>> Poor Communication

As in any relationship, communication is key to a strong business relationship. This can be the relationship between business and customer, or, equally as important, the internal relationships among different employees within the company. Communication can be improved in virtually every workplace, no matter the industry or size. After all, it is the only way for information to effectively spread throughout the business so that everybody can be informed to the degree that they required to properly achieve their goals.

There are many opportunities for poor communication in a workplace, and awareness of these hindrances is the first step toward discovering and solving them within your own business.

Strangely enough, it seems that it is always the employers who are the last to find out that there does indeed exist poor communication within their own companies. This, ironically, is a direct result of the poor communication! It only makes sense that when information isn’t properly flowing down within a business, it isn’t flowing up very well either.

Among the most trying elements of poor communication in today’s workplace is a lack of information for the proper accomplishment of the tasks necessary within the business. Even in today’s information overload society, employees often lack the information they need to do their jobs. They may have the data that they require from external supplies, however, it is the information that their supervisors and co-workers have, but have not properly shared, that remains unsaid. Frequently, this poor communication is a result of the fact that the people with the information are still processing it themselves, and haven’t distanced themselves enough from the problem to discover that there are other people around them who will also be requiring that information.

Furthermore, the way in which people communicate can actually be the cause of poor communication in the workplace. Even if the person with the information believes that s/he has shared this information with all of the right people, this may not exactly be true. After all, some people are better at communicating than others, and when someone who struggles to express themselves is the source of the necessary information, this causes a problem.

Ideally, people should communicate clearly, at a comfortable rate, with a practical vocabulary, and in an engaging tone. They need to get to the point before the listener can lose interest or miss the point altogether. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Often, people speak too quickly or slowly for us to properly absorb what is being said. They may be too loud or too quiet, use words that we don’t understand, or use words that are so juvenile that they don’t express the proper degrees and details required for the statement. They may speak in a shrill or sing-song tone that is distracting, causing us to lose the information before it enters our minds.

Poor communication is an important issue to overcome in the workplace, though it may not always be easy. When resolving the situation in your workplace, remember to give it time, and motivate the employees properly.