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Effectively communicating in a corporate crisis (Part 2)
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An essay by SEViX Partner, Prof. Dr. Immanuel Ulrich and SEViX Founder, Rainer E. Ulrich
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In a cooperation between the HR department (mainly psychologists) and the IT department (mainly IT specialists), there were strong technical communication problems. While the psychologists tended to formulate things indirectly ("It would be nice ..."), the IT specialists expected direct messages ("By 30.04. you will deliver ..."). In the case of conflicts, the psychologists sought personal discussion ("I need to talk to you ..."), which completely overwhelmed the computer scientists ("Not now ...") and did not lead to a successful conflict discussion. The computer scientists would have preferred a list of the problems by e-mail, together with a solution worked out in a later team meeting.
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In a leading global company, there was a very academic division and the traditional apprenticeship division due to the diversification of the company's offerings. Both divisions found it difficult to communicate effectively due to educational differences. Apprentices and foremen were far too direct in their feedback to the academics ("Those sucks"), and the academics often perceived this as a personal attack. In contrast, the academics formulated things far too incomprehensibly for the trainees and master craftsmen, which led to frustration ("What exactly am I supposed to do now?") and was interpreted as arrogance on the part of the academics.
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Likewise, intercultural differences must be considered. German communication is
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- often as uncharitable: While in southern cultures, for example, the relationship level is cultivated first ("How is the family?"), Germans want to discuss the work task right away.
often as too direct/disrespectful: Germans are bad at giving face-saving feedback for all cultures that do not appreciate direct feedback (almost all worldwide). While Germans will sometimes directly formulate "Those sucks, there is still 95% missing, and that is ..." in front of an assembled team, US-Americans, for example, would rather formulate "That's a good start. A little bit is still missing, namely ..." and mean the same thing.
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The problem is that these simple communication models are implemented far too little in practice. Too little feedback is sought at all levels, and too little thought is given to how one's own message is received by employees. Many strategic and latent crises would escalate less and, in some cases, not arise at all if there was sensible (strategic) communication.
In a new project team of a cooperation of three companies, only the factual level (vision, goals, measures) was clarified at the beginning, but not the relationship level (clarification of roles, working methods, etc.). Initial misunderstandings were not addressed, but "swallowed". After a certain level of frustration had built up, the project escalated to the management level, and the conflict could only be ended by process support. This conflict could have been avoided through strategic communication. The increased communicative effort is compensated for many times over by the errors and crises that are avoided.
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However, the increased communicative effort must not be underestimated for the motivation of the management. It is not always a pleasure to deal with critical employees, executives, etc. But if management ignores or sits out this criticism, the conflict is only postponed, and the crisis intensified.
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