Why Trickle-Down Communication Is Bad Practice

Remember the game “Telephone”? In it, a circle of people pass a message around by whispering it to each other, and the message is inevitably garbled by the time it gets back to the originator. Results in the game are often hilarious, but in real life, loss of fidelity when messages are relayed can cause real problems. Savvy managers are aware of this fact, and rarely ask their staff to orally relay messages.

Nevertheless, some rather high-level managers demonstrate very bad practices when using e-mail to disseminate important information. Instead of communicating in a direct manner, they use a trickle-down approach. Have you ever received an e-mail like this?

To: Staff [in this department] From: [Department Admin] Subject: Announcement ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please read the attached memo from [Executive],

and share it with your staff.

[file attachment – a.k.a. “the bomb”]

Let’s consider some of the many reasons this is a bad way to communicate:

1. It’s unreliable

Trickle-down communications often fail to get distributed in a timely manner to all the people who should receive them. The delivery process can be delayed or fail altogether if anyone in the distribution chain is on vacation, or overlooks the e-mail in their InBox, or neglects to forward the e-mail as requested.

Because the Subject line and e-mail body text lack meaningful content, the actual message will only be seen by people who take the extra step of opening the attachment, which requires extra time to load another program (such as Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Word), adding friction to the process. And considering that we all get frequent warnings about the risks of opening e-mail attachments, recipients may hesitate to open an enclosed file, even if it appears to come from an official source. The fallout of friction and fear: reduced reading rates.

2. It’s impersonal

Employees receiving this e-mail also receive a subliminal message: the executive doesn’t want to communicate directly with the employees. Whether that’s because the executive is too busy, too insular, too self-important, or something else isn’t clear, but nothing positive is communicated by forgoing the opportunity to communicate directly. The packaging of the meaningful content in an attachment makes the communication feel even more distant.

3. It’s unsearchable

None of the fields in the e-mail message relate to the actual content in the attachment, which probably discusses something significant like a policy change, staff promotion, or company reorganization. People trying to find that important information later are unlikely to remember that it was sent by an Admin, or that it was blandly titled “Announcement”. There are no keywords in the e-mail subject or body that relate to the details in the attachment. Hence, the content will be extremely difficult to find later using typical search tools, so only employees who carefully file it will be able to retrieve it later.

How to Be a Better Corporate Communicator

You can communicate more effectively by following a few simple practices:

1. Be direct

If you’ve got an important message that all employees should see, send it directly to all of them. If you’re in an important position, they’ll read the message, because it came directly from you, and will thus be presumed to be important. Your direct approach will convey a sense of respect, a sense that they’re important enough to get a message directly from you. Some might even reply to you, or ask for clarification. Would that additional communication be such a bad thing?

2. Be clear

Use a meaningful subject line that clearly relates to the topic. Outline the main points in the body of the e-mail, even if you must use an attachment to disclose the details. This greatly increases the likelihood that recipients will register and remember at least the gist of the message.

3. Be succinct

Get to the point quickly, just as you expect everyone to do with you. Presume that people are busy doing other work they should be doing. If there’s an action item, highlight it and put in near the top, so there’s no chance of it being missed. (Ever get a 10-page e-mail with an ‘urgent action item’ at the bottom? What level of compliance does such a call to action achieve?)

A Small Effort That Pays Big Dividends

Communicating effectively by being direct does not take much more effort than tasking the job off to someone else. Sure, there’s some initial effort required to create and maintain some distribution lists, but those can be handled by department admins or IT staff, and those lists should be in place anyway.

The main incremental effort is in changing your mindset from one of isolation to one of engagement. As you remove barriers to communication and subliminally communicate respect for your employees, you’ll earn their respect and build a stronger team.

Copyright © 2016 Jim Schibler — All rights reserved

Images courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

#Management #Leadership #Communication #Etiquette