Effective communication is at the bedrock of a successful business. You need to communicate values, strategies, and tasks to keep everyone focused on the right thing. But while digital communication makes it easier to keep in touch, it also makes it easier to suffer from information overload. Sometimes, the best way of communicating things is the simplest. But that doesn’t mean dumbing down the message, just rethinking how you deliver it.
Keep it short and sweet
The first step is thinking about how people communicate with one another. If a simple message or a request is being sent, then an email can get lost amongst the rest while an IM can lead to a full-blown conversation that’s just inefficient. Instead, think about setting up a note system in the business. Keep notes separated by tags or colors, separating requests by priority, for instance. That way, people can easily see when they have a request waiting and whether or not they need to get to it right away.
Making metrics
Employee improvement is one of the goals of better communication. You want to show people where they could stand to improve and measure that improvement. Metrics like those shown at https://www.clearpointstrategy.com/smart-kpi-tracking/ can make it a lot easier to do just that.
The visual side of data
Most people who have worked in an office have had to receive or deliver data that helps underline strategies and identify problems. When there are too many sets of data to follow or too many entries in one study, it can get easy to misunderstand the data as a whole. Get used to integrating more charts, like pie charts and bar graphs, in your data from now on. It makes it a lot easier to visually memorize the data people are trying to learn.
Processes and flow
When you’re trying to lay out a strategic plan for a project within the business or trying to show the flow of work, it can get even more complicated. You can have multiple detailed steps leading into more detailed steps and trying to create a written narrative out them can be very tough indeed. Instead, using arrows to create flowcharts is easy even in emails and notes with sites like http://www.copypastecharacter.com/arrows. It’s a lot harder to get lost in the data when you have a clear visual flow pointing you from one direction to the next.
A new kind of report
What about when you need to put all that information together? Bad reports are those that are huge to the point of unwieldiness and you can guarantee that most of the team isn’t going to read through them. While keeping the detailed version for those who want to pore through every detail, you should consider creating an infographic to sum up all the information, too. That way you can make sure that no-one in the team is missing the information they need to know.
Take a little time finding the most appropriate format for your communication so that everyone understands it a lot better. Using a few digital tricks and finding new ways to more quickly and effectively give people the knowledge they need will have near limitless benefits for the business. People will be more efficient and mistakes will be a lot rarer.
