Better Communication Improves Productivity.

Productivity of an organization is a collaborative effort of all the stack holders where:

There are no misunderstandings….managers communicate clearly the tasks to be performed by the employees….

Good listening skills empower the staff to correctly perceive and work in tandem… gathering the relevant data and presenting to the higher ups for policy decisions….

All above and many more productivity relating activities depend on communications. Therefore, good communication skills form the nucleus of a progressive organization. Clear effective communications at all level are necessary for an organization to prosper. The wastages are cutout and both the employees and customers find their satisfaction using this highly effective tool. Let’s look at the following:

Good Communications Avoid Misunderstanding: Misunderstandings created by poor communications can be very expensive to the organization. The resulting confusion can cause heavy losses. Unclear instructions often make the juniors confused and afraid to clarify. The result is disastrous.

Effective Communications Provide Direction: The team efforts have to be aligned with the company’s vision and goals. It’s only when all concerned contribute to the goals that both top line and bottom line rise. This is not possible without effective communication.

Healthy Communications Breed Healthy Culture: every organization carves out a culture of its own. When the staff members coming from different backgrounds effectively communicate with each other, corporate culture becomes healthy. Therefore good training in communications is critical towards promoting a healthy corporate culture.

Focused Articulate Communication Encourages Accountability: It’s only when an organization practices effective communications skills that the staff are empowered to keep one another accountable. Effective communication provides such instruction as enables each employee to know exactly what is expected of him/her. In the process a good level of accountability with one another is maintained. This in turn increases productivity.

In the competitive environment of today, business houses have to harness their resources to maintain an edge in the market place. This is possible only if at every level clear, lucid communications are practiced.

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Expect the Unexpected.

“Change can come with breathtaking speed, leaving a company on the defensive and in financial trouble when it is forced to catch up.”

These words of Garry Goldstic were never so true as they are today. We find that technology is changing the world so fast that it is making many principles and things obsolete. Not that it is new phenomenon. Change had been taking place always. But now it comes faster than ever before. It’s necessary to be prepared to face the effects of the change. In other words any company must anticipate the future.

There are innumerable examples of large industrial houses closing down because they did not anticipate change and because they were not ready to face the problems which were caused because of the change. In Mumbai, lots of textile mills which were doing exceedingly well at one time had to close down. People still wear clothes. Cloth of all kinds has to be produced. But growing consciousness of fashion has changed the entire industry.

Computerization has also rendered many businesses redundant. In the brave new world of 21^st century, it is imperative to constantly anticipate the future. Expect the unexpected and yet be prepared to face it. In this context, following four elements can be very helpful to the manager in handling this stupendous task:

1. Desire to Continuously Improve: Japanese call it ‘Kaizen’- continual improvement. If the life is a journey, it is giving lots of lessons which we must learn on the way for our brighter future.                                                                        
2. Long Distance Vision: Future- focus also makes it imperative that we must develop and operate on a long distance vision. A certain percentage of time and resources must be allocated to anticipate the change that may catch us unaware.
3. Net Working: The next element of good anticipation is connecting with important people. One may say net-working has become extremely important. It helps you to stay awake and not allow the unexpected change to give you a shock.
4. Information Gathering: with the advent of internet and other interactive media, today we are better informed than ever before. It is therefore the duty of every manager to be a breast with what is happening in the industry with which he/she is concerned. It’s also important to know the political and social conditions of the native country and of the world. This again helps the manager to be better prepared to deal with the onslaught of the damaging effects of unexpected change.

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