Structural Integrity – A Step In The Competitive Direction

You’ve been hearing about lean management to increase productivity, increase profits, and save production costs and time. You’re well aware of the importance of structural integrity in your building and your corporate structure. Structural integrity is also the key to effective communication – a step in the right direction for lean management, a step in the competitive direction.

Whether you’re trying to keep jobs here and still be profitable or have decided to outsource or offshore all or part of your operation, clear concise communication is absolutely necessary for your success. Ineffective communication costs businesses billions of dollars every year.

A company that is no longer with us had a CEO who used voice mails to reach more than 3,400 employees in global facilities. Those voice mails lasted 15-20 minutes and required a response to verify that you had paid attention. Multiplying 3,400 employees by 15 minutes, that’s more than 850 hours of lost production for each phone call. With phone calls at least weekly, that 850 is more than 40,000 lost hours a year. When you add in factors like these, the 40,000 lost hours grows quickly:
· Lack of focus in the message
· Distractions (like the pile of work on your desk or at your workstation)
· Having to replay the message to know what the call to action was
· Language differences
· Cultural differences

This kind of ineffective communication happens every day in every company and costs time and money – lots of it! In some companies, workers spend more time trying to figure out what they are supposed to be doing than doing it. So, what can you do? How do you take a step in the competitive direction?
1. Start your communication with a single clear objective. In email, the subject line is the objective. In a speech, the Title tells what the objective is. In a manual, the Title is the objective and the Table of Contents is the structure. In a procedure, the document title defines the objective.

2. Develop the structure, whether it’s the single point in an email or a voicemail, main points in a speech, multiple chapters that match input screens, or the sequential steps needed to build a product, and stick to it. Maintain the structural integrity.

3. Measure everything against your objective. If a word, phrase, or topic doesn’t support your objective, leave it out. In an email or a voicemail, don’t bring up other subjects or something will fall through the cracks and it might be your main objective. In a speech, don’t get sidetracked or sidetrack your audience. In a manual, an overview is an overview, a chapter about the second input screen or the installation is just that, nothing more and nothing less.

4. Deliver your straightforward message. Resist the temptation to include facts about the elegant code behind your product, the evolution of the product, or the history of your company.

5. Get feedback so you can use continuous improvement in your communication as you do in your production.

Once you get your communication clean, you’re well on your way to an operation that’s lean.
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© 2008 Joy Montgomery
Submitted by Joy Montgomery of Structural Integrity (http://www.structural-integrity.com/).
View her LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joymontgomery

Joy Montgomery is a procedure analyst. She uses common sense and constraints management to help businesses do things better, faster, and cheaper. She wants to help you succeed! Joy is a speaker. She has been a conference presenter for APICS and Toastmasters. Her presentation at the APICS 2006 International Conference, "Reality Check - Improving Productivity with Effective Communication," drew a standing room only crowd. Joy is a writer. Her work ranges from ISO 9000 procedures to short stories, an attempt at a novel, speeches, user’s guides, and white papers. She has won awards from the Society for Technical Communication. Her book, "Hand It to ‘em on a Platter," is available on Amazon.com or at one of her presentations. She is currently working on a second book about clear, concise communication. The key to that clear, concise communication is structural integrity.

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Published to Ole Cram's Business Connections Network blog at OCBusinessConnectionsNetwork.blogspot.com.
Ole Cram and Marcobe Investments, Inc. are not responsible for the accuracy of claims made in this article. Article is provided for informational and sharing purposes as one of Ole Cram's business connections on LinkedIn (see blog site for more information).