Photo by Andreas Klassen on Unsplash
The global pandemic has reshaped work and communication. Working remotely is here to stay. Communicating anywhere, anytime is the new normal.
Project leaders tell us they feel more pressured, more challenged and more compelled to be “always on”. This is disrupting their effectiveness, sabotaging productivity, and impacting communication.
These three changes will restore your project communication capability.
Redefining project communication effectiveness
All aspects of project communication need a “health check”. Project leaders and their C-suite supporters must decide what pre-COVID project communication systems and practices to keep, stop, and change.
Project stakeholders – the recipients of your communication – are under the same pressures as you. They are confronted with too many things to do and not enough time to do them. They are overwhelmed with words in electronic, written and spoken form.
Ask your stakeholders: what is the project information they need to ensure they make effective decisions, and how would they like to receive it?
With this input, you are well-placed to review and codify the content, style, and approach of project communication.
Refreshing people’s communication skills
It’s time to champion clear, concise and outcomes-focused communication. The five minutes of yesterday has become the 30 seconds of today. That’s why it’s important to have every project message stand out clearly. Your words are important, make them count.
Most project practitioners are not taught business-ready communication skills. Schools and tertiary institutions are not equipping them with the ability to write and speak in a style that ensures effective results. Project-related emails and other documents are too often long-winded and littered with mistakes. They dissuade, not persuade. Meetings are frustrating too. They ramble, irritate and impede good decision making.
The COVID-accelerated work-from-anywhere workplace amplifies these shortcomings. If project managers struggle to communicate well, they will struggle in a remote team.
Role-modeling desired behaviours
Leaders shape culture and influence communication.
If you want your project team colleagues to put their best foot forward in meetings, calls and writing, show them how it is done.
Be the role-model for clear, concise and audience-centred writing. Be the coach for more inclusive and purposeful meetings.
Acclaimed US project manager William Cohen once said “all successful projects are simply a long series of adversities that must be overcome”.
“Until my project is completed,” Cohen said, “communication is my deliverable.”
Competent communicators are in a much stronger position when adversities arise. What’s the standard of project communication in your workplace?
Communicate For Impact equips leaders and their teams with effective outcomes-focused writing, meeting and presenting skills. This ensures better business results.