Communication, Again!

November 2011

I’m elated that Sealstrip has placed among the 100 Best Places to Work in PA for 2011. They collect a lot of data from the company, and most importantly they survey our employees. One of the best days of the year for me, as the leader of the company, is the day we receive the report of all of the comments that employees made when they completed the survey. We also receive the data, which questions were answered how. This is very instructive because it helps the management team understand more clearly how to make our great place to work, even better. The survey is completely anonymous, so I don’t know who said what, but it really is irrelevant for the purpose of improving. I just want to know how we can do better. Interestingly, we got our worst score of the entire survey in response to the question, “The organization sets reasonable deadlines.” When I mentioned this to various individuals, it got a chuckle. It’s commonly believed that our customers push us and we don’t ever say no. As the leader, I read this question and response not as an inability to say no, but as the management team is not doing a good enough job conveying the true urgency of our projects and customer needs to everyone in manufacturing. So, back to one of my first blogs, it’s all about communication! You cannot have a great place to work without communication – in fact, what most people will consider over-communication, will be just about the right amount. Maybe for Halloween, I should go as a megaphone… stressing the importance of communication!

Here are links to 3 articles that talk about the importance of communication in leadership and in management. They are from 3 very different sources, but really illustrate my point that no matter you industry or your role, if you want to be a leader that people respect and want to follow, communication is key.

http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/12675/communication-most-important-key-to-leadership-success

http://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/27037/Leadership%20Communication%20-%20A%20Communication%20Approach%20for%20Senior-Level%20Managers%20-%20Barrett.pdf?sequence=2

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2141.html

Best,

Heather Chandler

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