When I started in hospitality I believed myself to be an effective communicator and always made sure that my coworkers and superiors would be up to date with the information that I had so that everyone would stay ahead of the game. Once I moved to management I remember telling my director that he should improve his communication to the team and I was convinced that I could do a better job communicating if I was in his position. It’s not that he wouldn’t communicate what was going on, but I was mostly the one asking him for updates and trying to get myself involved as much as I could to get the information I needed in order for me to be effective…. and I still believed communication to be one of my strengths.
When I started to lead the department one of my managers came to me one day telling me that I don’t communicate the way I should and if it wasn’t because of her coming to my office asking me the right questions that she wouldn’t know anything. Call it Karma, but only then I fully understood that communicating and being informed about what’s going in your department is fully your responsibility of getting yourself involved and asking the right questions. Don’t wait for someone else to present you all the information you need on a silver tray catered to your exact needs. Don’t blame others for information you didn’t have, but rather make it your own responsibility to stay up to date on what’s going on.
Don’t get me wrong as a department leader one of your top priorities must always be effective communication, but you must train your employees to stay curious and to be eager of getting themselves involved. Get your employees to be passionate about the goals of your department and function as ambassadors in communicating to their peers what’s going on and what’s new. It’s close to impossible that you keep everyone in the department informed about everything all by yourself, you need everyone on board to help with this.
Believe me it takes everyone in your team to be aligned and fully on board with your goals to be effective. If only one person is looking in the opposite direction, you all might fail.
Don’t wait for someone to deliver you everything you need to know on a silver tray, but rather take responsibility, be more curious and find out what you need to know.
If you enjoyed reading this post you can share it with your network by clicking any of the followbuttons below and don’t forget to subscribe to my blog for the newest posts!