Open Communication

There was a time in the evolution of the industrial era where information was tightly controlled by the management hierarchy. This time has long passed as companies empower their business units and teams to drive forward towards key objectives using key measures as success indicators. Some companies have gone to the opposite extreme in sharing all key goals with every employee on a regular basis, allowing them access to whatever information is needed to manage their position. “Every employee should act like they were operating their own business” has expanded to having all employees share in ownership in certain firms.

The explosion of empowerment initiatives is highly dependent on clearly communicating an organizations strategy, values and goals to employees. Honest feedback of objective performance against goals needs to be regularly reinforced. Many organizations focus on team goals to ensure groups work together to achieve stretch accomplishments.

Managers, fearing the negative morale implications, sometimes avoid communicating bad news. This is almost always a mistake: employees know there are problems (usually before the managers!) and in the absence of honest feedback on what should be done about it, uncertainty sets in and destroys motivation entirely. The best approach is to be honest about the situation, and set a path to recovery that everyone can achieve working together.