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Writer's pictureWes

Over-Communicate Clarity


Leaders are the Chief Reminder Officers
Over-Communicate Clarity

“People need to be reminded more often than they need to be taught.” - Samuel Johnson

 

Our world today is full of noise that was not present two decades ago. Smartphones and their apps our steal our attention. Our culture’s noise distracts us and our team from effectively focusing on what is important now.

By creating clarity, we can fight the noise and distraction. Clarity creates a cohesive team and alignment with common answers to the six critical questions.

Today’s challenge is to effectively communicate to team members the common answers to …

Why we exist

How we behave What we do How we will succeed What is important now Who must do what

We must remind our team over and over and over and over and over and over and over …

Yes, it's tiring repeating ourselves. But as we begin to tire, our message is just beginning to sink in. The need to over-communicate clarity is two-fold.

First, not everyone gets it the first time or second or third or …

Second, our message competes with a noisy culture.

Over-communicate clarity often.

“Great Leaders see themselves as Chief Reminder Officers as much as anything else.”

– Patrick Lencioni

A non-cohesive leadership team that is not aligned around the common answers to six critical questions confuses team members, leads to decreased productivity and wasted resources.


Over-communication begins with building a cohesive team and creating clarity.

Cohesive leadership speaks with one voice that communicates a consistent message to the common answers of the critical questions.

Cascading Communication “The most effective way to get an organization moving in the same direction,” according to Lencioni, “is for members of a leadership team to come out of their meetings with a clear message about what was decided, promptly communicate that message to their direct reports, and have those direct reports do the same for their own reports. We call this ‘cascading communication’ because it begins the structured but interpersonal process of rolling key messages down through the organization from the leadership team.”

Clarity spreads when team members can articulate and clearly communicate the organization's reason for existence, values, and priorities. And they remind those in their department about clarity.

As a leader, you set the organization’s course and remind everyone of it, often.


What value is over-communicating clarity?

Action Point: At the end of your next leadership meeting, come out with a clear message about what was decided and have each leader communicate the message using cascading communication to their direct reports. Not sure where to start? Have each leader remind their team Why We Exist.


Wes Legg




 

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