Communication Strategies

The regular challenges that we encounter for running a department, a working group or an organization begin with asymmetrical communications. In most cases, when we have different goals and objectives being set for each individual or group of individuals every member of a business team has a different set of job responsibilities, experiences and perspective when entering into a new project (Clampitt, 2005). The tie that holds such of these disparate viewpoints is an effective team communication strategy implementation throughout the organization so that we can leverage individual efforts and skills to synergize them and form up the Corporate Advantage for any company.

In order to develop a team communication strategy, all parties that are involved in a task or project must gather and develop strict guidelines and timetables acceptable to all involved. A bi-directional communication strategy should be the slogan, if we are to excel in the ever changing business environment.

This situation is basically the case at hand in which we attempt to handle by setting up a meeting to promote bi-directional, effective  responsive feedback.

ISSUES AT HAND
For the purpose of having this meeting, we will first attempt to identify and list down the issues that we are having or might face in the near future.  The issues that we need to address and look at during the meeting are as follows

Clear Line of Sight
At the most basic level of this internal communication strategy is to help in making a difference to the organization by providing the clarity of the purpose to employees in doing their jobs.

Employee Engagement
An effective internal communication strategy is one of the key drivers of employee engagement  participative management, which has been widely researched and had been proven to add significant value to organizations on all metrics from productivity to customer relationship management. Employee engagement is, therefore, deemed to be critical and will be addressed in this meeting.

External Reputation
Market researchers have highlighted the strength of employee advocacy to be playing a vital role in shaping an organizations external reputation. Despite the internal effectiveness of communication strategy, it is to be identified as a critical measure in determining the external reputation of the company as well.

Change Management
An effective communication strategy is also a critical success factor for change or transformation programmes. When the environment constantly changes, the organization must innovate to adapt to or control that environment. When your external environment changes, your internal environment should adjust as well, and internal communication is vital during these times (Kotter, 2007).

Regulation and Compliance
In most cases, there is also a legal requirement that certain communications take place between the upper, middle and lower management. Effective two-way communication is thus an essential for ensuring compliance with companies policies on corporate governance,occupational safety and health, environment andquality assurance and we need to design the communication strategy so at comply by such regulations as well.

TARGET AUDIENCE
The meeting is targeted towards management at all levels. Management is required to attend this meeting because we need to develop a common ground on the communications strategy for our company to avoid any autocratic effects and enhance the level of richness of two-way employee communication in the organization. The broad categories of managers that are invited to attend the meeting are as follows

Business Executives
The top or the middle management group which are involved mainly in setting up the strategies for the company, for decision making and supervising the activities of their subordinate managers who actually run the company to achieve the set goals as directed by the corporate policies (Harter et.al, 2002). These business executives need to understand that while making decision regarding the company they need to take care of the reservations of all stakeholders. They should be open in communication and feedback from all over within the organization to enhance and improve in their own and the organizational deficiencies.

Line Managers
Employee communication is an important skill for all line managers at all levels, regardless of their seniority. Line managers have their respective chain of command and must be very clear when communicating any information. The line managers mostly are the bridge between the policy makers and subordinates in an organization.

Technical Experts
Mostly they are the people handling the customers directly andor carrying out day to day operations. They are high on technical human skills, but may be low on conceptual skills and thus it may be difficult, sometimes, for them to understand the organization goal and strategy without any effective communication and clear interpretation by the top management.

APPROACH
First of all we need to specify the goal and objectives of the meeting to all the attendees. Next we present the issue at hand in detail and ask all everyone to brainstorm and come up with creative ideas of how to counter the problem of communication and promote effective feedback. The methodology of feedback has proved to be very effective in many situations and invites all members to interact and think hard to solve issues in surprising manners.

TIME LINE
A tentative schedule for the meeting proceedings are as follows

EXPECTED OUTCOMES  IMPLEMENTATION
Some of the potential outcomes which are desired from the meetings for the ways to achieve effective communication are (Harter et.al, 2002)

Trying to inject a participative management by convincing management to be active listener and adapt communication as two-way process.

To promote open communication of all issues relevant to the organization and enhance information sharing.
To make focus groups in different departments and also across departments. Focus groups are made up of small teams of employees perhaps five or six in people that meet regularly to discuss specific or wider organizational issues and provide suggestions for overcoming problems or difficulties. These suggestions can then be fed back up the chain to senior management.

Management should invite subordinates to communicate all problems clearly and should have a respectful gesture towards term while they are reporting.

Regular andor weekly meetings should be scheduled between employees at different levels to promote information sharing and make thing more efficient by being more responsive. Avoid E-mails of important information and discuss it with your seniors.

Such outcomes are aimed to be achieved in the meeting and will definitely enhance the level of effective bi-directional communication in the organization.

CONCLUSION
Effective communication is an essential for the organizations to be responsive and flexible in todays dynamic environment. We need to understand the value of empowerment and true delegation to achieve the set targets in the most efficient manner.