Consulting Services
Society for Human Resources Management
“The Cost of Poor Communication”
BusinessWire
“Poor Workplace Communication is Sinking Productivity and Performance”
TriNet
“How to Avoid Low Morale at Work”
Robert H. Smith School of Business, U. of Maryland
“U.S. Hospitals Waste $12 Billion Annually Because of Poor Communication”
LinkedIn 2024
“Most In-Demand Skills”
The Goal of Corporate Communication Consulting
Any company can develop points of friction when it comes to internal communications:
The employee who lacks the communication skills to get ahead or to get along with colleagues.
Two or more workers who can only communicate by arguing.
Managers who accuse employees of not following instructions.
Employees who claim that their managers fail to give directions clearly and respectfully.
These problems can seem minor at first. But distrust and rancor can grow rapidly, leading to a poisonous working environment with plummeting morale. This can be followed quickly by dropping productivity and rising rates of attrition—and your company will pay the cost in time and money spent on recruiting, hiring, and training new people to replace those who have left.
Corporate Communication Consulting is about eliminating these friction points before they cause more damage.
Methods
We use principles of human communication science to study your company’s internal communications and to identify points of breakdown. Then we offer solutions to restore a healthy communicative ecosystem to your business. Our methods are tested, dependable, and thorough:
- We employ assessment protocols that suit the type and scale of your internal communication problems. These may include surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other data-gathering techniques.
- We apply analyses that fit the information we obtain.
- We advise you of our findings in writing, via teleconference, or in person.
- We provide you with recommended actions to rectify your problems.
- We assist you, where needed, in implementing your plan of action—providing training, mediation, meeting facilitation, or other support.
Throughout the consulting process, we maintain impartiality while encouraging all parties to remember that it is to the benefit of everyone who works for a business when that business succeeds.
Corporate Communication Consulting: Sample Scenarios
Scenario A:
Mark, a newly hired data scientist, is a skilled researcher and analyst, but he has been having difficulty fitting into the team to which he was assigned. His reports, while detailed, are difficult for non-scientists to follow, and when he is requested to summarize his findings, he tends to respond defensively and to make comments such as “You should be smart enough to understand what I wrote.”
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Scenario A:
Mark, a newly hired data scientist, is a skilled researcher and analyst but has been having difficulty fitting into the team to which he was assigned. His reports, while detailed, are difficult for non-scientists to follow, and when he is requested to summarize his findings, he tends to respond defensively and to make comments such as “You should be smart enough to understand what I wrote.” He also has a tendency to dominate meetings, interrupting others and taking up a disproportionate amount of time talking about his work. His teammates are becoming resentful, and a couple have asked to be transferred to another team. Management are concerned about potential productivity losses due to Mark’s difficulties with communication and because of time that may be lost due to attrition within his team.
Solutions:
After interviewing Mark, his supervisor, and some of his teammates, we recommend that: A) Mark should receive training in interpersonal skills including active listening, assuming non-defensive physical postures and tones of voice, and turn-taking. We contract with Mark’s employers to provide the recommended training. B) We also recommend that Mark receive a few sessions in Business Writing, to focus on use of simplified language using active voice, subject-verb-object sentences, and structured paragraphs. We provide this training as well.
Scenario B:
Rohan Community Hospital was a non-profit facility until it was acquired three years ago by private equity (PE) investors. Its local board of directors was removed by the PE firm, and roughly 30 percent of administrative and medical staff have been cut. Nursing and rehabilitation staff are threatening a walkout.
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Scenario B:
Rohan Community Hospital was a non-profit facility until it was acquired three years ago by private equity (PE) investors. Its local board of directors was removed by the PE firm, and roughly 30 percent of administrative and medical staff have been cut. Nursing and rehabilitation staff are threatening a walkout. Their representatives state that medical staff feel they have no voice in policies that impact their work environment or the welfare of their patients. They have set a deadline of 14 days for their concerns to be met; otherwise, they will proceed with a strike.
Solutions:
After meeting with attorneys for the PE firm and with union leaders for the medical staff, we help to negotiate an extension of the strike deadline to 90 days. We then recommend that: A) A series of focus groups be conducted, to be attended only by nursing and rehabilitation staff, to allow medical staff to voice their grievances in detail and without fear of consequences for their employment. We agree to host the focus groups, and to summarize the medical staff’s complaints, anonymously, for management. B) We recommend a settlement whereby an ombudsman is to be hired by management and union leaders, whose salary will be paid both by union dues and by the PE firm, and whose operation will be independent from both bodies. The ombudsman will make it possible for hospital staff to funnel concerns to the PE firm, and will relay responses from the owners back to the medical staff. The ombudsman will also be informed within five business days of any decisions by the owners that will impact the interests of staff or patients, and will disseminate that information to staff members promptly. In return, staff will agree to provide a minimum of 90 days’ notice before any potential future walkout. Medical staff also agree that they will only consider a walkout after union leaders and the PE firm’s officers have conducted good faith negotiations mediated by the ombudsman.
Scenario C:
Conflict has arisen between the project managers and lower-level consultants at the Cincinnati office of LEL Consulting. Project leaders state that their teams are consistently failing to meet deadlines, while junior and senior consultants respond that they are not given specific-enough instructions by their managers to complete their projects on-time and according to the managers’ wishes.
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Scenario C:
Conflict has arisen between the project managers and lower-level consultants at the Cincinnati office of LEL Consulting. Project leaders state that their teams are consistently failing to meet deadlines, while junior and senior consultants respond that they are not given specific-enough instructions by their managers to complete their projects on-time and according to the managers’ wishes. The consultants also state that their managers are difficult to approach; the consultants worry that, by asking for clarification, they are risking poor evaluations and endangering their future success within the firm. Several consultants report that they have considered requesting to be transferred to another office.
Solutions:
After interviewing the project managers and junior and senior consultants, we recommend that: A) Managers and consultants limit the number of platforms by which they communicate to no more than three (e.g. email, texting, and/or telephone). B) Both groups commit to creating an internal communications flowchart specifying situations in which it is appropriate to communicate “asynchronously” (e.g. via email) and when simultaneous platforms of communication (e.g. telephone, teleconference, or in-person meetings) should be employed. We offer to help both groups in writing the flowchart. C) We encourage the office (and the firm as a whole) to consider adopting a less vertical communication structure, instead following a policy of “open disagreement” in which professional staff at all levels are encouraged to offer ideas—without fear of reprisal—that may differ from those of their superiors. We agree to work with the firm to help to develop such a policy.
The Bottom Line:
If impaired internal communication is wrecking your bottom line, let’s fix the problem now. Contact Us today to schedule a FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION. Let's discuss how we can can solve your company’s workplace communication challenges before they do more damage.
Guarantee of Non-Disclosure
Given the sometimes-confidential nature of our clients’ work, we guarantee absolutely that we will take the utmost care to avoid disclosure of privileged information received during professional interaction between us and our clients, our clients’ staff, or third parties with whom our clients share a commercial relationship.
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