Communication and feedback...

This is the second part in my Communication series.

 In my earlier post, I talked about how communication is not just talking. I also mentioned that the key to communication is making people see and understand your point of view.

 For a leader to succeed, he / she needs his team to understand his goals and vision. For this, the leader needs to communicate and ensure that his team understands what he / she is trying to say.

I had a problem of talking a lot, and also, by default accepting that people understood what I said. It took me a few years, to admit to myself that the default is not so. In the initial days, I felt the problem was with my team, that they did not understand what I said. I had to repeat certain messages several times, work with smaller groups to drive home the point, sometimes even questioning people in meetings to see if they are on the same page. After working with my team for a few months, I was able to get them onto my wavelength. I felt happy and satisfied that I was successful.

But every time I took over a new team, I had to go through this cycle. It took me sometime that the issue was not with the teams, but with me. It is the leader's responsibility to ensure that everyone in the team is aware of the common goals and shares the common hunger to succeed. 

The simple lesson that I learnt - " get feedback ". Every time I met people, or groups, the best way to make sure that the message was clear was to get feedback. Until the feedback matched my message, and people become very clear, I used to repeat my messages. 

Every leader needs to get feedback from his / her teams. This not only ensures the leads' success, but more importantly for the team to succeed. 

But, is it easy to get feedback.. More on that next week.

ps: After a long meeting with my teams, wherein i talked about a number of new process improvements to be followed, i could not get the teams' feel on this. I asked one of the junior guys as i came out of the room, if he understood everything. The reply, " no raghu, but anyway you will repeat this in a few more meetings, by which time i will get it".

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