The role of transformational leaders is to communicate clearly how the changes in the organization will impact their team members. Too often we assume that because someone has made it to a leadership or management role then they know instinctively how to do this but frequently this is not the case. However there are tools available to ensure that they stay on message and feel comfortable in communicating face to face with their employees about sensitive change issues.
What is needed is structure and process and team briefing which is a formal communication cascading process via management is a tool that perfectly fits the bill. It has three levels of cascading messages:
1. The first section of team briefing is completed by the CEO and it is the top 5 issues that he wants communicated throughout the organization. This is discussed with his executive team. 2. The team briefing is then circulated to all the executive team members and they complete the second section of the team briefing by going back to the senior team for their division and together deciding on the top 5 issues for their division and then lastly the top 5 issues for their teams. 3. The final third section of the team brief is the only part that continues to change because it is about what the top 5 issues are for the immediate local team.
Team briefing always works because it is very easy. It ensures that each manager and leader in the organization understands what the top 5 issues are for the corporation, and their division. Most importantly they then have to think about what is important for their team and how it relates back to the top issues. So by using team briefing you are changing behaviour and creating a simple way for face to face communication to occur for all leaders and their teams.
The best aspect of team briefing is that you can decide if it will be weekly, fortnightly or monthly and the dates can be set a year in advance. This ensures that all leaders and managers in your organization will know when team briefings are due and will prepare for them in advance.
Transformational leadership is not just about ensuring that all employees understand the new direction of the organization. It is also about changing the behaviour of leaders and managers so that communication with their teams is consistent and aligned with what other employees are being told in the company. Regular followup by the company president or divisional head simply by asking employees if they have attended a team briefing will ensure that they occur as required.
So these are the keys to making Team Briefings work.
1. The process must be simple and easy to follow. 2. Ownership of the team briefing process must reside with the Company President and this will ensure that all leaders and managers in the organization will follow the process. 3. The topics included in the team briefing notes for the organization and the division must be issues that leaders and managers are comfortable in discussing and have knowledge of to answer any questions. 4. Team briefings only work if managers and leaders feel that there is a feedback loop that ensures they can quickly obtain answers to questions employees have. 5. At the most a team briefing should only take .15 minutes and can either be held as a stand alone meeting or incorporated into regular team updates.
Team briefing serves as a great tool for focussing leaders and managers on issues to communicate face to face with their teams. As with all organizations though there will be some issues that only the CEO or Company President should deliver and these are generally the big issues of the day, mergers and acquisitions, staff retrenchments, closure of plants or offices and the reason is that employees and all leaders and managers want to hear it from the person making those big decisions. However for the operational and day to day issues team dynamics demonstrate over and over that employees want to hear about what is happening from their direct manager or leader.
For the latest resources on transformational leadership and team dynamics visit www.transformational-leadership.com
