No matter how big or small, every team has trouble communicating and staying in sync.
It could be hard to keep up with different people, tools such as Klaxoon, schedules, projects, and responsibilities.
Small changes to how you work as a team and individual can help you be more productive and ready to share information when needed.
We want to talk and interact with other people
Check out these three ideas, change them to fit your needs, and you’ll find harmony.
- Stay away from email
Do you remember when company memos were a thing? Considering how long ago it was, probably not! Back then, you couldn’t get an email answer right away. You were supposed to read the message and then call or visit the person who sent it. Memos used to be better in some ways because people had to talk to each other to start a conversation, share an idea, or solve a problem. We are misusing email today when we reply to messages that were 16 replies back in a thread or when we give quick, pointless answers.
We’ve probably all gotten the “unsubscribe” email at work
Email conversations often go downhill quickly because people get angry or bored and just delete messages instead of trying to find the meaning they meant to be clear somewhere in a long thread. If you often email back and forth about important things, you may need to change how you use email. Why? When you’re busy, your emails may become long, hard to read, and confusing.
Set rules for how you use email at work, or just don’t use it
You can use a communication tool instead of email to set up and save talks.
Or, you could stick with what you’ve always done and have a meeting once a week to talk about all the changes, announcements, and discussions.
- Hold productive meetings
Many people and projects at work need to talk to each other so that things can keep moving forward. You should keep pushing these conversations to keep things going. But be careful, dear boss, because other people will take advantage of the situation. Can I talk to you about this?
- Request a meeting
This can happen in a few ways:
They take the attention away from a coworker working hard and concentrating on something else. They plan events and invite more people than they should (or the wrong people)
They set up meetings that last way too long for the talk that needs to happen.
They waste time because they don’t set up meetings
By putting together a simple set of rules for meetings, you could save your team hours of wasted time. By making it so that all “got a minute?” meetings must be held standing up in a common area, you may also reduce how much time is spent on them (this will keep participants from getting too comfortable and wasting time). Think about going one step further and assuming that conference rooms are only used for your weekly meetings. Not for birthday parties.
