Basic Communication skills

Clear communication is a critical key to most business activities (e.g. Programs, Projects, Business Transformations, M&A, QBR etc. ) . Do you spend enough time on it? Do you get your communications across to the intended recipient(s) as planned? How do you measure if your communications come across as planned?

Basic Steps - This needs to be done at the beginning of every communication effort/project

• Determine who needs what kind of information - Stakeholder determination 
• When does he/she need this information? 
• Who will deliver the information? - keep company culture etc in mind 
• How will the information be delivered? (e.g. Face-to-Face, phone, email) 

That sounds very easy doesn't it? But as you know in reality this can be quite tricky. Here some notes on what you should pay close attention to.

1. Keep in mind who you communicate with! Executives prefer high level, clear summaries w/o you going into all the details. They don't have the time for that and rely on you to work this out. For meetings with Subject Matter Experts be prepared to discuss more details. Don't succumb to the trap to use the same communication for different audiences. In most cases this will not work! 
2. Use words that everyone understands in your environment! 
3. Really listen before you try to answer any questions! Take your time to answer questions! Note: If you think about the next meeting or planning the next activity in your current communication you are not really paying attention. There is a reason why you have two ears and one mouth. 
4. If possible do really important communications in person ! (Note: 55% of communication is non verbal!) 
5. Be aware of cultural differences when you communicate! Check this link and/or check this book
6. Be transparent in your communications! This will establish trust. 
7. Keep all your business communications professional at all times 

Lastly, be prepared that you will be a lifelong learner of communications and don't ever stop learning more.

20 Employee Recognition Idea's for your Team

To recognize our team members/peers is important to keep or establish a good working environment. Most of us spend a lot of time at work and want to do an excellent job at whatever we do so it is important to show sincere appreciation to the people we work with.
Note the goal here is to encourage the best possible performance from all team members (including yourself!) and not to try to manipulate people.  This certainly doesn't mean we all need to pad each other on the back and build a perfectly harmonic environment. In some cases it might be helpful to have a more competitive environment to achieve the best possible goal. In any case there are thousands to books, podcasts, articles etc on this topic. Below I have put some key idea's that I consider a good starting point for Employee Recognition. Note that while most of these idea's are not new we need to implement them to ensure they help our team. Are you doing any of these in your team?

Here 20 Employee Recognition idea's for your team

1. Say "Thank you!" - In person whenever possible or written to give more visibility to other people. This is easy and probably the most important but unfortunately not nearly done often enough. Note that this needs to be personal and honest! If you need to fake it don't do it!
2. Offer Job Rotations or consider Job Promotions (for people who show initiative) 
3. Start a program that allows employees to submit suggestions for improvement. In order to make this effective you need to be ready to implement (some of) these improvements
4. Allow employees to choose their next assignment
5. Provide interesting work/project
6. Facilitate Training (technical and non-technical)
7. Recognize Anniversaries (Birthdays, long service etc.). When you do that don't give away cheap stuff. This needs to be done sincerely with appreciation or not done at all.
8. Buy books and magazines for your team (not just business related books but everything that is intellectually stimulating) 
9. Have a Wall of Fame with Photos of your team 
10. Provide Gift Cards (e.g. Starbucks, Amazon, Best Buy etc.) 
11. Cinema/Movie Tickets  
12. Provide "Work from home" opportunities
13. Give publicly credit for employees who deserve it. E.g. write a Thank you message to your employees on the entrance door of your building or office, make sure senior leaders get visibility to this as well
14. Promote Team building activities (e.g. once per week/month/quarter ... whatever works for your team). This could be a company picnic, pizza party, ice-cream afternoons, get together at the end of the day etc.
15. Provide Educational Opportunities (e.g. ongoing professional development, language, scholarships etc.)
16. Setup regular Lunch or Dinner with Senior Leaders
17. Showcase your employees and their work to your leaders. Communicate clearly why they are important to your team. Add pictures when possible and appropriate 
18. Show sincere interest in your employees' professional development. You need to follow up on this with action to make it authentic. This doesn't mean that you can give everyone what they want but you can help show a way that can get them there. Keep in mind that you will benefit from a strong network as well since your employees will go off to different areas of your company or switch companies
19. Publicly communicate an employee's ideas and suggestions and their positive impact to your team
20. Time off for Charity or Volunteer work

The key for all these ideas (and the thousands more that you can find on Google etc.) is that you keep the team motivated, engaged and feeling valued and appreciated. Don't underestimate these ideas they can really make a difference. 

Some thoughts about gettings things done

There is definetely more advise on this topic out there than anyone could digest and hence I want to keep this very short. As you know there is not one way to get things done there are many ways that work for different people in different situations. What I have below is based on my experience with Business and IT Programs/Projects in the High Tech Industry.

1. Have a clear Goal!
• You can explain to anyone in the program in 2 minutes what this is program is all about
• Everyone else in the program can tell you in their own words (in 2 minutes) what benefits this program will provide
• You know what will define success and how to measure success
2. Think like an entrepreneur!
• Assume it is your money you spend on the program --> only do what is necessary to achieve your goal.  Whatever you do, do it right with 100% commitment!
• Involve the people you really need --> don't bloat the program with stakeholders if they don't have a clear role
• Be responsible - the buck stops with you! 
3. Be passionate
• You love what you do and are committed to make it successful for your customers, your team and yourself. Not being passionate is not an option!
• Engage the best people and ensure they can do their best work. 
• Everything can be improved! Therefore use every opportunity to make improvements.
4. Focus on your customer
• Make the program successful w/o looking at your own benefit will yield the biggest long term benefits!
5. Break your goals into digestible tasks
• Smaller tasks are better to understand and monitor for you and for your customers
• You need successes along the way to keep morale up. Plan for these successes.
6. Don't just talk about doing things but actually start DOING them
• Plans are very important and need to be there, nevertheless you need to start somewhere and it's probably not the ideal point. In order to get things done you actually have to start doing them. 
7. Keep things simple
• Ensure that stakeholders which are NOT full-time engaged in your program still fully understand the processes and systems you are implementing. If stakeholders don't understand what you are trying to do or disagree with what you are trying to do they can't support you. 

There are definetely many more great tips out there but the above is a good starting point to get things done.