How well is your team communicating right now? Is communication flowing smoothly, or are people simply coping with the tensions? How do you measure whether your team is communicating effectively or not?

The most common approach to team communication involves establishing what needs to be done, when it needs to happen, and who will do it. When a plan goes awry, the kneejerk reaction is to remind people of their responsibilities and deadlines. The passive aggressive emails flow, there are meetings after the meeting, and micromanagement runs rampant.

It is exhausting.

You want better for yourself and your team. You shouldn’t be bogged down by chaos or drama. You want to bring people together to accomplish a goal, and you want people to enjoy what they are doing.

So let’s talk about how to end the cycle of planning, frustration, and micromanagement.

It all starts with people. Each person on a team has a unique combination of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that influence the way that they work and communicate. People need to understand themselves, and a manager needs to understand each teammate to create effective communication.

We pause, think about what we actually need, and share it with each other.

Here are a few areas to think about and some examples of how you might answer:

• What do you need to get your job done?

  • Big picture vision

  • History of the project

  • Written project plan

  • Meeting agendas in advance

• At what point do you like to be brought into a project?

  • Start to finish

  • Key milestones

  • Final wrap-up

• How do you like to receive communication, and how often?

  • Face to face – at least 1x a week

  • Email – key communication

  • Slack – daily updates

  • Text – only for emergency

Take a minute and answer these questions for yourself. Then find a time to share your answers with your coworkers. Ask them the same questions. Be honest. Pay attention to each other. Respect what each person needs. Look for ways to help your teammates do their jobs better.

Once everyone has shared about the kind of communication they need, it is helpful to revisit your team’s common purpose so that everyone can be reminded of how they connect to it.

Then you can go back to talking about what, when, and how. Using this new understanding of your coworkers, the team can move to refining goals, discussing who is responsible for each task or piece of information, and determining the major milestones when communication is critical.

Taking the individual into account and respecting their needs means that you can replace micromanagement with accountability. Everyone expresses what they need to do their job and understands the deadlines their teammates need them to meet. It creates opportunities to trust that people will do what they say, and, if they fall short, to ask, “What happened?” and clearly identify what went wrong.

By putting “who” back at the center of communication, you’ll be able to lead and manage your team in a way that unites people and eliminates chaos.

Ready to take your next step towards turning chaos into clarity?