ON COMMUNICATION 2

With less than 40 minutes before the meeting, you do a quick mental calculation. Should you jot down notes for your presentation tomorrow? Prepare for this meeting? Ask . your colleague to carry on discussions for the next project? Call the team member who had the attitude problem? Talk to quality team about pending issues? Review? Plan? Check the customer complaint? When does one attend to the e mails, voice mails, memos, letters, faxes..? Call to mind a typical week at work. Of the activities listed below, place a checkmark next to those you do on a regular basis. Estimate on an average, the percentage of time you spend on each. Work on tasks or projects Discussions with boss Discussions with team Conversations with peers Giving instructions Giving feedback Interviewing Leading or participating in meetings Making presentations Correspondence/ e mails Telephone calls Other activities All of these activities involve ‘communicating’ in one form or another. Chances are, you spend the bulk of your time involved in such activities. No matter what your ‘official’ title – team leader/supervisor/manager/director/business owner – if you manage people, communication is a critical part of what you do. Suppose you were asked this question – ‘what is management’? How would you answer this question? For the majority of people, it is Directing   Coaching   Monitoring   Reporting After decisions are made about the results to be accomplished in the area you manage, you direct and coach employee performance toward achieving those desired results. You then monitor what’s going on and report on progress or problems. At every stage you ‘communicate’, interact with boss, team members, colleagues and other departments. Or interface with entities outside of the organization, including clients and community agencies. At every stage you encounter a challenge – you are accountable for seeing that results are achieved. But you don’t produce them directly yourself. The results are produced by others (unless you are a ‘working supervisor’ doing the jobs of both employee and manager). In other words you are in the middle of it all.