Finding Your Company's Voice (Part 1)

-- The Problem --

It never ceases to amaze me that with all the innovations we have made that human communication, especially in a technical setting, is still inherently flawed. In physics we learn that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, yet communication in organizations rarely follow this fundamental rule. The result is the inevitable attenuation of information as messages are relayed form one intermediary to the next. In the best case the signal simply loses fidelity in the worst case it is altered completely or lost entirely.  Conjugate the bias of the sender, the recipient and the intermediaries and you have a colossal n! problem.

An entire niche industry has emerged trying to address this issue. Popular communication tools like Slack have helped to improve and encourage peer to peer communication but sometimes at the  expense of an information overload. Independent agents all operating at different levels of aptitude are now forced to contend with a multi-channel onslaught, with the primary communication medium at the discretion of the sender not the recipient. This is compounded by the need, on the part of the sender,  to balance the urgency, sensitivity and the audience of any particular message against the inherent strength and weakness of any platform they could potentially use to disseminate that message. Effectively we are now all forced to contend with the same issues with which a small digital media company might have to grapple.

While we are all affected by this this to some extent, it impacts some more than others. Insidiously enough those who are the most adversely affected are also usually the most productive members of an organization.  These individuals tend to be super-connectors, sought out specifically because of their renowned productivity. They have become known as the go to person if you want something done, even though they themselves may act only in a liaison capacity. The more heroics an organization requires to manage its day to day operations the more these individuals will be relied upon. 

Paradoxically, this quickly leads to rendering these same individuals completely ineffectual. Burdened with the lion's share of the work they begin to burn out. Their productivity and the quality of their work slowly degrades with each new responsibility placed on them. The result is that not only does the individual suffer but so do those who rely on them and inevitably the organization as a whole. Having reached the limit of his or her throughput then the solution it seems is not to open yet another channel of communication to an already saturated hub but, perhaps,  to provide an entirely different kind of medium altogether. 

In the next installment we will discuss the requirements around just such a platform. A platform that will empower your business or your team to optimize its communication both internally as well as externally. 

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