Raise the Bar on Business Communication: Stop Wasting Time!

It’s how we sell, persuade, motivate, collaborate and inform. It’s how we get things done. The usual organizational values of excellence and efficiency can and should be applied to communication as well, but are they?

When it comes to how organizations communicate, I am struck by how corporate leaders strive for excellence and efficiencies in so many operational areas, yet are willing to settle for merely adequate—or worse, time-wasting—when it comes to business communications. Meetings, presentations, and speeches are so often where and how business gets done, but in these settings mediocrity abounds. Many companies even subscribe to the tenets of the Lean Movement yet tolerate flab and time-wasting in communications.

Business audiences have come to expect and accept a relatively low standard. Well, what is standard in the business world may be adequate, but it’s not optimal and, let’s face it, it shouldn’t be acceptable. Think about how often you roll your eyes during meetings that are too long and, worse, pointless. Think about the boring presentations you’ve sat through—the ones in which you waited for the single valuable nugget, that one answer, that lone call to action that came at minute 52 out of an hour-long talk. Think about the speech by the CEO who was incredibly dry or who mouthed the same old-same old. A bar set at adequate or standard is far too low for organizations that expect excellent outcomes.

Don’t be part of the herd or a bystander. Do what you can to embrace good communications within your organization – and at the very least, for yourself!