Problem, general definition: The problem with communication is the illusion that it's taken place.
Problem, our definition: Even in a small company, working with friends and colleagues you've known for years both in and out of the company...there were communication problems. Lost emails, forgotten threads of conversation, non-existent notes, selective memory, and our own respective personality quirks. All this was compounded by competing in an industry going through huge change.We're not alone on this last one. But it's still a factor that magnified even more the need for good, crisp, communication.
Solution: Meet weekly with everyone individually. And use a wiki to prepare an agenda prior to the meeting, document what was discussed/agreed upon/changed and what follow-up steps were agreed upon and who's doing them.
Time-consuming? Yes. Obviously. A weekly meeting with each of your key decision-makers will be time-consuming. But it's time-consuming for them also. That's not a nanner-nanner point. But, it does point out you'll both be motivated to respect each other's time by preparing to insure an effective meeting as well as the time with each meeting. Weekly.
Written Meeting Agenda? That respects everyone's time by articulating, in writing, the agenda points and that allows both members to prepare answers and solutions at the meeting. Everyone arrives focused, ready to cover the material and accomplish something. It's not a meet2meet meeting. It's a meet to get things done meeting. A written agenda before the meeting focuses everyone in the meeting on getting things done.
WIKI We use the Basecamp wiki from 37signals. It's affordable, scalable, easy-to-use. And now we have one place for ALL of our meeting notes and discussions and documents discussed and to-dos and timelines. And we use it for ALL of our projects and discussions. No more searching through email or scribbled notes or forgotten memories or slanted memories or hidden agendas. It's amazing the change you'll see in your organization when the need or opportunity disappears to use thes , especially the last 3.
Random Notes.
Behavior change requires patience. Both the weekly meeting routine and the wiki's use to prepare an agenda and document ALL discussions are behavior habits that need patience and reinforcement. I include myself in the need for patience and reinforcement.
But it has forced us to slow down and do less and accomplish more by focusing on the most important tasks. We've replaced disagreements and misunderstandings and mistakes with productive time preparing for projects, building consensus, understanding the basis of that consensus, completing projects, and more fun while we change.
Disagreements don't disappear. This doesn't mean there are never disagreements or misunderstandings or focused conversations. However, it does mean that these are productive, professional, short-lived and never damaging to the cohesiveness of the company.
Meetings get shorter. We're in the 2nd year of this process. And our meetings are shorter now. Usually 30 minutes now of focused, productive, time getting things done. Longer meetings remain just as productive. The only difference is...there's more to get done in that meeting. And we get her done.
Meetings focus on what's important. What's important are completing the next series of tasks, building consensus on a new project, and increasingly...understanding each other in greater depth. It's helped us all improve our communication skills, improve our interactions, improve our writing skills. It's helped us all understand how we need to interact with each other. We're all different, see life different, have different needs and agendas within the company as well as outside the company. The more we understand these differences the less we feel threatened or bothered and the more we can find common ground to stand on.
Meet Weekly. It's a good thing for your business. It's a good thing for any relationships you care about.
Note: The inspiration for this note came from our conversation last week with Gary Harpst, author of Six Disciplines for Excellence: Building Small Businesses that Learn, Lead and Last. Here's the mp3 of that discussion.
