Whether a grunt or groan, hand signal, body language, speech or the written word -
communication is central to the ebb and flow of life,
and essential for the progress of existence as it is known.
Successful organizational communication is an engineering function.
Did You Know ?
"What We've Got Here is Failure to Communicate."
Corporate financial loss due to poor communications is a stunningly high number. Most companies have no idea they're losing through communications, and almost none have a proper solution for the issue.
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Knowledge Management (my definition)
Through the utilization of all channels of communication, the profession of engineering critical knowledge to effect and to achieve organizational benefit by means of the purposeful and directed employment of information, instruction, process improvement, and quality leverage.
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The Loss
Communication has been around since the very beginning. Whether a grunt or groan, hand signal, body language, speech or the written word - communication is central to the ebb and flow of life, and essential for the progress of existence as it is known.
That being said, it might be thought that more value, more emphasis, and more money would be funneled into the world's communication. A great amount of money actually goes toward that very thing. However, billions of dollars are lost every year as the result of poor communication in the business world - billions - just in the United States. U.S. hospitals alone waste more than 12 billion dollars every year on lazy communication practices. Globally, the number is in the many trillions.
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This number has not diminished over time. Most businesses are not finding a solution to the issue, to the loss. There are now more ways to communicate than ever - email, cell phones, faxes, text messaging, various software and print forms, and so on. Yet, as the world gains more and more complexity, the money that is lost also increases.
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Why is this? Advances in technology should make things easier, faster, more cost efficient. The answer is just as simple. The faster things can be produced, the faster the person on the other end wants their product. The net result is that there is no ground gained at all. At the same time, complexity, speed, and clutter has been added to the system - increasing the likelihood for error, and driving the amount of loss higher and higher.
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The Example
In the early morning at work, you check into your email inbox. You're aware that you get a number of emails that don't directly pertain to your work; but to be certain you don't miss anything critical, you must sort through them. Just think about how many emails YOU have to sift through every day that have nothing to do with you or your job. Multiply that lost salary time across people in your entire organization. Multiply that result for a year's time. Then, consider that this is only general one-way (just you reading) email communication; only a small portion of the larger loss issue.
Let's say your company has 4,000 out of 5,000 personnel who are office based. The average salary is $30.00/hour. The average office user spends 1/2 hour every day sifting through unnecessary emails. That would not be an uncommon amount of time.
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1/2 hour = $15.00; $15.00 x 5 days/week = $75.00; $75.00 x 50 weeks = $3,750.00 (one person / per year); $3,750.00 x 4,000 (office personnel) = $15,000,000.00. Yes, that's correct - $15 MILLION lost - just like that.
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The Solution
Few companies / organizations have a proper solution to the above situation. Most are not even aware that it's an issue. Many add on more and more layers; jumping on board with the latest communication trends, without even a basic test run to see if that trendy tool will be a positive asset. Most of those trendy tools are extremely costly, in terms of wasted, lost time. Loss through poor communication gets chalked up to many different factors, and the true issue is overlooked. Most companies and organizations do not even have a good analysis of loss, in general. Money saved through eliminating loss IS money earned. If it's in the corporate coffers and can be used for positive gain, it does not matter if it came via acquisition or from loss elimination. Companies that do little or nothing to address sloppy communication issues lose more than 14% of potentially saved monies, and can risk losing as much as 56%. Companies that do employ more effective organizational communication strategies are almost twice as likely to outperform their peers financially.
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Implementation of results-driven organizational communications is not an easy task. It is not one that will take hold overnight, either. However, it is the solution and the correct course for any company that wishes to maximize its efficiency, and thus its financial position. If this were a routine undertaking of most companies and organizations, the loss that is mentioned above would not be in the trillions of dollars every year. If individuals believe that their company is immune to all of this or that they have the issue under control, they are likely very mistaken.
The solution is clear. Quality companies need quality communication professionals. Those professionals need to have a firm investment in weeding through poor communications and practices, correcting those issues, and establishing guidelines and procedures that will ensure that communication is not a factor in the loss equation. Long-established conventions that quality communication is simply a function of a secretary's printed letter, an email blast, a monthly report, and a good chat around the water cooler are simply losing notions. In fact, most of those particular practices are directly driving loss.
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Successful organizational communication is an engineering function - and can be used to drive and direct systems, processes, work flow, overall quality, and the financial bottom line. Many effective scenarios engage more direct, more simplified, single-direction communication. Layering and multi-platform blasts and bombardment usually end up causing clutter, causing confusion (wasting a lot of people's time) - and ultimately causing tremendous loss.
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Communication is much, much more than just a simple directive to an employee by mouth, printed paper, or email. It's much more than an employee conduct manual, or a how-to manual on the workings of a machine on the assembly line. Communication, in the world of modern global efficiency, is about what, how, when, to whom, and why information is delivered. When a company or organization makes the commitment to addressing all of these factors, then they will begin to eliminate loss.
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*Sources include Forbes, Healthcare Financial News, Price Waterhouse LLC, Towers Watson, and the Project Management Institute.
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