Tips to Communicate Better with Your Team

As a new manager you should pay attention to tips to communicate better with your team. The days are long gone when managers were able to simply dictate tasks, walk away, and expect that the job would be done.  Organizations are much flatter today, more complex, and employees now want and need to be engaged in their work in order to perform and stay aboard.

The Link between Communication and Employee Engagement
Engaged workers are over 40% more productive and effective than their unengaged counterparts.  And based upon over 1,500,000 employee engagement survey respondents, we know that feeling valued, trust in senior leaders, and goal alignment have the highest correlation to higher levels of employee engagement.  Managers that are rated highly in all three areas also score high in their ability to communicate better with their employees.

It’s All About Communication
We know from people manager assessment data that the best new managers are open, honest, and build trust.  We know from new manager training experts that the best new managers also hold team members accountable for their performance.  You will know you are on the right track as a new manager when your team believes that:

• Communication among team members is very good
• You have communicated a compelling vision of the future that is motivating
• They understand what’s going on in the team and across the company
• They have enough information to do their job well
• You take employee opinions and ideas seriously
• Feedback is well received and followed up on

Even Good Communicators Can Get Better
Here are three tips to communicate better with your team to ensure that your messages come across in a way that increases employee loyalty and discretionary effort:

1. Make the Time
Getting together regularly with your employees, both individually and in groups, should be a high priority for every new manager. Set aside time at least twice a month to meet one-on-one with your team members.  This is the best way to establish a personal connection, check on work progress, and identify any issues or barriers that are in the way of getting the job done.

Meetings with the team can be held even more frequently.  This is a time to answer questions about how the organization is doing overall, to share good news and to brainstorm ways to collaborate and resolve pressing issues.

2. Consider the Delivery as Well as the Substance
The content of your communication is important, but your delivery matters too. Keep your communication simple, concise, and direct.  You gain nothing by sugarcoating bad news.  In fact, you may lose some trust if you do.  Confront problems with a solution-oriented approach that welcomes others’ ideas.

Celebrate good news when it occurs.  Add a dash of humor when appropriate.  Most of all, be yourself.  Authenticity when communicating counts a lot.

3. Use the Right Communication Medium
Face-to-face is most often the best way to communicate and to ensure your message has been heard. But that’s a luxury many remote and virtual teams lack.  To communicate better with your team as a new manager, think through the best way to convey your message.

The Bottom Line
All of us can learn tips to communicate better with your team.  But when you are a manager trying to get work done through others, your ability to communicate is critical to succeeding at your job.  The good news is that, with practice and the right attitude, you can always get better.

To get more tips to communicate better with your team, download 7 Underestimated Ways Managers Can Increase Engagement through Communication