Type of Communication Needed to Complete a Project successfully
Recently, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) successfully completed a project that involved the creation of a single enterprise-wide view and bank-wide tool that did away with about 35 redundant systems and over 50 user-developed tools including hundreds of spreadsheets. The project helped create consistent, reliable data and reports that informed financial and resource decisions. It also helped reduce costs and increase return on investment within 12 months.
Iteletry LLC is an independent mortgage lender that failed to complete a software upgrading project due to lack of best practices as well as poor engagement between the project team and vendors. The main difference between these two companies borders on the type of communication used to run the project. The project communication skills used by the RBS project manager included a broader description of the project vision in assigning daily tasks. It also involved working with both the executive and the project team and negotiating the scope of the project with clients and vendors. It also involved constant individual reviews as well as large group presentations (Kerzner, 1998).
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Communicating Bad News
A certain high performing company employee working for a pharmaceutical company had requested his employer for a promotion and subsequent pay rise owing to his high performance. Having considered his request the company concluded that there was no immediate opening and resources for the position and as such they had to decline the request. The company sent the employee’s immediate boss to break the news of the declination. The boss uses a direct approach to communicate the company’s decision to the employee giving him details as to why the company declined his request. He summons the employee privately to his office and explains the company’s position. After communicating the bad news to the employee, the boss informs him that his request will be reviewed at a later date when an opportunity arises.
The type of communication used by the company is effective because it is honest and truthful. The directness in which the company boss communicates the message leaves little room for speculation. It also allows both parties to ventilate over the situation and come to an agreement. The employee now knows the company’s position and knows what avenues to use if such a situation arises again.
How to Communicate to a Lazy Team Member
As a project manager of a project team, I will summon a lazy team member for a private talk and try to understand the cause for his behavior when I learn that he is not doing his fair share of work through my observation and from other team members’ complaints. Once I get a clear picture of what his problem is, I will use logic to make the member see how his actions are affecting the performance of the team. I would also communicate to him what is expected of him and the type of behavior I would want to see in future. I would then inform the other team members that the member was willing to cooperate with them and that they should give him the necessary support to reintegrate him back into the team (Page-Jones, 1985).
How to Repair Damage Caused by Ineffective Communication
The best technique to employ when communication is ineffective or causes inter-team conflicts is by scheduling a regular time to communicate with members on what is working and what is not. It is common that the first issues to emerge will be those that are less controversial and simple. However, once team leaders show that they are committed to the process the real and actual problems will emerge and this gives them the opportunity to make improvements and resolve the issues. Team members can regain trust in each other by understanding the causes of conflict and resolving them amicably through regular communication (Muller, 2017).
Dealing with a Distrustful Team Member
If a team member is more concerned about pay you need to know the reasons behind those behaviors. The project manager should try to empathize with the team member’s situation and offer help in fixing the situation. If the team member has trust issues, they need to be resolved. It is best to try and restructure how such a team member performs his tasks so as to accommodate his concerns on matters to do with pay and time spent working. It is also good to build a professional-personal relationship to integrate him into the wider team community. The manager should be a role model and should desist from speaking behind the back of any team member. The situation needs to be escalated to build trust and cooperation from the team member (Smith, 2002).
References
Kerzner, H. (1998). In search of excellence in project management: Successful practices in high performance organizations. New York, NY: van nostrand reinhold.
Muller, R. (2017). Project governance . Routledge.
Page-Jones, M. (1985). Practical project management. Dorset House, NY .
Smith, N. J. (Ed.). (2002). Engineering project management . Ames, IA: Blackwell Science.
