People Management
But Why?
Those of you with small children will be familiar with this question, no doubt, but as the saying goes — from the mouths of babes.
When communicating anything to your team — be it a new process or a policy change — it's important to explain why as well.
A report released by Melcrum Publishing gave the following example:
"Communicators at a large UK retailer launched a campaign to explain the reason behind key business messages. The campaign dictated that every piece of internal communication had to have the "Why?" stamp of approval, with the reason for the message built in to the message? Advantages of the initiative included better employee understanding about why certain tasks were important, as well as the reduction of unnecessary message as managers began to ask themselves why they were communicating."
The benefit of this approach then is two-fold — by clearly stating "Why?" you not only get buy-in from your team, you're making sure your message has genuine purpose.
