The importance of team communications

One of the great things about my job is the opportunity to work with many different businesses including, occasionally, some which are truly “best in class”.  For the last week I’ve been with Romans, the hugely successful estate agency, at their annual manager’s conference in La Manga Club, Spain (I know, it’s a tough life!).  Whilst their business operations, not to mention their profitability, blew me away with their effectiveness, what stood out most of all is their understanding that marketing begins at home - with their own teams. 

Dale Norton and Peter Coles, the charismatic owners of this 20 year old company, have always recognised that their business epitomises the description “service industry” and in order that they fulfil their advertised promise to deliver legionary customer service it is vital that their front line teams, and managers in particular, are completely up to speed with the company’s goals indeed are deeply involved in their setting.  Now this is nothing new - business commentators have preached similarly for decades - however knowing the value of internal communications and delivering them successfully are completely different in my experience.  Many companies seem content to send out an email or hold a three hour meeting to inform their people what’s expected of them but not Romans.  In the last year alone they will have taken various members of their teams to New Orleans, Nassau, Las Vegas as well as Spain to reinforce the Romans values and “work hard, play hard” ethic.  And the messages are reinforced at home too.  Every month groups of managers meet to work on two different projects “Good to Great” and “Fast Forward” which independently of each other assess every aspect of the business and not only recommend but actively implement improvements.  These are then communicated to all the front line sales teams via 45 minute meetings in each office every morning – Dale & Peter realise that imparting too much information in one session isn’t as effective as breaking things down into small chunks and causing their people to make incremental changes each and every day.

Based on my experience with “The Romans” here are my recommendations for highly effective internal communications:

1. Make time each year for a 3-4 day review of your business by those who know best of all what’s working and what’s not – the managers at the coal face
2. Carry these reviews off site with a themed programme of activities that will stimulate lively discussion, debate and idea generation
3. Create names and set a finite time scale for the business plans – Romans have a ten year business plan but have broken this down into a series of operational plans that last for just 12 months at a time
4. Put together teams within the teams mixing different functions and people with varied skills and experience to create a common learning experience
5. Heavily incentivise the teams – Romans executives typically earn 20% of their income based on the actual delivery of determined business improvements
6. Communicate all the ideas individually as well as creating a picture of the desired overall outcome so that people can see the relevance of each change and appreciate how they can individually make a positive impact
7. Be prepared to scrap or amend aspects of the plan which seemed great at the point of creation but in reality take on a different consequence – as much as 25% of the ideas generated by Romans will be ditched or suspended through recognition, during implementation, of better methods
8. Continuously communicate progress and examples of the success of new initiatives so that people can see the real benefit of their efforts
9. Communicate everything three times in three different ways – people don’t always pick up the significance of an email or might not be paying full attention throughout a meeting.  By communicating differently and frequently you will dramatically improve the level of understanding and commitment.
10. Have a deadline and make sure that each part of the project is timed as well.  There is nothing like passing significant milestones to raise motivation.

After a week of hard work punctuated with a round of golf or two, and some much welcomed spring sun, I’ve returned to the UK totally re-energised and excited thanks to seeing a truly exceptional group of people who have reminded me of the true importance of internal communications – and how to enjoy your business whilst running it.