Open Up The Lines Of Communication

Many times, bad communication comes from the person or department that's just too embarrassed to ask for the help that they need. And instead of stopping and letting the men and women know that could help them, a supplier, vendor or another department, they wait. And when they wait, time goes by and the challenge grows and the time wasted becomes too large to ignore and all of the sudden, the issue that should have been a quick fix is under the scrutiny of higher ups.

Yes, the challenge always escalates and is magnified when management is brought into the picture. Is easy to see why it does this, but it's difficult to know why it became this way. You can not know the motivating factors of why the situation was left to get out of hand. But now that management is involved, you can bet that the blame is going to be shifted around, pushed down the line to the person or department that is least responsible for the mess.

Quite often this breakdown in communication could have been easily avoided. But because it was either ignored or was blatantly disregarded, it has become somebody else’s problem. Many times, the reason these things happen is because along with a lack of communication, there seems to be a lack of taking responsibility. Whether this comes from a organization culture of lack of accountability or a deep fear of losing one’s job, or because management makes it clear that everybody should be afraid of their job, the effect is the same.

Something goes wrong and nobody is able to explain why it went wrong and the blame is shifted around until it sticks on somebody. And maybe that somebody had nothing to do with the problem or was never even informed that there was a problem in the first place. But it does not matter, they are at the end of the line and the buck has to stop somewhere.

Where the buck stops is dependent on how long the situation was allowed to fester and grow behind the scenes and who is quickest to shift the blame to somebody else. Regardless, wasting time and effort, and in turn money, on problems that could have been avoided with a little bit of clear communication, is a waste that's uncalled for and is an even bigger waste because it could have been completely avoided.

By: Craig B Calvin

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