There will be storms ahead: don’t let your people be blown away! (and your performance too)

It is inevitable that during the life of an organization there will be storms. Conflict is at risk to arise wherever and whenever there is a decision-making process. Times of crisis put a strain on people that makes them less tolerant and less open to accommodate differences. Mutual comprehension is lowered by the conditions that arise during hard times. Internal competition takes the place of cooperation. It happens, you know. Storms happen.

Storms blur the vision of objectives and when vision gets less clear, people can be carried away by misunderstandings, and rivalries prevail over the Esprit de Corps that is necessary for a great performance.

As a leader, you are supposed to foresee the storms and to act accordingly in order to keep your people safe, and the performance of your organization at the best level anytime.  What can you do, then?

Well, there is a set of skills that all humans have inbuilt and that is Communication skills. That is normal: we are a social species, and communication is necessary for our own survival and development. Unfortunately, education and other social dynamics do very often hinder a sound development of this set of skills and you may find yourself leading a team of poorly communicative people, that fall into the conflict situation described above at the first breathe of breeze.

Communication training is not uncommon in the business world, but seldom it is provided throughout the organization. It is often done to salespeople, sometimes to managers – mostly in the “public speaking” nuance – to the marketing bunch, but what about the rest of the workforce? What about people who have to stay elbow-close day-by-day and build the company’s performance by their continuous communication? Very little, if anything.

Whatever the activity of your organization, people need to get some training in order to be able to manage their relationships in the workplace and overcome the inevitable moments of tension, crisis, disappointment and incomprehension that are part of life (not only in the workplace). Some points you cannot miss:

• Everyone must be reassured that good communication skills can be learned
• Every person in the organization, from CEO to the janitor has to learn to “speak the same language”
• Emotional management/intelligence training must be included
• Conflict transformation techniques, like The CASE© Method (but it’s not the only one) must become part of training and retraining

If you keep in mind these simple 4 hints, your company will be safer no matter what kind of storm hits it during its life. Which will be long and prosperous. No one will be blown away by the winds of change or crisis, and as a side effect you will improve the private life of your people whom, in return, will be grateful and happy to walk the extra mile whenever needed.