to hear regularly is the values (as well as seeing them in action) vision and objectives.
Also we need to remember that if people hear things they don’t want to hear, or don’t like, they’ll act as if it wasn’t said.
For instance employee bargaining arrangements need to be specified, understood, clarified and acknowledged in all aspects, not just the immediate percentage change or non-change.
A responsibility of management/leadership is to ensure all communications work.
Delivering a message once is not sufficient and does not honour the responsibility to ensure all communications work.
What do you think?
