We’ve all been there. Stuck in a long, boring meeting - trying to pay attentionbut only thinking about that other thing you could be doing right now.
Office communication is suffering in today’s workforce. Joseph McCormack, author of BRIEF: Making a Bigger Impact by Saying Less, conducted research which found that the average professional is interrupted every eight minutes. That’s 50 to 60 times per day!
He believes that these interruptions are causing miscommunication in the workforce, often times, costing our organisations lots of time and money. To overcome these challenges, McCormack recommends following a BRIEF concept to communication.
In this blog post, we’ll talk about how BRIEF works and explore two other ways you can improve office communication.
1. Use the right collaboration tools
Collaboration tools are infiltrating organisations across Australia - and for good reason. They help us work more efficiently with our colleagues and be more productive.
Consider implementing the right collaboration tools in your office. Instead of spending all your time with emails or scrambling through your to-do lists, utilise tools like Trello and SharePoint for easier, freer-flowing communication.
Jaylen Bledsoe, chief executive officer of a St. Louis, Missouri-based technology consulting firm, Bledsoe Technologies LLC, provides insight into how she uses Trello to benefit her company.
“I’ve found that you can’t hold an employee accountable if they’ve received 1,001 emails for the same project. Being able to assign a task to an employee, and seeing their productivity, really helps your [company’s] overall productivity,” says Bledsoe.
We use SharePoint at R & G Technologies. It simplifies communication and collaboration on projects by reducing internal email and making communication between your staff members easier. Say ‘goodbye’ to lost emails and say ‘hello’ to enhanced collaboration.
For more tips, check out our blog post on 3 tools that improve workplace collaboration.
2. Set some email rules
Have you ever been attached to one of those never-ending email chains and reply-all nightmares that just go on and on and on?
These long-winded, generally internal emails are a time sap. They also reduce the probability of important emails being read. You should look into implementing some rules around internal email use. Dr. Thomas E. Boyce, president of San Francisco-based Center for Behavioural Safety, suggests you stop sending ‘cc’ messages to everyone and only include those who must be kept ‘in the loop’. You can also make use of tools like Lync to send quick messages to specific people that you need quick answers from.
We use Lync at R & G Technologies to cut down on excess internal email. Instead of emailing to ask a simple question, we simply send a chat via Lync. Since Lync is similar to MSN messenger, you get a quick response and can move onto your next task.
3. Focus on being BRIEF
Is it common for your internal emails to go unanswered?
Chances are you aren’t being concise enough. Get to the point right away to attract and hold the attention of your colleague. McCormack found that 43% of people who receive long-winded emails delete or ignore them.
Forty-three percent!
Why? Because we just don’t have the time! Think about it: we’re interrupted every eight minutes. We are quick to screen for the relevancy of emails, and if it’s too long-winded or doesn’t make sense we’ll put it in the ‘to-do later’ list, which is often forgotten.
To encourage concise writing, McCormack proposes you follow a mapping technique called BRIEF.
FastCompany writer, Lisa Evans, explains the BRIEF concept, saying “At the centre of the page, you put your headline. In the case of a meeting with the CEO to provide an update on a project’s progress, the headline may be ‘the project is behind schedule.’“
The boxes surrounding the headline are:
- B (Background): Provide a quick context--what prompted the update?
- R (Reason): Explain why you’re speaking now--why should they pay attention?
- I (Information): Provide two to three key nuggets of information you want to share. What are the bullet points of the conversation?
- E (End): Decide on what note you want to leave the conversation. In this case, you may want to end by telling the CEO what you will do to get the project back on track.
- F (Follow-up): Consider the questions you anticipate the CEO will ask you when you finish speaking and prepare answers in advance.
This is a great system to introduce to your colleagues - particularly the ones who send those boring long emails! Once you are up to speed with BRIEF writing, you’ll noticeimprovement not only in your office communication, but in your productivity as well. By focusing on the important stuff, you can get things sorted in a fraction of the time.
Related: Less Is More: Why You're Saying Too Much And Getting Ignored
Say ‘no’ to boring meetings and long email chains
In today’s world, you don’t have to accept that meetings just have to take that long or that email is the only way. Technologies are available that can improve office communication, making collaboration easier and positively affecting your team’s productivity.
For more great advice, read these blog posts:
- 5 Painless Ways To Make Office Communication Less Frustrating
- 10 Easy To Use Office Communication Tools to Boost Productivity
- 3 Productivity Tools That Will Help You Get More Work Done
Do you need help evaluating the best tools to improve your office communication?
R & G Technologies is a Brisbane IT Support and IT Consulting firm that helps organisations like yours all across Australia. We can help you make better use of new cloud technologies - like Trello, SharePoint and Lync - to improve internal communication. Call us on 1300 562 886 or contact us via this page.