If you type the phrase “practices for effective team performance” into your search bar, it will return no shortage of results for you. 

Literally millions of articles, blog posts and infographics are available to help you tweak and mold your culture and environment to become more successful. Without a doubt, many of these techniques are useful, but most of them seem to skirt around the edges of what is important to your bottom line – communication.

In a previous blog post, I shared, at great length, why communication is a critical aspect to an improved bottom line. Today, I would like to expand upon that idea and show you how improving your communication skills will have a direct and positive impact on your bottom line and create a high-performing culture for your organization.  

Benefits of Effective Communication

To understand why improving communication is a great way to improve overall performance, you need to understand the impact of effective communication.

When effective communication is established in the workplace, whether it is virtual or in the bricks and mortar environment:

• Morale Increases
  People simply understand each other better, and they feel better understood by others. This gives people more confidence as individuals, but it also improves how they feel as members of a team working toward a common goal. When morale is high, people are apt to perform more effectively.

• Ideas Are Shared More Willingly
  We have all worked in an organization where communication was lacking. In this type of environment, people hold back on their ideas because they do not want to be shot down or ridiculed. Therefore, the business becomes stagnant – no one wants to share anything, even if their ideas will have a positive impact on performance.

• More Effective Teamwork
  When everybody understands their role and their tasks, there is much less stress and anxiety in the workplace, which reduces wasted time and effort. What is more, when everybody also understands the roles performed by others, an organization can operate as a cohesive unit rather than as a collection of separate departments.

These impacts only represent a small portion of the positive benefits of improving communication in the workplace. The fact is that improved communications provide countless benefits. But how, exactly, does improved communication benefit bottom-line results?

The Bottom Line

Here are some interesting statistics that validate the impact is has on overall performance:  

• During each 40-hour work week, 14% of the time is wasted because of poor communication between managers and their staff. That amounts to approximately seven weeks per year.

• 71% of the population bases its buying decisions on believability and trust.

• After hearing something, 45% of people forget it within 24 hours, and 65-75% of people forget the information within 36 hours.

• Gaining a new customer costs six times more than it does to keep an existing customer.

• When you satisfy a disgruntled customer and resolve their issue, that customer will typically spend 10 times as much money on future purchases than he or she did on the initial purchase.

On the surface, many of these statistics do not relate directly to communication. However, if you are really looking for effective techniques, you need to understand that improved communication will have a positive impact on every aspect of your company's bottom line. 

By improving communication within your workplace:

• Marketing and sales departments are kept in better sync with each other
  
  
• Your staff and teams will be more willing to listen to customers more effectively because listening is a highly valued commodity in the company; therefore, it becomes a habit
  
  
• As a result of improved listening and overall communication, companies are better able to respond appropriately to negative reactions, thus making customers more loyal and increasing sales
  
  
• Leaders feel more confident and certain about their roles, which has a direct result upon staff performance
  
  
• Confident leaders who understand effective communication make sure that they are appropriately persistent when it comes to conveying important information to their teams
  

By improving communication, you will improve almost every aspect of your organization's performance if it becomes part of the company’s culture and DNA. You can search the Internet for effective techniques and find some fantastic advice, but none of it will match the power of improving communication. It is up to you now to look at your organization and decide what you will do to enhance communication. As a leader, improved communication must start with you.

Are you looking for ways to improve communication within the workplace? Are you interested in learning more about how effective communication can improve your bottom line? Please let us know what you think. I am here and available to support your leadership success so give me a call at 1.855.871.3374 or send me an email at joanne.trotta@leadersedgeinc.ca. We would love to hear from you!