Lack Of Communication
That was the title of a song by the 80’s band Ratt off their Out Of The Cellar album. It holds very true in today’s business world. It seems the more ways we have to communicate, the more we do not. This won’t be a very long post, so please take a few moments to read it, as I think everyone is guilty of this at one time or another.
What do I mean by this? A good example I have is the person that has to be the bearer of bad news, or the bearer of no news. This person seems to be the worst offender of *not* communicating. Why? Yes, it’s not fun to have absolutely *no update* for your customer or client, or even worse *bad news* for the same. Whether you are in the midst of running a small business or on one end or the other of job seeking, bad news or no news just so happens to be something that comes with the territory. You should expect it more often then not. You should be comfortable with giving it and receiving it. What you should *not* do is go into some silent mode of no communication.
In today’s fast paced communicated and always on and connected society we live in, there is absolutely no excuse for a lack of communication. The internet alone offers many ways to communicate – e-mail, instant message, blogs, forums, etc... Then of course the mobile phone industry. In today’s world, without a cell phone you are pretty much on the minority side of things. If you are without any phone service at all, I guess you must live in a cave and couldn’t even be reading this! Even America’s number one nemesis Osama Bin “forgotten” Laden had a phone! He probably even had the internet up there in his cave! I guess that negates the sentence before last!
Why am I even discussing another common sense topic? Currently I’m dealing with 2 different organizations that I may be doing some business with, and neither one seems to have this simple task down. Yes, I agree sometimes the old adage of “no news is good news” may hold true. In the same token, when you specifically ask for “Update?”, and receive none, that can be quite frustrating to the person asking for that update. Namely that person would be *ME*. I try to give the person time to return calls and e-mail, but when it gets to a point of where I can actually count hours that turn into days, it’s almost like you start asking the question of “What can I do next to get this person to respond?”
If you are in a small business, or if you are actively seeking a new job or career, or even trying to market a book you just wrote and published for the masses - the bottom line as I see it is you have to communicate! This is a simple task that is required to be successful, and with the above mentioned ways of communicating, there is simply no excuse not to return an e-mail, return a phone call, answer an instant message, participate in a forum, etc...
In closing, this post seems like common sense. It’s almost like something that doesn’t need to be said at all. It should be something that we are all good at. Unfortunately too many deals have not been closed, too many customers or clients have been lost and business isn’t done. Basically use the abundance of tools that are out there and I think you will find it’s very easy to communicate. At least technically speaking it is.
Just wanted to point out that this philosophy is still in the corporate culture today, so expect it when you run into one of those perky ‘always positive’ junior executive you might be dealing with. (Comment this)