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Richard Hartley
by Richard Hartley , Group Operations Manager , Connect Group - Connect News and Media

Managers can fail to convey a message effectively by not checking the understanding of the message with their audience.

Renier Johannes Benson
by Renier Johannes Benson , Safety Officer , Impala Patinum Ltd

By not grabbing the attention of their employees and communicating the core of the message to them with examples they can relate to.

Omar Makram
by Omar Makram , Business Development , Multi Trade Cairo

Simply if the manager himself Doesn't know perfectly the vision of his message he talks about, and doesn't know the well to whom he speaks, then for sure will be a lack  of understanding the right message. 

 

So every thing in transferring message the vision and the target he want to go to

MONDAY BASSEY
by MONDAY BASSEY , ICT / DATA PROCESSING INSTRUCTOR (and IT SUPPORT SERVICES) , SUPREME EDUCATION FOUNDATION

Managers fail when they are not speaking in clear terms. they also fail when specifics are not highlighted to their listeners.

Brian Dantis
by Brian Dantis , Senior Accounts Executive , FSG Middle East LLC / Seafood Middle East FZC

Most common reason is lack of detailed communication.

Other reasons could be that, subordinates may not understand the impact of message and takes it lightly. Not setting up a deadline could be also a reason for work getting delayed and eventually managers fail. 

Ashraf E. Mahmoud (PhD)
by Ashraf E. Mahmoud (PhD) , University Lecturer, Freelancer Consultant and Trainer for Int'l Business & Banking TF. , FreeLancer

Thanks for invitation,

Managers may fail to convey message, when they ignore the right principles of effective communications.

 

Obaid ur Rehman
by Obaid ur Rehman , HR Executive , Al Bahr Al Arabi Marine Engineering Services

Not knowing the agenda of meeting can cause that also no proper homework on tasks.

muhammad asad
by muhammad asad , strong , Meezan Bank

If you want to know why so many organizations sink into chaos, look no further than their leaders’ mouths. Leadership, at any level, certainly isn’t easy—but unclear, vague, roller-coaster pronouncements make many top managers’ jobs infinitely more difficult than they need to be. Leaders frequently espouse dozens of cliché-infused declarations such as “Let’s focus on the key priorities this quarter,” “Customers come first,” or “We need a full-court press in engineering this month.” Over and over again, they present grand, overarching—yet fuzzy—notions of where they think the company is going. Too often, they assume everyone shares the same definitions of broad terms like vision, loyalty, accountability, customer relationships, teamwork, focus, priority, culture, frugality, decision making, results, and so on, virtually ad infinitum.

Even the most senior managers nod in polite agreement when the CEO uses inflated terms like these, but the executives may feel somewhat discomfited, wondering whether they’ve truly understood. Rather than asking for clarification—a request they fear would make them look stupid—they pass on vague marching orders to their own troops, all of whom develop their own interpretations of what their bosses mean. In the absence of clear communication that satisfies the urgent desire to know what the boss is really thinking, people imagine all kinds of motives. The result is often sloppy behavior and misalignment that can cost a company dearly. Precious time is wasted, rumors abound, talented people lose their focus, big projects fail.

By contrast, think of the way a high-reliability team—say, an emergency room staff or a SWAT team—works. Every member has a precise understanding of what things mean. Surgeons and nurses speak the same medical language. SWAT teams know exactly what weapons to use, and when and how and under what conditions to use them. In these professions, there is absolutely no room for sloppy communication. If team members don’t speak to each other with precision, people die. People don’t die in corporations, but without clear definitions and directions from the top, they work ineffectively and at cross-purposes.

For the past five years, I’ve worked with hundreds of CEOs as a leadership coach, a board member, a venture capital investor, and a strategy consultant. I’ve also been a president and CEO myself (my company, Whistle Communications, was acquired by IBM in 1999). The companies whose CEOs I’ve worked with—typically technology firms—range in size from about 100 to several thousand people. In observing CEOs, I’ve come to the conclusion that the real job of leadership is to inspire the organization to take responsibility for creating a better future. I believe effective communication is a leader’s single most critical management tool for making this happen. When leaders take the time to explain what they mean, both explicitly (by carefully defining their visions, intentions, and directions) and implicitly (through their behavior), they assert much-needed influence over the vague but powerful notions that otherwise run away with employees’ imaginations. By clarifying amorphous terms and commanding and managing the corporate vocabulary, leaders effectively align precious employee energy and commitment within their organizations.

In researching this topic, I have discovered that many leaders don’t take the time to define specifically what they mean when they use generalized terms or clichés. They don’t want to feel that they are talking down to people by providing what seems like unnecessary detail or context. Leaders simply assume that the exact meaning of their words is obvious; they’re surprised to learn not only that their message has been unclear but that their teams crave definitions so they aren’t forced to guess what the boss has in mind.

If we accept that the leader’s job, at its core, is to inspire and support the organization’s collective responsibility to create a better future for the company, then what are the keys to effectiveness? What tools do leaders need at hand for this mission? What mental models must they have? I like to think of good leaders as comparable to skilled locomotive drivers. The train is controlled by a set of switches and levers. When the driver pulls one lever, the train goes forward; when he pulls another, it stops, and so on. When an organization is well aligned, all the managerial levers are easily and neatly moved. They function smoothly so that driver, passengers, and train gracefully move forward as one.

In my experience, five such topics control the train: organizational structure and hierarchy, financial results, the leader’s sense of his or her job, time management, and corporate culture. Messages on these subjects wield extraordinary influence within the firm. When leaders take it for granted that everyone in the organization shares their assumptions or knows their mental models regarding the five subject areas, they lose their grip on the managerial levers and soon have the proverbial runaway train on their hands. But properly defined, disseminated, and controlled, the five topics afford the leader opportunities for organizational alignment, increased accountability, and substantially better performance.

Before examining each one, I’d like to address a few possible objections head-on. First, why do these five particular topics matter so much—why would defining corporate culture be a higher priority than, say, defining customer relationships? Certainly, other terms carry a premium in some organizations, but I’ve found that these five are excellent places to start and are highly representative of the kind of difficulties that exist for leaders as they speak to their teams day to day. The topics not only present the sharpest examples of the dangers of imprecise communication, but, when mastered, they also produce the greatest leadership leverage.

I am hardly suggesting that in defining the five concepts precisely, leaders should become dictators or blowhards. On the contrary, I am suggesting that when a leader defines what he or she really means and sets a clear direction according to that definition, relationships and feedback improve, action is more efficient and on-strategy, and improved performance follows.

Organizational Structure and Hierarchy: Message 1

The organizational chart, because it represents individual power or influence, is an emotionally charged framework even during a company’s most stable times. But when the corporate structure is changing, the org chart can truly become fearsome, particularly in companies where, because of the political culture, employees worry about risk to their personal status.

If a CEO fails to take definitional control of a reorganization, with its prospect of job losses, boss changes, and new modes of working, the whole company can grind to a halt. Consider what happened when one well-known former CEO allowed the default assumptions surrounding the term “reorganization” to take hold. A few years ago, Carly Fiorina decided that Hewlett-Packard needed a top-to-bottom reshuffling. She had a fixed idea that reorganizations must be managed with extreme care, and she implicitly communicated her belief by the cautious way she floated her ideas with senior managers. She worried that a reshuffling plan would open a Pandora’s box of political sensitivities, especially among middle managers. For this reason, everyone assumed that “reorganization” was cause for fear and trembling.

For two months prior to Fiorina’s official announcement, work slowed or stopped as employees, not knowing precisely what to expect or fear, shifted their focus to the upcoming changes. Managers, jostling for power and position, got lost in political battles. Motivation plummeted. Contractors were put off, since no one knew who would be managing which divisions after the reorganization. When the new organizational structure was finally communicated, still more time passed unproductively as employees settled into their new positions. A total of 12 weeks—a full quarter—were effectively lost. If you multiply that time by employee salaries, and factor in the inevitable lapses in customer service and product innovation during the period, you can conservatively estimate the damage to the company.

It may be unreasonable to blame Fiorina for failing to realize that she was communicating her trepidation, or to fault her for not divining the consequences of talking about her reorganization ideas months ahead of time. After all, leaders cannot be held to perfection in execution. But they can be held to a standard when communicating a vision and its rationale. If Fiorina had laid out the master plan behind the reorganization more clearly, made her decisions more quickly, and communicated more explicitly, the troops at HP would have gained a better understanding of the process, the reasons for the extended time frame, and their future places within the company.

 

A leader who quickly takes charge of the communication around a reorganization can prevent the discourse from engendering fear. The most productive way for a leader to think about organizational structure is as a flexible map of accountability for action and, thus, results—a guideline whose purpose is to define goals and optimize resources, not to oust or devalue employees. When a reorganization is presented as such, it loses its reputation as a proxy for personal power shifts, whether real or imagined.

Asim Ali Khan
by Asim Ali Khan , Human Resources Director , Arab Media Group

Thank you. I agree with our experts....................

DR MD ANWAR HOSSAIN
by DR MD ANWAR HOSSAIN , Moderator , bayt.com

Thank you for invitation. I support colleagues answer & looking forward to new answer.

Vanitha Reddy
by Vanitha Reddy , Owner , Angels At Work

Poor communication. Be precise and concise

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