Transformational leadership is all about steering the organization through change and that business outcomes are achieved because of the commitment and engagement of employees. One of the essential skills required to achieve this is to communicate change to their teams, however frequently they are not equipped with the appropriate tools to help them focus on the key message and to ensure that their team members are all facing in the one direction towards the new organizational vision.
A formalised approach to communicating with teams will ensure that leadership communication is focussed and that the same message is delivered to employees across the organization. A simple team briefing process that has three levels of cascading messages works as followings:
1. At the first level the Company President will brief his direct reports about the key issues for that week that he wants communicated to all employees. 2. This information is then distributed to all the executive team members who then are required to communicate those topics to their teams together with what they consider the top 5 issues for their division and then the top 5 topics for their respective team. 3. It is only the last section of a team brief that changes as this is directly related to how the corporate and divisional issues for the week relate to specific team issues. This section of the team briefing will always change depending on what the team is working on.
The reason this works is simple. The only aspect a manager has to think about is what is happening in the organization that will effect his team that week or month depending on the frequency of the team briefing process. The rest of the information is already determined by the divisional head and the CEO. The team brief should only take around 15 minutes so it can be incorporated into a regular team meeting.
And most importantly it is constant as the CEO has his Executive team meeting dates set for the entire year and this ensures that everyone from the Executive team to the frontline know what is happening in the organization.
Team dynamics is all about focussing employees in the same direction and team briefing provides the perfect tool to ensure that everyone understands the vision of the organization. Most importantly is provides a simple mechanism so that leaders and managers take the lead in ensuring that this happens.
All these factors combine to ensure that team briefings achieve the desired outcomes.
1. Make sure that you put in place a simple process 2. Make sure that the CEO drives it and that his direct reports understand the importance to the CEO - not you. Afterall you are not their boss, he is. 3. Ensure that the topics are the type of content that management are comfortable and knowledgeable about 4. Provide a feedback loop, again this is part of the process, if there is a question that management do not know the answer to, there must be a formal easy process for them to follow to quickly obtain the answer and respond to the employee. 5. Team briefings should only take 15 minutes, they can also be incorporated into regular weekly meetings.
When it comes to cascading information in a face to face format via management remember that as with anything, there will be some topics that employees want to hear directly from the CEO and other topics they are happy to hear from their manager. Generally when it comes to significant issues such as retrenchments, closure of offices and mergers or acquisitions employees generally want to hear this from the person at the top. Day to day, week by week and month by month operational issues they are comfortable in hearing from their manager who manages their daily work. - 31963
A formalised approach to communicating with teams will ensure that leadership communication is focussed and that the same message is delivered to employees across the organization. A simple team briefing process that has three levels of cascading messages works as followings:
1. At the first level the Company President will brief his direct reports about the key issues for that week that he wants communicated to all employees. 2. This information is then distributed to all the executive team members who then are required to communicate those topics to their teams together with what they consider the top 5 issues for their division and then the top 5 topics for their respective team. 3. It is only the last section of a team brief that changes as this is directly related to how the corporate and divisional issues for the week relate to specific team issues. This section of the team briefing will always change depending on what the team is working on.
The reason this works is simple. The only aspect a manager has to think about is what is happening in the organization that will effect his team that week or month depending on the frequency of the team briefing process. The rest of the information is already determined by the divisional head and the CEO. The team brief should only take around 15 minutes so it can be incorporated into a regular team meeting.
And most importantly it is constant as the CEO has his Executive team meeting dates set for the entire year and this ensures that everyone from the Executive team to the frontline know what is happening in the organization.
Team dynamics is all about focussing employees in the same direction and team briefing provides the perfect tool to ensure that everyone understands the vision of the organization. Most importantly is provides a simple mechanism so that leaders and managers take the lead in ensuring that this happens.
All these factors combine to ensure that team briefings achieve the desired outcomes.
1. Make sure that you put in place a simple process 2. Make sure that the CEO drives it and that his direct reports understand the importance to the CEO - not you. Afterall you are not their boss, he is. 3. Ensure that the topics are the type of content that management are comfortable and knowledgeable about 4. Provide a feedback loop, again this is part of the process, if there is a question that management do not know the answer to, there must be a formal easy process for them to follow to quickly obtain the answer and respond to the employee. 5. Team briefings should only take 15 minutes, they can also be incorporated into regular weekly meetings.
When it comes to cascading information in a face to face format via management remember that as with anything, there will be some topics that employees want to hear directly from the CEO and other topics they are happy to hear from their manager. Generally when it comes to significant issues such as retrenchments, closure of offices and mergers or acquisitions employees generally want to hear this from the person at the top. Day to day, week by week and month by month operational issues they are comfortable in hearing from their manager who manages their daily work. - 31963
About the Author:
For the latest resources on transformational leadership and team dynamics visit www.transformational-leadership.com
