Effective Business Communication

Effective Business Communication

August 26, 2013

Post #6

I had an interesting conversation at work last week about the art and skill of business communication. Despite our technological advances and the ability to send and receive information online instantaneously, some people still need to work on their basic business communication skills. This includes me as well since communications skills can always improve over time.

According to research, communication skills are still the top skills that employers seek in new hires. It is the art and craft of developing a readily understood message that makes a person stand out at work or during interviews. The only way to achieve this goal is by following a few simple tips at work.

Listen. Non-verbal skills such a listening help you identify the needs of your audience, shows respect and will help you craft an understandable message to share with your audience.  Listening involves the mind, body and heart which will allow you to internalize the message and respond accordingly.

Check your written work before you send it out. Remember when you were in college writing papers for class at the last minute hoping to garner a good grade based on your last minute witty repartee? Those days were fun weren't they? They are now over. When you develop and distribute poorly written messages, they not only reflect poorly on you they also reflect poorly on your organization. You can avoid this type of issue by checking your work before you share it with others. Your writing is like your business attire- people will recall how the message was crafted, relayed and subtly destroyed by minor mistakes. When you are under dressed for business functions, people tend to notice. It is the small stuff like spelling, grammar, and sentence structure that can reduce a good idea to a puzzle piece of words. Once you check your work, ask for a second opinion to ensure you obtain objective views about your message and its accuracy.

Don't haggle via e-mail. Can you recall a time you sent a message and you went back and forth with the receiver because a disagreement occurred based on what you sent out? The continual email haggling will not resolve your issue; it will only belabor the confusion. Instead of electronic wordplay, take a moment to talk with the person face to face or call them live to find out where the confusion lies. Then make a non-judgmental attempt to clarify your message with your colleague.

Respect. In the grand scheme of things, everyone wishes that every day will include a wealth of respect from their co-workers. However, respect in business includes taking the time to understand and accept that differences at work will happen. And, it’s okay for the differences as long as they are not illegal. People will disagree about the weather, payroll issues or who gets to speak first during an event. Yet, that is no excuse to disrespect others. If you feel a full on rush to verbally tear someone down whom wronged you or you perceived that they wronged you and step away. Cool off. Calm down. This process takes a lot of respect and internal locus of control.

Creativity at work (When was the last time you had fun at work?)

Creativity at Work

Organizational Freelancer

Post #5

By Tracey Batacan 

When was the last time you were creative at work? Did you solve a task? Or maybe your idea sparked a process improvement that saved your organization money. Whatever it is, creativity is critical to ensuring your work meets and even exceeds requirements as a freelancer. It will also help your organization continue to focus on achieving annual goals.

Edwin Land, co-founder of Polaroid once said "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail." Organizations will always have the ability to find people with certain technical skill sets to hire. However, creativity includes being innovative and fearless. An organizational freelancer will take a look at a task that has been done the same way for years and identify steps to improve and implement new ways processes to benefit the organization. 

One of the ways to use creativity at work is to share your original ideas with team members with a tangible plan to execute your ideas. The idea is your creative skill, the plan says you know how to initiate and manage the new process. 

All too often, some people have great ideas at work, but keep them to themselves because several reasons. Workers may not share their concepts because:

• Fear of rejection
• Lack of leadership support
• Fear of failure
• Concern about carrying the project to fruition without any help
• Fear of success

Fear of rejection. If a person makes suggestions regularly and always hears "no", they may no longer feel the need to speak up and offer suggestions. Try a new brainstorming sessions and individual meetings to gain stakeholder support in your efforts. Also, you may want to suggest new ways to generate ideas by taking the team to a neutral location for brainstorming sessions. Get out of the office with your team to share your ideas about projects. 

Lack of leadership support. It is challenging to kick start a new idea when leadership does not support your efforts. I've experienced this issue both in public and private sector roles and realized that sometimes a one-on-one approach to leadership support is crucial. For example, if several leaders express their lack of support in a group setting, it may be helpful to schedule individual meetings with them to obtain more insight into their concerns about the project. Once you identify the leadership concerns, research ways to overcome them. Then meet with those "on the fence" about your suggestions and manage their expectations about the issues. 

Fear of Failure. Show of hands, how many of you have failed at work before? Failure and mistakes are not the terrible things that you want to hide from the world. They may serve as learning opportunities for you to move forward by identifying your limits and additional training you may need to manage new projects. Failure is often thought of as negative thing. However, we may want to consider where the failure occurred in the process and implement corrective measures. 

Concern about carrying the project to fruition without any help. Great ideas require a person who can serve as a catalyst for positive change. As a change agent, you may also need to show initiative to keep the project moving forward even when everyone else is either busy or moved out of the organization. Sometimes the organizational freelancer will have moments of solitude at work as team mates will be pulled in multiple directions especially at critical project moments. Your goal is to keep moving forward, even if you are the only one driving the project bus.

Fear of success. It may happen more often than not: you are on a winning streak and you are asked to take on more work. Then the little voice in your head might say "how can I do this again and create a win for my organization?" The fear of "repeat success" may stop even the most advantageous agent of change in their tracks. 

One last thing to remember about creativity is to have fun. Fun at work reminds you of why you work in your chosen industry. Sometimes we select our careers based on how much we enjoy the work and it is not about the money, access to resources or successful people. Sometimes, it is just about the having a good time starting and managing a new project.

Online resource: Creativity at Work web site.

Disclaimer: Online resources identified in this blog are for informational purposes and are not a promotion or endorsement of online entities.

Redefining the Meaning of Teamwork

Redefining the Meaning of Teamwork

#4

August 3, 2013

We often feel motivated at work based on our personal interests or maybe to help others. Often, creative moments serve as a catalyst for getting us up and implementing cutting edge projects. Motivation can be a great thing or a drain on resources depending on how you manage your time and team. Moreover, some freelance projects may unintentionally result in an "us" versus "them" mentality under the guise of being a unified team. 

For example, once teams are created they evolve and are evergreen based on the work they need to complete on time and under budget as well as how they relate to each other. Teamwork is similar to waves in which members of the team ebb and flow in and out of the group with a direct impact on those that remain as well as the workload. As an Organizational Freelancer, it is challenging to maintain "team" boundaries because you are always moving from one team to the next on various projects. Team lines may become blurred in the process. It is easy to get connected to people only to move on to new projects and switch sides in the eyes of former colleagues.

The challenge is staying motivated as transitions in teams and work continue to occur. There are two types of teams: 

• primary work colleagues 
• those in other organizations where your freelance endeavors are focused

Change in organizations and teams can influence our ability to stay focused on assignments. One way to stay motivated is to accept the people on your evolving teams as individuals without judgment.

People move on from groups and the work remains. An Organizational Freelancer may need to leverage flexibility, project management skills and patience to keep the evergreen team progressing towards their goals. 

Also, consider expanding your definition of the meaning of teamwork to include those outside one one's primary work group. Creative and innovative ideas happen when we partner with diverse individuals. Therefore, it is crucial to omit the "us" versus "them" concept of teams in your work environment and vocabulary. 

Copyright 8/3/2013 

Organizational Freelancer Blog may not be reproduced or duplicated without express permission from the Organizational Freelancer Blog. All rights reserved. 

The "Kobayashi Maru" at Work

Organizational Freelancer Blog #3 

July 21, 2013 

Sometimes a freelance work assignment will lead to new learning opportunities or propel your career to higher levels. Then there are some assignments that seem like the unbeatable test similar to a "Kabayshi Maru" type of moment. Sure these assignments will test you, motivate and even bring you to tears or exhaustion. These are the projects, people and environments that test your professionalism to its very core.

Some days you will walk into to work on the assignment and realize that no matter your level of expertise, you are being tested to ensure the task will not fail. A variety of issues may occur. For example, staff may not show up, stakeholders may not participate in events, software may not work or it is the wrong version or simply a general lack of support from all employee and leadership levels. These limitations will hit you at your very core and question your sanity as you continue to move a project forward. Was the issue identified as a potential risk? Or did it crop up last minute?

What do you do when you find that every tactic you take to move a project forward and troubleshoot, you are blocked from achieving success? There are the usual short-term solutions to tackle problematic tasks:

• Whine
• Stop by the bar after work and take a cab home later
• Complain to others about your plight (they will not be sympathetic because it was your idea to freelance to other departments in the first place)
• Walk away from the project and let it organically unfold to its next step. 
• Tempt fate and stick with it

While most of the suggestions above sound like a great escape route, they may not curb your focus to support a variety of freelance work projects. So what do you do? 

Try a creative approach and consider the last time you had to work on something that was hard to complete because of the number of constraints. Then do the opposite and try harder. There will always be staffing issues, problematic software and strained resources in both good and economic times. However, as an organizational freelancer your role is to look beyond the limitations and find a middle ground to success. 

Trust me; it will be challenging to stay motivated. I once had this situation and took my lunch break to walk around a local museum to brainstorm about the troubles this one public relations project was giving me. The a lack of staff support impacted project deadlines and I ended up doing everything to move the project forward for the entire team. After circling one art exhibit after another I realized something. I need to hang around and ensure the project moves forward no matter how much extra effort I had to tie into it along with my regular responsibilities. Basically, I needed to hang around and hang in there.

After all, an unbeatable test only exists to stop you in your tracks if you let it. Bottom line; leverage your creativity to propel your freelance assignment to its predetermined successful state. 

*The reference to the "Kobayashi Maru is simply a metaphor.* 

*All works are copyright protected, June 7, 2013. 

Play Outside of Your Sandbox, 7/4/13

Play Outside of Your Sandbox

Post#2

July 4, 2013

When was the last time you did something at work that you truly loved? Often we have jobs we enjoy and then the fun ends because of a lack of recognition or advancement.

These are the times to consider moving forward with new plans outside your "formal scope of work." The Organizational Freelancer perceives issues in their field or expertise as well as identifies tangible solutions for their "client." The client maybe some of the people they work with in their larger organization and outside of their immediate work group.

The benefit of implementing changes, solutions and work for the benefit of other groups allows you to focus on meaningful work opposite of your routine daily tasks. They may be challenging, allow you to work with diverse groups and enhance your resume with skills that you want to maintain.

For example, if you are a graphic artist in your main group and know there are others in your company in need of graphic art work, you can readily offer your services to meet their needs. This will allow you to support other organizations goals and indulge in your passion- graphic art projects that inspire you at your job. Also, your portfolio skills will expand because people will spread the word about your amazing talent.

This is referred to as "Motivation to Play Outside of Your Sandbox." Complacency stifles creativity when some people get stuck in a work rut that paralyzes their ability to show initiative. When you play outside your sandbox by sharing your expertise with others in your larger organization you have the ability to help those understaffed, underfunded and still have some fun at work.

Motivation to freelance within your organization also includes managing your time wisely. You may be the most creative person in the room, however if you lack time management skills it will impact your primary role in the organization as well as those you wish to provide your freelance skills on demand.

How can one freelance at work and still meet their primary work goals? Prioritize your work to meet your immediate manager's needs as well as your additional internal clients' timelines. This may create an overwhelming abundance of work for some or a challenge to rise to the occasion about the great opportunities generated based on your talents.

Playing outside your sandbox at work also affords the opportunity to meet and network with new people. Routine work may include routine meetings and working with on the same projects. This can become really dull for those who seek to inject new energy into their work life. It also limits one’s ability to obtain professional development.

An Organizational Freelancer may work among many groups based on her or his talents, communication skills and the ability to manage business relationships. Keeping your "internal clients" informed about their project deadlines is critical to your success. In addition, check in periodically with people you provided freelance work for in the past because it’s good to maintain contact. Also, it may be lead to the next big opportunity in your career. Sometimes internal freelance work may lead to an opportunity to participate in a rotational assignment, new friends, obtain a new mentor or work on something exciting and new.

Lastly, one of the biggest motivators to freelance inside your organization is having fun. When was the last time you had fun at your job? When did you last laugh during a work assignment you knew was going to become a challenge for you, but your "freelance team" was ready to get the job done right? If you can’t remember when you had fun on a work project, it may be time to play outside of your sandbox.