'Working Wounded': Clear Communication

— -- D E A R   W O U N D E D: I'm tired of having to tell the people at work what to do over and over. How can I get people to hear what I'm saying the first time?

A N S W E R: Your e-mail reminded me of the vice-presidential debate when Dick Cheney encouraged viewers to go to factcheck.com for an "unbiased" view. Unfortunately what the vice-president meant to say was factcheck.ORG. When factcheck.com started receiving more than 100,000 hits per second, its owner quickly diverted the traffic to an anti-Bush site. Oops.

The vice president is not alone. Often in business our communication is less than precise, and we suffer as a result. Below I've listed a variety of strategies for bosses to improve the clarity of your communications. For more, check out "100 Helpful Tips for Great Managers" an ebook by Lisa Haneberg and yours truly. (Available via http://forbossday.com).

Do you send out e-mail summaries and notes after a meeting you've run? Have you ever forgotten a meeting just after it ended? This happens to your subordinates too, even though the meetings you run are no doubt riveting. That's why it's so important to follow up your meetings with an e-mail reminder of exactly what was decided and what's next.

Do you spend time with your peers? Sorry, e-mail doesn't qualify. It's important to spend face-to-face or phone time with your most important contacts at work. I'm a believer in a 5:1 ratio of e-mails to actual conversations. Sure it takes more time, but it's a small cost compared to the risk of sprinting in a totally different direction from the rest of your company.

Do you communicate twice as much as you think you should? Sure there are micromanagers out there who need to do less, not more, communicating. The problem is that for every micromanager there are 10 bosses who just don't communicate enough. One simple test to see where you fall in this continuum: ask your employees to describe their job and the direction of the department to see if you are all pointed in the same direction. If not, you need to communicate more.

Do you solicit input before decisions are final? It's insulting to be asked your opinion after a decision has already been made. If the people you work with were smart enough to be hired in the first place, take the time to see what insight they might have before you make an important decision.

Do you eliminate fuzzy words? "Give 110 percent," "working smarter not harder." Sometimes it seems that the only things more popular than layoffs at work these days are meaningless clichés. As Jack Canfield once said, "A goal without a number is a slogan." The more specific you are with your team, the greater the odds that they'll know what you want them to do and do it.

As embarrassing as it is to get the facts wrong when you are sending people to a fact check site, hopefully we can all learn a lesson from Cheney.

We'd like to hear your strategy for communicating more clearly. I'll give an autographed copy of "Working Wounded: Advice that adds insight to injury" (Warner, 2000) to the best submission. Send your entry, name & address via: http://workingwounded.com or via e-mail: bob@workingwounded.com. Entries must be received by Wednesday (Oct. 20).

Here are the results from a recent workingwounded.com/ABCNEWS.com online ballot:

Our winning strategy for surviving a job interview comes from a HR professional:

"One of the strategies that we see fairly frequently (and that we advocate!) is to use the stated desirable 'Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities' section of most job announcements, job specifications, duty statements or exam bulletins to develop job-related mock interview questions. Generally the 'KSA's,' coupled with background info (go to the Internet!) on the company or organization that's recruiting, can be a goldmine of info. Sometimes in some organizations these job related documents are not provided unless one asks for them. Along with this, if the job seeker can arrange a few mock interviews with a friend or family member, a greater comfort level will be developed for the likely questions when it comes to the real interview and 'showtime!' "

Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, speaker and internationally syndicated columnist. His newest bestseller, "GRAY MATTERS: The Workplace Survival Guide" (Wiley, 2004), is a business comic book that trades cynicism for solutions. Ask Bob a question: bob@workingwounded.com or http://graymattersbook.com

ABCNEWS.com publishes a new Working Wounded column every Friday.