Secrets Don’t Make Friends! How to Establish Effective Communication Flow in a Distributed Workforce
Article 8 of 10
Summary: Communication is the easiest thing to get wrong, but it is not hard to get it right. We’ll cover why it goes wrong, the key to getting it right, and some recommendations to get you started.
Communication → open and equal
The first thing to fail when you shift to a distributed workforce and begin allowing employees to work remotely is company communication. Duh. Obviously! It’s the easiest thing to get wrong. As we’ve covered in previous articles, beyond a certain size effective communication is hard no matter where your employees go to work every day. Lots of companies sitting shoulder to shoulder have terrible communication. Spreading your people all over the world certainly isn’t going to improve communication.
If you have lousy communication prior to going distributed, it will get worse. If you have good communication prior to going distributed, it will be tested. The reason is not the tools, it’s not the time zone difference, it isn’t even bad communication. The reason is perception. Let me explain.
The key to good communication is information flow and availability. When all of your employees feel like they are in the flow of all of the necessary information and at least have access to the unnecessary (but nice to know!) information, communication is good! People are happy and feel safe. Silos are minimized. Communication flows across departments, helping to avoid rework and proactively address bottlenecks and potential problems. Company leadership frequently communicates the mission and progress to all employees. There are no secrets. It’s a communication paradise. Kumbaya!
It’s the perception of secrets that causes the problems.
Unfortunately, when some people are in an office in Dallas and some people are in an office in Denver and others are in their kitchen in New York you invite the opportunity to tell unintentional secrets. Humans have an annoying habit of feeling excluded by default, so when some little piece of meaningless information flows through Dallas, but not Chicago, the Chicago office feels like Dallas is keeping a secret. Secrets don’t make friends. Just ask the guy in New York who overhears some chatter and finds out he was the last to know about _____. It doesn’t matter what the information was or how unintentional the slight was. He’s not going to feel valued or safe.
Here is the real problem though. There may not even be a secret, unintentional or otherwise. There may be zero communication at all, but when a person does not hear from a group they assume the group is talking and he is simply not included. Trust me. I have seen it too many times. He will perceive there is information flowing that he does not know about or have access to. Secrets!
It’s a serious challenge. Fortunately, we are now aware of the challenge, so we can design communication systems to mitigate the risk.
The key to establishing effective communications in a distributed workforce is eliminating the real secrets AND the perceived secrets.
Step 1 — Eliminate the real secrets
A lot of companies have allowed themselves to become over-reliant on meetings for information flow. That’s a huge mistake for a lot of reasons, like the fact that the information contained in that meeting is often a secret known only to the people in that meeting. Fight meetings. Open up communication to the point that it feels uncomfortable and weird. Allow executives to have a debate over an important strategic decision in a public forum. Make project threads open to all employees who want to follow along. Publish results and progress to everyone.
There is obviously some information that must legally remain private. Employees know this and expect it. They appreciate it. Define what will remain private (secret) and make it the exception in company communication. The norm should be no secrets. The best way to avoid employees being upset about secrets is to have no secrets.
This has the added benefit of providing a natural and effective accountability mechanism for employees to be thoughtful about what and how they communicate. Don’t post something you are not comfortable with everyone in the company reading. Don’t say something in a meeting you wouldn’t say in front of the entire company. If you wouldn’t be comfortable with an employee posting your message on Glassdoor anonymously then you should probably rethink it.
Step 2 — Eliminate the perception of secrets
You need to tell your employees there are no secrets. Be honest about what needs to remain private (probably just legal and HR matters), but explain the importance of open communication flow everywhere else. Tell them they all have the opportunity to accelerate their personal growth by staying in the flow of communications. Tell them to be intentional about it and learn from those who are further along.
Then communicate out in the open . . . a lot. More than you would like to. Establish a regular cadence for updating the company and model internal communication in an open forum. Invite employee participation where appropriate.
Find opportunities to share high-level strategic information with your team. If you have hired the right people they will be interested and benefit from seeing the thought behind the strategy. Everyone will appreciate the effort regardless.
I once worked for a CEO who hosted an “Ask me anything!” (AMA) once a quarter. He would allow anyone in the company to submit any question they wanted with full anonymity. People gladly took him up on the offer, a lot of people. Many of the questions were funny or only required quick responses, but there were plenty of really challenging questions and questions with an edge. He answered every single one. It took him awhile to write out thoughtful answers to every question, but the ROI was tremendous. It was very tangible evidence that there were no secrets.
It was such a hit, we extended AMA to the rest of the executive team as well.
Look at your company communications from the point of view of your least connected employee.
You should assess your communications from the kitchen table in New York. Is he sitting on a Zoom staring at a conference full of people having side conversations he can’t hear? Does he regularly get information secondhand because a manager just happened to walk by and give the team some direction? If so, he doesn’t just “feel” like he is at a disadvantage. He is at a disadvantage. Everyone is in the room or no one is in the room. Everyone is on video or no one is on video. This will be hard, so experiment. Figure out what works for your company, but watch out for unequal access.
Ask yourself: Does kitchen table guy have any reason to feel like he is at a disadvantage when it comes to communications? Until you can confidently say, “No, absolutely not. He is regularly included in all necessary communication and has access to any other communication he might be interested in,” you need to keep working.
It’s easy to get wrong, but not that hard to get right. It just takes a shift in approach and how you think about communication.
