Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Write to me

Managers/Leaders/Executives often ask themselves: How do I build trust with my team. How to open floodgates of communications? How to tell team members to open up  so as to seek real feedback? How to create an environment of openness?


Writing, personally, to your team once a week (or once in 2 weeks) is the mantra that can make things happen. It can be sort of blog but you send that in a mail to your team, directly to their inbox. When Leader writes to me directly apprising me of the plans, happenings, learning, successes, failures, i feel special. I feel being valued. I feel that am worthy in hierarchy and not just a  cog. I will appreciate that you took time to write to me.


Make this writing subtle professional with a touch of team warmth. Write some informal stuff at the end to give it a personal touch and not just any newsletter.


Benefits to this practice:
- It kills rumors. I strongly feels that ‘Rumors are failure of leadership’. People usually get information through various informal channels but when a leader substantiates/discard/reason the rumours/happenings then it breeds faith and kill future gossips.
- It gives a sense of reassurance  to people at ground level, at all levels, to your team.
- It creates openness. People will write more to you giving you right ideas/feedback/opinions.
- It gives people a chance to confide in you. It open direct channel, kills hierarchy.
- It pushes your middle management layer to be more open, deliver more and keep promises. 


Whether you are doing good, or its just business as usual or you are in some unruly crisis, write to me.

PS: While i was working for British Telecom, Mark use to write to entire team every week and i just loved the concept. Thanks Mark.

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