The cost of poor communication is impacting enough organizations that it’s become quite a hot topic. I found a separate article on Inc.com called “Costs of Poor Communication Reach $37 Billion. Avoid Disconnects by Implementing These Two Things” that referenced the same study I shared before, citing the average loss of $62.4 million per year to the 400 companies for 100k employees. Still, this Inc. article shared another piece I had yet to see from the study. That same study showed that “companies with leaders who possess effective communication skills produced a 47 percent higher return to shareholders over a five-year period.”

It’s one thing to see stats pointing to how much profitability is being killed by issues like this. However, seeing how organizations that do these things well are capturing that lost profit can give even those of us who have struggled the most a glimmer of hope! While I’ve seen what a large role communication plays in every working environment, I’ve been a part of, I’ve also seen how many other things are impacted by communication, for good and bad. And it doesn’t only apply to the business world.

Since late 2019, I’ve written a monthly column for a local newspaper about effective communication. The most significant difference between that column and most of our work, though, has been its focus on how communication builds (or tears down) personal relationships just as much as business relationships—and the profitability businesses need to remain sustainable. Regardless of where we communicate, the connections become stronger or weaker based on the energy we invest. And that communication fuels quite a few other fires, for good or bad!

My goal for that newspaper column has been to provide a resource for the folks who read it that helps them enjoy better relationships with their friends and family members, the people they interact with most frequently. The same tools I share in the column apply at least as much in the business world, because the relationships we build with the teams we lead have direct ties to the ever-important profitability we’ve been looking at here.

When we’ve built strong relationships with our teams and communicated with them clearly and consistently, we become likely candidates for experiencing the magic of employee engagement and buy-in. When I cover these topics in a group setting, I use the analogy of a rowboat; the actively engaged employees are the ones who have their oars in the water and are rowing just as hard as they can to help the boat reach its destination. Unfortunately, the highest I’ve ever seen any employee engagement study show for these actively engaged folks has been just over 30 percent.

I don’t believe active employee engagement needs to top out there. We’ll work through the specifics of how we can each address it in our teams when we dig into that profitability killer in more detail. For now, though, I’ll challenge you to consider whether you’ve ever wholly bought into an idea or been as actively engaged as you were capable of when the person leading the team had not invested the energy to communicate effectively with you. (Hint: I know the answer!)

Poor communication can add quite a bit of fuel to the fire that’s burning up our employee engagement and buy-in. Still, it also creates confusion, and that confusion kills quite a bit of profit too…

For more on this, you're welcome to reach out to us directly at admin@dove-development.net to get a 45 Day Trial Access to our COMPLETE Leading At The Next Level program or you can check out Wes's recently released book, What's KILLING Your Profitability? (It ALL Boils Down to Leadership!) that was a #1 Best Seller on Amazon!