Considering how organisations communicate

TYPE OF OGANISATIONS	EFFECTS ON COMMUNICATION
Bureaucratic: these are dominated by hierarchies of powerful levels of managers	They are dominated by “who reports to whom” structure, rigid controls, many manuals, systems, reports and paperwork.
Matrix: are divided by product, geography and function.	Such organisations are closely coordinated, leadership is divided and bureaucracy is strong.
Decentralised: and divided into separate units	Individual units function separately, budgets driven, and intra-company communication is difficult.
Market-Oriented: are organised by product or by geography	Dominated by strong sales culture, commands from the head office, communication with outside staff is limited.
Entrepreneurial: have flat structures and are characterised by risk-taking philosophies.	Dominating “hire and fire” culture causing job loss fear; decisions usually depending on one or two key people.
People-Based: in which employees own shares and enjoy some degree of responsibility for the future of the company	Staff motivated by company shared ownership, participatory culture, limited shared company responsibility by employees.

Communicating to gain Trust and staff Commitment to your Company. 24.

Committed employees are extraordinarily valuable to any company. As a progressive manager you can gain staff commitment by meeting employees’ key needs, paying attention to workers at all levels, trusting and being trusted by workers, tolerating individuality and creating a blame-free “Can-Do Culture workforce” in your enterprise.

The quality and leadership styles are major factors in gaining employees’ trust and commitment to your company. As a progressive manager you should have clear decision making strategies coupled with a collaborative and collegiate approach that takes employees into your confidence; explicitly and openly valuing your staff’s contribution to the company.

You should be visible “walk the walk”, approachable and willing to listen with the ears of your head and eyes as well as the ears of the brain. You should always remember that employees respond well to a collective ambition that they can identify with; and always remember that to earn trust; you must first learn to trust the people who work for you.

Winning and Nurturing the Trust of Employees. 24.

The following are key managerial qualities that inspire trust and staff-commitment of employees and help to create a fully committed workforce in your organisation.

1 As the manager you must hold personal values consistent with your organisation

2 You must be willing to work smart instead of working hard (long hours).

3 You must take pride in telling others about your company, its ethos, culture and organisation.

4 You must develop a sense of ownership of the company amongst your employees

5 You must create a strong sense of team spirit amongst your employees.

6 You must make employees personally involved in the company’s goals

7 You must instill commitment and loyalty of employees to the company.

To Achieve the above Aims you ask Yourself the Following Questions.

1 Do I trust my employees and others enough so that I can delegate tasks to them?

2 Do I leave the delegates to complete their task without interference after briefing them?

3 Do I show employees that I trust them and that I will not let them down?

4 Do I rely on rules and regulations rather than trust to judge employees’ work performance?

5 Do I always instill trust in employees by being truthful and keeping my promises?

6 Do I allow employees some degree of autonomy in creating their work environment?

7 Do I make employees valued and openly recognising their achievements?

8 Do I empower workers and hand over control for them to take responsibility for their work?

Advice to managers

1 Develop policies that can reach everyone; identify the “walking wounded” and “detractors”; devise programmes that transform them to champions of your organisation.

2 Make sure you address employees’ intellectual as well as emotional needs.

3 Listen to unhappy employees; they can reveal serious shortcomings in the company.

4 Endeavour to transform all employees into champions of your company.

5 Enrich employees’ by raising their interest levels, providing incentives and create a stimulating work environment.

6 Fully investigate when staff retention figures start to drop down significantly.

7 Never under estimate the value of a simple “thank you” to an employee(s).

8 Ensure that you involve everyone in a personal project (see latter, project management).

9 Create a “Can-Do culture” built on mutual trust in your organisation.

10 Bolsters self belief, create “heroes” of respected employees publicly admired by other staff.

To achieve the above aims you ask yourself the following questions.

1 Have I devised financial schemes to reward excellent staff performance?

2 Have I considered non-monetary staff rewards e.g. badges name-tugs and responsibilities?

3 Do I always say “thank you” to staff for a well done job?

4 Do I create “heroes” that other staff can admire and emulate in the organisation?

5 Do I allocate achievable tasks depending on the skills and experience for my staff?

Adjusting Management Approach to Maximise the Organisation’s Performance

The way you manage your staff has a great impact on their behaviour. Therefore, it is essential to adjust your management methods and style to suit different staff at different times but, your aim must always be to encourage staff to motivate and manage themselves.

Douglas McGregor’s classical Management theory of ‘X’ “Order and Obey” can be an effective way of motivating staff by ‘telling them what to do and how to it’ because you need a standard measure of discipline in any organisation. In contrast to his “X” theory, McGregor also developed Theory ‘Y’ which states “that self-discipline” springs from workers who enjoy the responsibility that comes with self discipline. 28.

Therefore, you should combine McGregor’s ‘X’ and ‘Y’ Theories to achieve the most effective management style to motivate, inspire and continuously challenge staff because:

1 People who enjoy their work will produce the best results in quality products and services

2 Most people prefer to have responsibility rather than too little work without any responsibility.

3 Cut down on many management-layers in your company to avoid too much bureaucracy.

4 Be flexible in your approach and apply self-discipline combined with empowerment and trust.

5 Allocate single tasks to single staff to reduce task-completion time and enhance responsibility

6 Ask your staff what they would like from you, because they sometimes require guidance.

Developing staff. 30.

Helping individuals to achieve their full potential is in the best interests of the individuals concerned as well as the organisation. As a progressive manager you should always aim to train, encourage, coach and provide opportunities for willing staff to advance their skill base. Top-quality training and development are vital to all modern organisations.

Therefore:

1 If you must reduce costs make sure that training is the last cut-back and never the first.

2 Ask staff about their long-term goals and aspirations and assist their realisation.

3 Allocate at least 1.5% of your annual budget for staff training and development.

4 Aim to train your staff in as many relevant specific skills as possible and understand that mental abilities are very important in a modern organisation to master computology.

5 Thinking clearly can be taught and improved on in any staff with basic education.

6 Explain the reasons why you need to cut down your product price because profits fallen.

7 Widen staff skills and keep staff levels down and thus reduce company costs.

8 Coach your staff to think analytically in order to benefit the whole organisation.

9 Get your staff into the habit of constantly improving their range of skills. (Long-life-Learning).

10 Invest strongly on computer skills to improve your company performance.

As a Progressive Modern Manager ask Yourself the Following Questions

1 Have my staff been sufficiently trained in computer skills for the company to be competitive?

2 Is their training both up to-date and up-dated regularly?

3 Do my staff have opportunities to practise their new skills in order to master them?

4 Have I listened to my staffs’ suggestions regarding acquisition of new technology?

5 Does my organisation have sufficient technical support?

6 Is my company using all the modern computer programmes to improve performance?

Guiding Managers and Employers.

You should be able to coach staff because you instruct employees how they should work effectively; which is what foot ball coaches and sports coaches do during and after games.

While sports coaches (managers) start with training sportsmen and women, while managers start with inducting of their new staff that is followed by on-the-job training and supervision. Managers train, retrain and retrain, develop and redevelop, encourage, guide assess staff performance, counsel and sometimes employ mentors for these tasks. All these activities are summed up as training and development aimed at improving staff performance in their work.

Giving clear instructions about what you expect is your first task as a manager/coach. It is also important to realise and accept that this stage usually produces a DROP in new staff motivation because that’s when they come face to face with the reality of the new job. At this stage, you should become a HELPER, coaching new staff to prove their strength to gain new confidence and skills as well as to form new ambitions.

Finally, as new staff get control of their jobs and you then become an advisor or counselor to be consulted they need you.