Published January 2006

Market company’s goals,
direction to workers

Maybe it isn’t an accident that “English” means both our language and the spin imparted to something. When we want to control the path of a cue ball as it collides with cushions or other balls, for example, we put “English” on it. We call it “body English” when a field-goal kicker tries to encourage a football in flight through the uprights by leaning left or right as needed.

The English language is a beautiful and powerful thing, but spin comes naturally to it whether we intend it or not. Its vocabulary, grammar and syntax are so rich that it is easy to create a mismatch between what was said or written, and what was heard or read.

It is not easy to find someone who has never been misunderstood. What we say or write has one meaning to us, and often quite another to the people we are talking or writing to.

Sometimes the effects of this are comical. Miscommunications of one sort or another have been a great source of humor, from Shakespeare’s time right up through today’s television sitcoms.

Sometimes the effects are more serious.

In business, for example, poor internal communications, especially between management and workers, result in a gross misallocation of energy and resources. This, in turn, is the source of inefficiency, frustration, losses or lowered profits and worker dissatisfaction.

A recent survey of 472 business organizations, conducted by the International Association of Business Communicators Research Foundation, found that nearly half of the organizations reported that “their management has not effectively communicated their business strategies to employees.” As a result of this, companies were badly out of sync.

One reason for the internal communications mess is the language itself. English is the basis of most business communications in the United States, and it is a language that is not easily mastered — just take a look at our WASL scores. And very much like an athletic skill, effective English language use rewards effort and punishes laziness.

Another reason, though, is structural. The late Peter Drucker, who understood management like no other, once wrote, “Business, because its function is to create and sustain a customer, has only two purposes: marketing and innovation. Everything else is an expense.”

He was correct, of course, but in many companies the focus on the customer means the neglect of “internal marketing” — communications within the organization.

We pay a price for this, but we often don’t realize it. When a business starts to lose traction, when inefficiency bleeds off profits and invites losses to competitors, managers look for causes but rarely suspect internal communications.

A manager in this sense is like a football or basketball coach analyzing a loss to another team. They go over the game tape frame by frame and isolate the errors made and who made them.

A really good manager (or coach), however, can and will recognize that sometimes a loss isn’t caused simply by a cascade of errors. Sometimes, it is simply a lack of coordinated effort; not everybody was moving in the same direction.

The most successful businesses — and sports teams, for that matter — develop a “style” that incorporates shared goals and standards of effort. But that style, like fitness or skills, cannot be taken for granted. It has to be constantly nourished and maintained.

Here are some things that you can do, whether your business is large or small:

• Think of every worker as if he or she were a valued customer and sell your goals and dreams for the company to them accordingly.
• Treat an internal e-mail or a memorandum as if you were writing an advertisement for television or a fancy magazine. Sloppiness and carelessness in writing will be rewarded with disinterest, confusion or both — just as it is in the marketplace.
• Your knowing the goals by heart isn’t enough. Make sure that every single worker knows what they are and that you believe in them.

Better internal marketing can’t cure every business problem, but if you get everybody moving in the same direction, it can give you a fighting chance to win.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by sending e-mail to otisrep@aol.com.

Back to the top/January 2006 Main Menu