3 Key Elements for Delivering Best Practice #2....Communication (part 2)

#2...Communication

We all want to deliver best practice but all too often fall short of the mark. Here are some important tips on what can you change today that will help you be a better communicator.

Don’t wait to share bad news. Whilst no one wants to hear about something that has gone wrong, it is a reality that things often don’t go to plan. More importantly companies actually plan for a project to have its challenges. So why is there a need to keep bad news a secret? It simply adds pressure to you and the situation.

The earlier you inform all impacted parties of a bad news story, the sooner they can react and minimise the damage control.

For some reason, delivery people tend to keep problems or bad news to themselves for as long as possible. They have a ‘fix-it’ mentality and believe that they can sort out issues. They work on the basis that until they have had a chance to fix it, no one needs to know. This is not to be secretive or protective of reputation, it is sometimes just a matter of pride. And if they can’t fix it, they go as far as to feel that they have failed. 

Either way, holding back on sharing the reality of a situation especially if its negative, more often than not leads to a loss of confidence in you by the customer. if not managed carefully, that can grow to a loss of confidence in the entire project management, especially where they see that the problem raised had not been flagged early enough.

As a general rule, don’t wait to share bad news. Make sure that your communication is clear and concise so that the news you are sharing is well understood. You should also try to have a high level plan on the options available to consider addressing the problems.

You should always present enough detail that tells people exactly what they need to know. They don’t need to be presented with a report that reads like a book…keep it short and stick to the main points. This is even more so when communicating at senior and executive levels.

When it comes to problem management, the sign of a good manager is not someone who comes to you, tells you there is a problem and waits for you to find them the solution. Good managers are those who bring a problem to your attention along with the solution, or at least a number of options to throw around.

When crafting an email, less is more. How and what you write in your communications is extremely important to make it as easy as possible to understand the points and not get lost in the words. I believe that writing is an artform and I prefer the term “crafting an email” when I refer to drafting any communication. Choosing the right words, writing it in an appropriate tone, picking the best format and forum to deliver the message are all critical aspects of communication. 

You need to be efficient, use less words not more, to make your point. Avoid repeating yourself to make your point - if you get your message right in the first line, you shouldn’t need to say it again in the next line. An email that is short and succinct is much better than being too wordy.

Consider your audience and think about what is it they need to know. Think about what they may want to ask you and then make sure that the detail you include in your briefing addresses all of those questions. This makes your communication even more effective when there is nothing left to ask.

What should be included in an Executive Briefing? If you are writing executive briefings or updates, try to keep them to one page. A structure you may want to use could include three key headings - Current Status; Next Steps and Background. 

Current Status should provide the key points of where a project is at as of now, informing the reader of the main challenges that you need your audience to know; you should also state who is managing the situation so it is clear who is the go-to person or people.

Next Steps should provide a message that you’ve got this covered, you have a plan and that you have the right people engaged. Share the action plan that they are working under that outlines who is doing what and when. This will give all stakeholders (yours and your customer‘s) the confidence that you know what to do next. Importantly. You should also make sure you set expectations on when your audience can expect to get the next communication update from you.

Background should be put at the back of the briefing pack, for anyone who needs to be brought to up to speed on the key information regarding the project or engagement without having to have a conversation to bring them up to speed. Why put it at the back when people need to read this first? Once people have read it, they won’t need to read it again and they will focus on the current status and next steps. Having the background at the back means it is out of the way for all ongoing updates,

The background should inform people of what the project is about as well as provide some history. It should tell the reader enough about the project that they don‘t need you to ask anything more and when they next read the current status it will make sense.

Last point, make sure your sentences are clear and your language cannot be misinterpreted. Avoid any statements that may cause ambiguity or confusion.

Don’t be shy to pick up the phone! Poor communicators are those who email everything and avoid talking to anyone! Strong communicators are those who meet in person, pick up the phone and talk regularly to their stakeholders and team members. 

As we already know, documenting and putting things in writing is a critical aspect of best practice but that should not overshadow the importance of meeting and talking to people. Documenting and talking - you can do both! 

Executives don’t like surprises. Delivering bad news is the one of the hardest tasks for anyone, at any level of management. Delivering that message in person or by phone, whilst extremely challenging for most, will be much more appreciated that doing so by email. and expecting a good reaction is not clever. 

The most important thing that an executive will tell you is that they don’t like surprises. Make sure that they are NOT the last to know. A very common mistake is that you let the fear affect you of having to tell senior people that something has gone wrong. Instead take another approach and do the opposite.

Impress your senior leaders with your management style and show off your ability to take the lead.

If you are one of the many people who are too scared to tell people bad news for fear of the reaction, I can understand so let me share with you this tip. You definitely want to tell people any bad news in person however you can make it easier on yourself by giving them a strong hint in an email.

If you give away what it is in that email, the element of surprise is taken away. But it is very important that in the same communication, you tell them you want to meet with them face to face to discuss. 

Your email could go something like this –

“I need to meet with you to discuss a problem I have just identified. Due to an issue with..…..the project is going to require additional work which may lead to a further delay in the date we can go-live. I will explain more when I see you, if you can please let me know when you have 30 minutes free for us to discuss.”

This way you are achieving two objectives – sharing that there is bad news without telling all, as well as avoiding the element of surprise and having to deal with the face to face reaction.

Next article will be on Accountability, the 3rd and final element of delivering best practice.