In a world where communication between people is the structure of the
company, honest and open dialog is essential to human activity.
Communication needs to be timely and truthful for it to be valuable- it
needs to be proactively stated, discussed, openly, honestly and fully
disclosed.
Effective communication, facilitated by technology tools such as Internet
email and mobile phones, is the glue of the networked company.
Communication is the dynamic structure between the individual members that
shapes and guides the progress and actions of the people. It is the
communication that co-ordinates and not formal written procedures. In
fact, the success of networked companies is inversely related to the
quantity and quality of communication between members around the world.
Problems arise when communication slows or stops and progress is taken for
granted- requiring hyper-communication to achieve subsequent residual
recovery of right direction. Problems are just uncommunicated differences-
in actions and expectations. This intense deliberate communication is
itself a transaction cost. It requires substantial effort and may not
always be business- it is necessary to deliberately provide opportunities
for other people in the networked company to explain and notify you about
problems- but naturally such problems do not actually arise every time
members communicate. Because of the absence of the kinds of adhoc
accidental casual conversations that arise in elevators and around water
coolers in offices, the communication has to be deliberate, systematic and
worked at. But the benefits from avoidance of misunderstanding achieved
from effective and honest ongoing inter-personal communication-
facilitated by technologies- make such dynamic networked companies
possible. Such communication also prevents greater, later costs incurred
from error correction. Not to engage in routine ongoing dialog can easily
turn out to be ^Sfalse economy^T.
It is certainly the case that "intimate" communication facilitates
learning- it is only when people feel able to share their impressions that
you can truly learn. It always amazes me how I come across to other people
and what impressions they have- there is usually a gulf between how I want
to come across and how I actually do- a gulf that can only be bridged by
effective communication. Remember the old but true saying- no one can read
your mind, so you have to say how you feel.
regards, sincerely simon buckingham http://www.unorg.com unorganization
--"Simon Buckingham" <go57@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>