Why Direct Communication Is Necessary in the Workplace
PSA to all employees out there - it is NOT your job to read your managers mind. If your boss is not communicating with you directly about feedback to improve, it is not your responsibility to operate on false expectations. If you’re worried you’re not doing your job correctly or successfully but this has not explicitly been communicated to you, you have nothing to worry about.
Do not let indirect communication plague your very successful contributions to your employer.
As a people leader, it is THEIR job to communicate directly to you if you are falling short of the expectations of the job.
Over the tenure of my career, I cannot tell you how many days I’ve stressed, ruminated, and made myself sick over the possibility of being fired. And guess what? It hasn’t happen yet (ok, well - I might have been let go from my very first job at Dairy Queen when I was 17 but that’s a different story for another time). The fact that we are sitting at our desks scared and uncertain about our job security when nothing has been communicated to us just goes to show how unsafe (and unproductive) the workplace environments can be.
The bottom line is that the workplace creates a lot of uncertainty and distrust between colleagues because we are not communicating effectively.
If someone is falling short of their job expectations, communicate it.
If someone is pawning off work unnecessarily onto other team members, communicate it.
If someone is distracting or unproductive, communicate it.
And if someone is doing a great job, especially if someone is doing a great job, communicate it.
Work is hard. Our jobs demand a lot of us. And we all need guidance. We all need words of redirection or words of affirmation if we are going to successfully work together to achieve big goals in the workplace.
Here’s how:
If someone is falling short of their job expectations, “Hey xx, l've noticed your work hasn't been the usual output you normally produce. Is there anything going on in your world that I can help provide support for?”
If someone is pawning off work unnecessarily, “Hey xx, lately I've noticed that some of the work - such as example A and example B - have been on my plate these past couple of weeks. My goal is the make sure we are both being as productive and efficient as possible with our workloads. Would we be able to do a quick pulse check to discuss + delegate tasks? I want to make sure we are both on the same page”
If someone is always delegating URGENT tasks (that may not always be urgent), “Hey xx, for transparency, here are the tasks/projects I am working on this week. Knowing our goal is XYZ by XYZ date, I am prioritizing a, b, and c tasks. I'm working to balance my workload as best I can and if you feel I need to reprioritize any of the tasks based on the goal we are working towards, I'm open to discussing”
And if someone is doing a great job, “Hey xx, we don't get enough opportunity to give appreciation in our day to day but I want you to know how incredible of a job you've been doing lately. Keep it up. It makes a difference”
Let's start communicating more effectively with our peers so we can all be more successful (and maybe even… happy?!?!?) in our jobs
