An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Com­mu­ni­cat­ing ef­fec­tive­ly is cru­cial for pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in the work­place, and as a re­sult com­presh­en­sion is key for the smooth op­er­a­tions of en­ter­pris­es .

That’s ac­cord­ing to the chief com­mu­ni­ca­tor of PRos and COMMS Ltd Leisel Dou­glas.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, Dou­glas said em­ploy­ees are the ones who must be equipped to ef­fec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cate a com­pa­ny’s mes­sage.

This type of crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion, she not­ed, fos­ters pos­i­tive con­nec­tions and loy­al­ty, both of which will im­prove per­for­mance and lead to cus­tomer/client re­ten­tion, re­fer­ral and at­trac­tion.

“If we recog­nise the four types of com­mu­ni­ca­tion as writ­ten; non-ver­bal; ver­bal and vi­su­al, we re­alise that all are es­sen­tial in a work­place en­vi­ron­ment. As a mat­ter of fact – all are es­sen­tial in life. As we say in the Caribbean, un­der­stand­ing ‘time and place’ is the skill in nav­i­gat­ing what form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to use in any set­ting,” the chief com­mu­ni­ca­tor said.

She not­ed that the key point to note is that com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a two-way street and what­ev­er method is em­ployed, it is im­por­tant that the re­cip­i­ents can al­so pro­vide feed­back.

“This helps us to en­sure that your mes­sage is re­ceived as in­tend­ed and if not, al­lows for an un­der­stand­ing of how com­mu­ni­ca­tion can be im­proved. As is said, it is not what you say, but how you say it (or even write). Iden­ti­fy­ing the ob­jec­tive in com­mu­ni­cat­ing is al­so crit­i­cal. Know­ing your de­sired out­come al­lows you to de­vel­op a holis­tic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy, em­ploy­ing one or mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tion types, lead­ing to ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” Dou­glas ex­plained.

It’s against this back­ground that the in­au­gur­al con­fer­ence en­ti­tled ‘Com­mu­ni­ty: Wel­come to the Neigh­bour­hood of Ef­fec­tive Com­mu­ni­ca­tion’ will be held on Ju­ly 2 at Movi­eTowne.

Dou­glas said at the con­fer­ence dif­fer­ent agen­da top­ics will be dis­cussed and pro­voke dif­fer­ent re­ac­tions and re­sults.

One of the aims, she high­light­ed, is that the psy­chol­o­gy of com­mu­ni­ca­tion will un­cov­er a per­son’s own bias as a com­mu­ni­ca­tor.

“Our seg­ment on con­tent will chal­lenge how we ap­proach and think about con­tent cre­ation. The seg­ment will high­light the com­mon pro­to­col mis­takes we make and pro­vide the cor­rect way of do­ing things,” said Dou­glas.

“This event is for sea­soned and as­pir­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness own­ers, ex­ec­u­tives, and C- Suite. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion should form an in­te­gral part of your holis­tic strat­e­gy and should be af­ford­ed the same lev­el of care as you would to sales, mar­ket­ing, cus­tomer ex­pe­ri­ence and even fi­nance. Why? Be­cause you need to com­mu­ni­cate ef­fec­tive­ly in all those ar­eas,” she dis­closed.

Dou­glas in­di­cat­ed that the con­fer­ence came about as she found that col­lab­o­ra­tion in com­mu­ni­ca­tion is miss­ing lo­cal­ly. This is af­ter count­less in­ter­ac­tions where she said per­sons ei­ther don’t know who they can call to sup­port and ex­e­cute their com­mu­ni­ca­tion needs or can’t ac­cess the sup­port by way of men­tor­ship and guid­ance in the field.

“I have al­so found that peo­ple don’t un­der­stand the field of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and the im­por­tance and role that trained com­mu­ni­ca­tors can play in help­ing you re­alise your com­mu­ni­ca­tion and per­son­al and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al goals.

“At Pros & COMMS Ltd, hav­ing iden­ti­fied the gap, we’re em­bark­ing on pro­vid­ing a so­lu­tion. That’s the gen­e­sis of Com­mu­ni­ty, a pas­sion placed on my heart that is now be­ing re­alised. This con­fer­ence is the first of many spaces that we will be cre­at­ing where both sea­soned and as­pir­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tors can find com­mu­ni­ty,” she de­tailed.

In­ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion

Touch­ing on how in­ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion im­pacts com­pa­nies, Dou­glas said it will show it­self in low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and un­healthy team morale and can al­so present it­self in how team mem­bers re­late to each oth­er and to clients and cus­tomers.

She not­ed that recog­nis­ing the symp­toms will help busi­ness own­ers de­ter­mine the strat­e­gy re­quired to cor­rect and im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies.

Asked how poor com­mu­ni­ca­tion can cost a com­pa­ny, Dou­glas out­lined that many times a prod­uct, or a ser­vice is be­ing ad­ver­tised on so­cial me­dia, but no price is giv­en.

“The work­ers or own­ers who op­er­ate the page al­ways send pri­vate mes­sages for more in­for­ma­tion. For many, this is an im­me­di­ate turnoff and re­sults in the loss of con­ver­sion for the sale. We find this oc­cur­ring more for mi­cro, small, and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (MSMEs). Where we can, com­mu­ni­ca­tion should be clear, di­rect, and read­i­ly avail­able.”

“We have al­so seen ma­jor com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns miss the mark re­sult­ing in com­pa­nies be­ing ‘can­celed’ and the sub­se­quent loss of mil­lions of dol­lars. Be­fore em­bark­ing on any com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paign, we must iden­ti­fy our tar­get au­di­ence and un­der­stand their nu­ances. How and where do they con­sume most of their in­for­ma­tion? How can we re­late and high­light why we should be their pre­ferred choice?” she stressed.

In the sphere of cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Dou­glas ques­tioned how one re­sponds to a tragedy or when a trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence oc­curs.

“The time­li­ness, tone, so­lu­tion, and next steps pro­vid­ed can and will make or break an or­gan­i­sa­tion. And we have seen that time and time again in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and even lo­cal­ly. Dev­as­tat­ing work­place tragedies oc­cur lo­cal­ly, with a de­lay in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and then con­fu­sion in the mes­sag­ing pro­vid­ed re­sult­ing in the clo­sure of busi­ness.”

On the op­po­site end of this spec­trum, she said peo­ple have wit­nessed com­pa­nies both pri­vate and pub­lic en­joy in­cred­i­ble suc­cess with the right com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns.

“If you think about why you use the prod­ucts and ser­vices that you do, the com­pa­nies or per­sons that you re­fer to and try to re­mem­ber what at­tract­ed you to them in the first place, it will more than like­ly be some form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” she men­tioned.

Speak­ing about how im­por­tant pro­to­col is with­in the work­place, Dou­glas stat­ed that it is of­ten said that you do not get a sec­ond chance to make a first im­pres­sion and an un­der­stand­ing of pro­to­col can en­sure that one’s first im­pres­sion is an un­for­get­table one.
She added Shey­na West of­ten states “Prop­er pro­to­col in­cludes the recog­ni­tion of the lead­er­ship hi­er­ar­chy of an or­gan­i­sa­tion and the role each per­son plays. It dic­tates the hon­orif­ic ti­tle that per­sons should re­ceive in­clud­ing Dr., Mrs., Ms., and Mr.; the prop­er in­tro­duc­tion of of­fice hold­ers such as Chair­man or Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor and it al­so al­lows for the recog­ni­tion of prece­dence and prop­er place­ment of in­di­vid­u­als for seat­ing, stand­ing, and greet­ing.

Pro­to­col in the busi­ness place she em­pha­sised cre­ates a wel­come and com­fort­able space for vis­it­ing guests and VIPs to en­sure that they do not feel dis­re­spect­ed or in­sult­ed by such ac­tions as in­cor­rect pro­nun­ci­a­tion of names, of­fer­ing the wrong types of foods/gifts, or even ex­tend­ing your hand when their cul­ture does not al­low for phys­i­cal touch.