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Poor Communication May Be Slowing Down Your Team

• Gleb Tsipursky

Don’t leave room for misunderstandings.

Communication is not just a soft skill; it’s the linchpin of effective management. Yet, surveys reveal that employees are frustrated by unclear communication from their bosses. Some of these challenges certainly come from the more siloed communication environment created by remote and hybrid work. When managers are unclear in their communication, it can rob teams of their focus, diluting the overall quality of their output. It’s important for managers to realize that clear, consistent communication isn’t an option; it’s imperative. Here’s how to improve your communication.

• Set expectations upfront: Align with your team on the optimal use of various communication platforms. Being aligned as a team on which tool to use and when can significantly reduce communication friction.
• Consider creating a “clarity canvas.” When starting a new project together as a team, create a set of documents that succinctly outline project goals, individual responsibilities, process instructions, and key deadlines. This centralized hub affords seamless access to the same reservoir of information and can serve as a touchstone for everyone, averting confusion and minimizing back-and-forths.
• Make everythign accessible. Keep meticulous records of decisions made, meeting minutes, and project statuses in a centralized digital location accessible to all. Set standards around where documents are stored and how information is saved. If your organization has access to multiple cloud storage platforms, set rules around what gets uploaded and where.
• Establish office hours. This is time where you should be readily accessible via chat, phone, or video call to discuss any concerns or questions. Consider it a virtual open door, so that both in-office and remote employees have equal opportunity for face time. There’s no need for a specific agenda during this period, just focus on listening empathetically to your staff and addressing their needs.
• Do regular debriefs. After important company announcements, it can be valuable to set up debrief meetings with your team. Doing so will help you evaluate how well your people understand and accept the announcements, and will give you the opportunity to clarify and address any questions.

As more and more employees are working remotely or in hybrid work environments, the need for effective communication has become even stronger.

• Gleb Tsipursky was lauded as “Office Whisperer” and “Hybrid Expert” by The New York Times for helping leaders use hybrid work to improve retention and productivity while cutting costs. He serves as the CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. He wrote seven best-selling books, including Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams . His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox, and over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist at UNC-Chapel Hill and Ohio State.  

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28 expert strategies for addressing business communication challenges and finding solutions.

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Effective business communication is the cornerstone of success in any organization, yet it’s often plagued by a myriad of challenges and issues. From misinterpretation of messages to lack of clarity and inefficient collaboration, communication problems can impede productivity and hinder growth. In today’s fast-paced business environment, finding solutions to these communication challenges is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge and driving success.

Businesses rely on various communication methods to convey information, exchange ideas, and collaborate on projects. Whether it’s email, instant messaging, video conferencing, or face-to-face meetings, each channel presents its own set of opportunities and obstacles. However, navigating these communication avenues effectively requires a comprehensive understanding of the common issues that can arise and proactive strategies to address them.

Effective business communication holds the key to solving a multitude of organizational challenges. Clear and concise communication fosters transparency, builds trust among team members, and enhances decision-making processes. Additionally, it promotes alignment with organizational goals, facilitates conflict resolution, and ultimately drives business success.

In this blog, we’ll explore 28 expert strategies for addressing business communication challenges and finding solutions. From improving active listening skills to leveraging technology for streamlined collaboration, these strategies offer practical insights and actionable tips for enhancing communication effectiveness in any business setting. Furthermore, we’ll highlight Clariti as the most pragmatic business communication solution, offering innovative features and tools designed to streamline communication workflows and overcome common challenges.

Join us as we uncover the top 28 ways to solve your business communication problems and elevate your organization to new heights of success.

Top 28 ways to solve your business communication problems and solutions.

1) defined goals and objectives.

If you are wondering how to solve business communication problems, state clear and concise objectives of business meetings. According to a survey by ClearCompany, 72% of employees say that clear goals and objectives are essential to their job satisfaction.

2) Using most suited web communication tools

There are various tools depending on the types of businesses that create an accessible space and interactions across various platforms to enhance business communications.

Multiple meetings, information exchange, and emails are a part of everyday activities in any business and for managing the projects across teams and customers, an efficient communication tool is vital for solving business communication problems. Participants of a meeting may range from leadership across teams, employees from other departments, employees who have just been added to the project, etc., and hence keeping everyone on the same page in a business meeting is vital for a hassle-free connection.

Make available the required documents, information on projects, status, numbers, etc., to all and concisely present in a managed web communication tool like Clariti that makes all information available with ease in conversations. This not only reduces the struggle of finding and organizing data but enables the participants of the meeting to understand the references and details made in a presentation and add value to the data with ease.

3) Be Proactive to evolving business needs

The world is progressing more towards online engagement. Providing the virtual experience of its current services and scope of developing for future customer needs of its service or product via content creation is vital for solving communication problems. This enhances the online engagement with the customer or stakeholder and paves way for customer retention. A small or medium-sized business providing a service or product thus has to deliver an online experience of its service.

The preparation of this demands multifaceted inter-network communication and project management tools. Also, with the rise of remote-working lifestyle and freelance workforce, businesses are depending more on efficient web-based business communication tools to retain talent and maintain productivity.

4) Attention to detail

Another common communication problem is a large amount of information can be lost in data silos. An integrated tool, that can bring together data distributed across chat, calls and emails to one place increases team productivity . This ensures that miscommunication or deletion of minute details by accident can be minimized.

According to a survey published in “The Cost of Poor Communications”, inadequate communication to and between employees costs a company $62.4 million per year. Be it process updates, rush requests, or new projects; sharing information and data across in a precise, organized and specific manner and making it available across all internal teams or customers as necessary is very crucial.

5) Strive for Teamwork

Efficient communication among internal teams and stakeholders is an indispensable to avoid communication problems. Teams engage with each other through chats, emails, and calls involving process data. It is hence important to keep interaction seamless and make business communication healthy thereby encouraging team collaboration.

Also, a team must tackle issues with a solution-oriented management. Conduct regular team building activities to keep the team connected and increase interdependence. Higher retention of experienced employees increases productivity and delivers faster results. This also facilitates a rich knowledge transfer when training new hires.

6) Prevent Information Fatigue

Often business communication involves a large amount of data and sharing it across chats, emails and social media becomes a daunting task for teams. The information silos created by endless reply-all emails and distributed data make it difficult to manage information and causes communication problems.

For instance, if creating a project presentation necessitates gathering data about a topic that is discussed across many platforms becomes a cumbersome process, employees lose a lot of productive time and suffer from information fatigue.

7) Make the employees heard

In any organization, it is important to have periodic meetings with employees at all levels of the corporate ladder to learn about the communication problems they are facing at work. This analysis on how they operate the procedures of the business shines a light on the efficiency of its processes.

Share the various accomplishments and goals achieved by the business quarterly or yearly as necessary, in an all-hands meeting empowering the workforce to see the big picture of how collective work has helped meet business goals.

Providing feedback is essential to solving communication problems at work. This means providing constructive feedback on what employees are doing well and where they can improve. According to a survey by Office vibe, 65% of employees say that they want more feedback on their work.

8) Keep all information Secure

Data security is of prime importance when it comes to business communication as the various channels and tools involved in data sharing contain confidential data subject to breaches or misuse by external sources. There is a need for stringent measures to secure and maintain confidential data within shared business communication channels.

In the 2021 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon Enterprise, phishing was found to be one of the most prevalent actions of data breaches.

9) Declutter and Integrate

Invest in a robust multifaceted tool that will simplify your business operations and avoid communication problems. The clutter of information distributed and shared across multiple channels not only causes difficulty in analysis but also leads to team time leakage.

Often switching through many trackers, emails and chats, employees struggle to unify information. This can be greatly minimized and made easy, saving time and effort by using tools like Clariti.

10) LIFT your business meetings

The key to a successful business meeting thus should strive to ‘LIFT’- Listen, Integrate, Follow-through and Team-up.

• Listen to the objectives and process requirements
• Integrate all information required to work on the projects
• Follow through with the necessary stakeholders of the project.
• Team-up with others and collaborate

11) Implement regular check-ins

Regular check-ins can be done in different forms such as one-on-one meetings, team meetings, or weekly progress updates. The purpose of regular check-ins is to ensure that everyone is on the same page and any issues can be addressed in a timely manner.

According to a Gallup study, employees who have regular meetings with their managers are almost three times as likely to be engaged in their work. This highlights the importance of regular check-ins as an effective way to solve communication problems at work.

12) Use technology to your advantage

Technology can be a great tool to solve business communication problems at the workplace. Communication tools like Clariti , Slack or Microsoft Teams can help teams collaborate and share information more effectively. According to a survey by Intermedia, 70% of small businesses say that technology has improved their communication with customers and clients.

13) Provide clear expectations

Providing clear expectations is essential for solving business communication problems. Employees need to know what is expected of them in terms of their work, deadlines, and performance.

14) Encourage open communication

Encouraging open communication is important to creating a culture of transparency and trust in the workplace. This means creating an environment where employees feel comfortable expressing their thoughts, ideas, and concerns. According to a survey by Edelman, 71% of employees say that they are more likely to trust their employer if they communicate openly and transparently.

15) Use a variety of communication methods

Different people have different communication preferences, so it is important to use a variety of methods to ensure that everyone is reached. This can include email, phone calls, video calls, and face-to-face meetings. According to a survey by the Harvard Business Review, 81% of respondents say that they prefer face-to-face communication for important conversations.

16) Set up a communication plan

A communication plan can help ensure that everyone is informed and involved in important decisions. This means creating a plan for how and when information will be shared, and who will be responsible for communicating it. According to a survey by Ragan Communications, 54% of businesses say that they have a formal communication plan in place.

17) Train employees in effective communication

Effective communication is a skill that can be learned and improved. Providing training on business communication issues can help employees and remove communication problems in business. According to a survey by Udemy, 74% of employees say that they feel they could be more effective communicators with training.

18) Use visual aids

Visual aids like charts, graphs, and diagrams can help convey complex information more easily. This can be especially helpful in presentations or when communicating with non-native speakers. According to a survey by Prezi, 91% of business professionals say that visual aids are essential to solve business communication problems.

19) Use active listening

Active listening means fully engaging with the person who is speaking and trying to understand their perspective. This can help prevent misunderstandings and ensure that everyone is on the same page. According to a survey by Dale Carnegie, 70% of employees say that they feel more engaged with their job when they feel heard.

20) Practice empathy

Empathy means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and understanding their perspective. This can be helpful in resolving conflicts and building stronger relationships in the workplace. According to a survey by Businessolver, 92% of employees say that empathy is important to their overall happiness at work.

21) Use plain language

Using plain language means avoiding jargon and technical terms that may not be understood by everyone. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and can understand the information being communicated. According to a survey by the National Adult Literacy Agency, 51% of adults struggle with basic literacy skills, highlighting the importance of using plain language in workplace communication.

22) Be consistent

Consistency in communication means using the same language, tone, and messaging across all communication channels. This can help prevent communication problems and ensure that everyone is on the same page. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, consistency in communication is essential to building trust in the workplace.

23) Clarify roles and responsibilities

Clarifying roles and responsibilities can help ensure that everyone knows what is expected of them and can avoid confusion or duplication of effort. This can be done through job descriptions or regular check-ins. According to a survey by ClearCompany, 76% of employees say that clear job descriptions are important to their job satisfaction.

24) Avoid communication overload

Communication overload means receiving too much information or communication, which can lead to confusion or burnout. It is important to be mindful of how much information is being shared and to ensure that it is relevant and necessary. According to a survey by RingCentral, 69% of employees say that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of communication they receive.

25) Recognize and celebrate successes

Recognizing and celebrating successes can help to solve communication problems and build morale and create a positive workplace culture. This can be done through regular celebrations or awards. According to a survey by Globoforce, companies that recognize their employees have employee turnover rates that are 23.4% lower than those that do not.

26) Create a supportive environment

Creating a supportive environment means promoting teamwork, collaboration, and mutual respect in the workplace. This can be done through team-building activities, mentorship programs, or by fostering a positive workplace culture. According to a survey by Gallup, employees who have a best friend at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their work.

27) Address conflicts promptly

Addressing conflicts promptly means resolving issues before they escalate and cause more serious problems. This can be done through mediation, conflict resolution training, or regular check-ins. According to a survey by CPP Global, 85% of employees say that they have experienced conflict at work, highlighting the importance of addressing conflicts promptly.

28) Continuously evaluate and improve communication

Effective communication is an ongoing process that requires continuous evaluation and improvement. This means regularly assessing communication practices and making changes as needed. According to a survey by Ragan Communications, 57% of businesses say that they continuously evaluate and improve their communication practices.

Clariti is the most pragmatic business communication solution for all business communication problems

AI-powered Clariti emerges as the most pragmatic business communication solution for addressing a wide range of communication problems faced by organizations today. By seamlessly integrating various communication channels such as emails, chats, documents, calendar events, and feeds into context-rich conversations, Clariti ensures that communication stays focused, organized, and efficient.

With its unique machine learning algorithm, Clariti goes beyond mere data aggregation to identify, collect, and establish deep connections with relevant contexts from all communication sources. This enables teams to access the full context of discussions effortlessly, eliminating the confusion and inefficiencies often associated with disjointed communication platforms.

Moreover, Clariti’s AI capabilities empower users to understand not just who said what and when, but also the underlying ‘why’ behind each interaction. This deep understanding enhances transparency, collaboration, and decision-making within organizations, ultimately driving productivity and success.

By offering innovative features and tools designed to streamline communication workflows, Clariti equips businesses with the practical solutions they need to overcome common communication challenges. Whether it’s improving team collaboration, enhancing information retrieval, or fostering a culture of clarity and accountability, Clariti provides a comprehensive solution tailored to the needs of modern organizations.

Effective communication is critical to the success of any business. Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, errors, and conflicts, which can ultimately impact the bottom line. By implementing the 28 ways outlined in this article, businesses can solve their communication problems.

From using technology to streamline communication to providing opportunities for feedback and recognition, each of these business communication solutions have been backed up by research and statistics. It’s clear that a focus on communication is essential for creating a positive workplace culture, improving employee satisfaction, and ultimately driving business success.

However, it’s important to note that implementing these business communication solutions require a commitment to ongoing evaluation and improvement. By continuously assessing communication practices and making changes as needed, businesses can ensure that their communication remains effective and impactful.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the issues of communication.

Communication issues often stem from misinterpretation, lack of clarity, and insufficient feedback. These challenges can lead to misunderstandings, hampering effective collaboration and hindering the smooth flow of information within a team or organization.

What do you do for business communications?

Many companies use Clariti, a versatile platform, for streamlined communication, contextual conversations, and efficient organization of emails, fostering enhanced productivity in professional settings.

What are the problems that effective business communication can solve?

Effective business communication can solve a variety of problems, including misunderstandings, inefficiencies, conflicts, and lack of clarity or alignment among team members.

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Four ways to address communication problems in the workplace.

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Graham Glass is the founder & CEO of CYPHER LEARNING , which specializes in providing learning platforms for organizations around the world.

Workplace communication is one of the most popular topics of the day. The shift to hybrid in-office/at-home work has been swift and has changed the way we work and communicate.

Not every company was equally fast to make the adjustment to this “new normal,” so some new communication issues arose. In our company, despite having a large remote workforce pre-pandemic, we were not spared such challenges. As CEO, I know how unaddressed communication lapses can cause anxiety for employees, which is why I make it a priority to share and explain any changes and decisions impacting the company and its people. Furthermore, good communication has a direct, positive impact on corporate productivity and employee well-being.

To identify communication problems in your company, you need to start by looking at how well people collaborate and ask for feedback on the topic. A recent survey shows that 39% of employees believe there is a lack of collaboration and communication in their companies.

When you find that procedures are rarely followed, that teams sometimes overlap on doing the same tasks and that there are many complaints of unresponsiveness from various departments, then there is a workplace communication problem in your organization.

How To Address The Problem

The first step in fixing any problem is acknowledging it exists. When there’s a derailment of any kind, it will never sort itself out. It’s far better to recognize it and take action.

When it comes to communication issues, there are some specific steps that executives can take to improve the situation and avoid problems. They need:

1. The Right Communication Training

Many communication problems can be solved by setting clear expectations and making the processes smooth and easy to follow. Misunderstandings tend to appear when people are not sure who is responsible for what and have no open channels for asking for clarification or help.

One of the major mistakes when it comes to communication training happens when companies go about it negatively. When an obvious communication problem is causing decreased engagement and poor results, they may immediately jump in with a long list of behaviors to change.

Learning, however, should be built around positive examples instead of focusing on what not to do. The best way to go about communication training is to make it specifically for and about your organization. In some instances, it will simply be a matter of making clear who is responsible for which tasks. For example, my company has built training specifically for ensuring smooth communications between our marketing and sales departments.

You may also have to add sensitivity or multicultural components to your communication training to address issues.

2. Up-To-Date Communication Tools

Today, corporate communication is mainly done through specialized tools. There’s a wide array on the market, and most offer free trials so you can see firsthand the best option for your company’s needs.

However, once you have chosen a communication tool, you must get everyone on board. People can show considerable resistance to change, even when a new tool is clearly better and can help them do their jobs more effectively.

It’s essential to provide support and learning opportunities so that your investment in technology pays off. The learning process is a great time for employees to share and communicate.

Additionally, your company’s learning platform should be equipped with features that support communication and collaboration to ensure you have constructive conversations happening. It should be easy for employees to reach out with any questions—whether to their colleagues or to subject matter experts.

3. A Great Feedback System

Employee feedback should be constant and worked into all the organizational processes. It’s the only way to mitigate problems as soon as they arise. Whether you opt for anonymous feedback or personal conversations, it’s crucial that employees feel comfortable speaking their minds and pointing out any negative aspects of their work.

A recent study of more than 36,000 employees showed that managers whose overall skills are rated higher in areas such as psychological safety lead teams that bring in an average of $4.3 million more in annual revenue. The study also highlighted the link between psychological safety and effective communication.

By inviting employees to give feedback and rate the communication processes and systems in place, you’ll get valuable insights into how to optimize results and the chance to fix issues before they escalate.

4. An Open Sharing System

One of the most significant challenges of the hybrid workforce is avoiding working in silos. To do this, updating your communication strategy to ensure the effective distribution of timely news and important updates is critical. Encouraging various departments to communicate openly and share their wins and challenges is key. Managers play an essential role in setting the tone for this type of information sharing.

Conversely, secretive or reticent leadership will generate an atmosphere of distrust. Setting up communication channels for specific purposes can help combat this problem. For example, create a separate channel for sharing success stories and congratulating employees who achieve good results. Also, holding regular meetings and encouraging questions and participation can alleviate communication issues. When top management is present and answers queries honestly and openly, it fosters trust and boosts psychological safety.

Good Communication Is Good For Business

Effective communication in the workplace is essential to business success. Company culture is the starting point in setting the parameters for employee collaboration. When communication issues arise, they need to be identified and addressed swiftly. The right tools, processes and leadership are paramount in ensuring open and constructive workplace communication.

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8 Essential Leadership Communication Skills

• 14 Nov 2019

If you want to be an effective leader , you need to excel in communication. In fact, the success of your business relies on it.

According to a report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) , poor communication can lead to low morale, missed performance goals, and even lost sales. A separate study found that inadequate communication can cost large companies an average of $64.2 million per year, while smaller organizations are at risk of losing $420,000 annually.

But effective communication impacts more than just the bottom line. For leaders, it’s what enables them to rally their team around a shared vision, empower employees , build trust, and successfully navigate organizational change .

Why Is Communication Important in Leadership?

A leader is someone who inspires positive, incremental change by empowering those around them to work toward common objectives. A leader’s most powerful tool for doing so is communication.

Effective communication is vital to gain trust, align efforts in the pursuit of goals, and inspire positive change. When communication is lacking, important information can be misinterpreted, causing relationships to suffer and, ultimately, creating barriers that hinder progress.

If you’re interested in enhancing your leadership capabilities, here are eight communication skills you need to be more effective in your role.

Essential Communication Skills for Leaders

1. ability to adapt your communication style.

Different communication styles are the most frequently cited cause of poor communication, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (pdf) , and can lead to more significant issues, such as unclear priorities and increased stress.

It’s essential to identify your leadership style , so that you can better understand how you’re interacting with, and perceived by, employees across the organization. For example, if you’re an authoritative leader , you likely have a clear vision for achieving success and align your team accordingly. While an effective approach for some, it might fall flat for others who seek more autonomy in their role.

Every employee’s motivations are different, so knowing how to tailor your communication is essential to influencing others and reaching organizational goals.

Related: 4 Tips for Developing Your Personal Leadership Style

2. Active Listening

Effective leaders know when they need to talk and, more importantly, when they need to listen. Show that you care by asking for employees’ opinions, ideas, and feedback. And when they do share, actively engage in the conversation—pose questions, invite them to elaborate, and take notes.

It’s important to stay in the moment and avoid interrupting. Keep your focus on the employee and what it is they’re saying. To achieve that, you also need to eliminate any distractions, including constant pings on your cell phone or checking incoming emails.

3. Transparency

In a survey by the American Management Association , more than a third of senior managers, executives, and employees said they “hardly ever” know what’s going on in their organizations. Transparency can go a long way in breaking down that communication barrier.

By speaking openly about the company’s goals, opportunities, and challenges, leaders can build trust amongst their team and foster an environment where employees feel empowered to share their ideas and collaborate. Just acknowledging mistakes can encourage experimentation and create a safe space for active problem-solving.

Every individual should understand the role they play in the company’s success. The more transparent leaders are, the easier it is for employees to make that connection.

When communicating with employees, speak in specifics. Define the desired result of a project or strategic initiative and be clear about what you want to see achieved by the end of each milestone. If goals aren’t being met, try simplifying your message further or ask how you can provide additional clarity or help.

The more clear you are, the less confusion there will be around priorities. Employees will know what they’re working toward and feel more engaged in the process.

5. Ability to Ask Open-Ended Questions

If you want to understand employees’ motivations, thoughts, and goals better, practice asking open-ended questions. Jennifer Currence, president of consulting firm The Currence Group, said to the Society of Human Resource Management to use the acronym TED, which stands for:

• “ T ell me more.”
• “ E xplain what you mean.”
• “ D efine that term or concept for me.”

By leveraging those phrases when speaking with your team, you can elicit more thoughtful, thorough responses and ensure you also have clarity around what they need from you to succeed.

There’s a reason empathy has been ranked the top leadership skill needed for success . The better you get at acknowledging and understanding employees’ feelings and experiences, the more heard and valued they’ll feel.

In a recent survey (pdf) , 96 percent of respondents said it was important for their employers to demonstrate empathy, yet 92 percent claimed it remains undervalued. If you want to improve your communication and build a stronger, more productive culture, practice responding with empathy.

Related: Emotional Intelligence Skills: What They Are & How to Develop Them

7. Open Body Language

Communication isn’t just what you say; it’s how you carry yourself. Ninety-three percent of communication’s impact comes from nonverbal cues, according to executive coach Darlene Price .

To ensure you’re conveying the right message, focus on your body language. If you’re trying to inspire someone, talking with clenched fists and a furrowed brow isn’t going to send the right message. Instead, make eye contact to establish interest and rapport and flash a genuine smile to convey warmth and trust.

8. Receiving and Implementing Feedback

Asking for feedback from your team can not only help you grow as a leader, but build trust among your colleagues. It’s critical, though, that you don’t just listen to the feedback. You also need to act on it.

If you continue to receive feedback from your team, but don’t implement any changes, they’re going to lose faith in your ability to follow through. It’s likely there will be comments you can’t immediately act on—be transparent about that. By letting your employees know they were heard and then apprising them of any progress you can, or do, make, they’ll feel as though you value their perspective and are serious about improving.

Related: How to Give Feedback Effectively

Improving Your Leadership Communication

Communication is at the core of effective leadership. If you want to influence and inspire your team, you need to practice empathy and transparency, and understand how others perceive you, through your verbal and non-verbal cues.

To improve your communication skills and become a better leader, begin by assessing your effectiveness so you can identify areas for improvement. Then, set goals and hold yourself accountable by creating a leadership development plan to guide and track your progress.

Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Download our free leadership e-book and explore our online course Leadership Principles to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.

(This post was updated on June 16, 2020. It was originally published on November 14, 2019.)

About the Author

Why communication needs to be an important part of the problem solving process

By David Kossoff , Kepner-Tregoe

• Decision Making Whitepaper "How Leaders Use Balanced Decision-Making Skills to Move Organizations Forward". Learn more

Problem-solving in modern organizations is a team sport.  Success as a team comes from cooperation (sharing insights and information), collaboration (developing shared ideas), decisiveness and coordinated action. Communications is the glue that binds the team together and enables them to work as a unit. Nowhere in your company is this more critical than the problem-solving process. When the stakes are high is when peak-performance is needed most. You will find that delivering great communication in these areas will pay you and your organization dividends.

Leveraging expertise

Each member of your team brings unique expertise, knowledge and perspectives that can aid in the problem-solving process. Communication is critical, not only to ensure that everyone’s perspectives are captured, but to demonstrate that everyone’s contributions are appreciated and encourage further participation in the problem-solving process.

Assessing impacts and downstream implications

Everyone on the team has a unique point of view on the problem and how it fits into the bigger picture of the organization. Only through communication can the diverse points-of-view be brought together into an accurate and comprehensive perspective of the problem and its impacts on operations and downstream activities.

Making decisions that consider the whole system

Without effective communication, there will be a tendency to make problem-solving decisions that only address immediate symptoms and/or the parts of the system that are directly associated to the issue at hand. By including a broader stakeholder audience in problem communications, decision makers are able to solicit input on the broader impacts to the organization and select actions that benefit the whole system.

Executing as a unit

Solving complex business and operations problems often involves a lot of moving pieces to achieve a desirable outcome. Coordinating the activities of the individuals on the team to ensure efficient use of resources and avoid conflicts or duplication can be a challenge. Effective intra-team communication is essential to ensure that everyone on the team knows what is going on and the role they need to play.

Making impacts stick (real change begins with awareness)

Problem-solving teams work really hard to analyze situations, develop alternatives, make decisions and institute corrective actions to resolve the issue at hand. There is a lot of knowledge gained through this process that can help the organization avoid the situation recurring in the future and/or expedite resolution if the situation does happen again. Organizational communication and building awareness can help make the benefits from problem-solving stick.

Managing stakeholder expectations

Stakeholder confidence in your problem-solving abilities are based more on what you communicate than what you actually do. Ensuring stakeholder communications are deliberate, timely and thoughtful can play a big part in reducing the level of external pressure put on the problem-solving team. To do this, stakeholder communication needs to be a standard part of the problem-solving process and not approached as an ad-hoc activity.

Through effective communication and working as a team, even the most difficult problems can be resolved. Kepner-Tregoe has been working with companies for close to 60 years to solve some of the most difficult problems imaginable. Their experts understand the importance of teamwork and communication in the problem-solving process and can help your team up-level your communications capabilities.

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How to master the seven-step problem-solving process

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , Simon London speaks with Charles Conn, CEO of venture-capital firm Oxford Sciences Innovation, and McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin about the complexities of different problem-solving strategies.

Podcast transcript

Simon London: Hello, and welcome to this episode of the McKinsey Podcast , with me, Simon London. What’s the number-one skill you need to succeed professionally? Salesmanship, perhaps? Or a facility with statistics? Or maybe the ability to communicate crisply and clearly? Many would argue that at the very top of the list comes problem solving: that is, the ability to think through and come up with an optimal course of action to address any complex challenge—in business, in public policy, or indeed in life.

Looked at this way, it’s no surprise that McKinsey takes problem solving very seriously, testing for it during the recruiting process and then honing it, in McKinsey consultants, through immersion in a structured seven-step method. To discuss the art of problem solving, I sat down in California with McKinsey senior partner Hugo Sarrazin and also with Charles Conn. Charles is a former McKinsey partner, entrepreneur, executive, and coauthor of the book Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything [John Wiley & Sons, 2018].

Charles and Hugo, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Hugo Sarrazin: Our pleasure.

Charles Conn: It’s terrific to be here.

Simon London: Problem solving is a really interesting piece of terminology. It could mean so many different things. I have a son who’s a teenage climber. They talk about solving problems. Climbing is problem solving. Charles, when you talk about problem solving, what are you talking about?

Charles Conn: For me, problem solving is the answer to the question “What should I do?” It’s interesting when there’s uncertainty and complexity, and when it’s meaningful because there are consequences. Your son’s climbing is a perfect example. There are consequences, and it’s complicated, and there’s uncertainty—can he make that grab? I think we can apply that same frame almost at any level. You can think about questions like “What town would I like to live in?” or “Should I put solar panels on my roof?”

You might think that’s a funny thing to apply problem solving to, but in my mind it’s not fundamentally different from business problem solving, which answers the question “What should my strategy be?” Or problem solving at the policy level: “How do we combat climate change?” “Should I support the local school bond?” I think these are all part and parcel of the same type of question, “What should I do?”

I’m a big fan of structured problem solving. By following steps, we can more clearly understand what problem it is we’re solving, what are the components of the problem that we’re solving, which components are the most important ones for us to pay attention to, which analytic techniques we should apply to those, and how we can synthesize what we’ve learned back into a compelling story. That’s all it is, at its heart.

I think sometimes when people think about seven steps, they assume that there’s a rigidity to this. That’s not it at all. It’s actually to give you the scope for creativity, which often doesn’t exist when your problem solving is muddled.

Simon London: You were just talking about the seven-step process. That’s what’s written down in the book, but it’s a very McKinsey process as well. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s go through the steps, one by one. You were just talking about problem definition as being a particularly important thing to get right first. That’s the first step. Hugo, tell us about that.

Hugo Sarrazin: It is surprising how often people jump past this step and make a bunch of assumptions. The most powerful thing is to step back and ask the basic questions—“What are we trying to solve? What are the constraints that exist? What are the dependencies?” Let’s make those explicit and really push the thinking and defining. At McKinsey, we spend an enormous amount of time in writing that little statement, and the statement, if you’re a logic purist, is great. You debate. “Is it an ‘or’? Is it an ‘and’? What’s the action verb?” Because all these specific words help you get to the heart of what matters.

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Simon London: So this is a concise problem statement.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah. It’s not like “Can we grow in Japan?” That’s interesting, but it is “What, specifically, are we trying to uncover in the growth of a product in Japan? Or a segment in Japan? Or a channel in Japan?” When you spend an enormous amount of time, in the first meeting of the different stakeholders, debating this and having different people put forward what they think the problem definition is, you realize that people have completely different views of why they’re here. That, to me, is the most important step.

Charles Conn: I would agree with that. For me, the problem context is critical. When we understand “What are the forces acting upon your decision maker? How quickly is the answer needed? With what precision is the answer needed? Are there areas that are off limits or areas where we would particularly like to find our solution? Is the decision maker open to exploring other areas?” then you not only become more efficient, and move toward what we call the critical path in problem solving, but you also make it so much more likely that you’re not going to waste your time or your decision maker’s time.

How often do especially bright young people run off with half of the idea about what the problem is and start collecting data and start building models—only to discover that they’ve really gone off half-cocked.

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah.

Charles Conn: And in the wrong direction.

Simon London: OK. So step one—and there is a real art and a structure to it—is define the problem. Step two, Charles?

Charles Conn: My favorite step is step two, which is to use logic trees to disaggregate the problem. Every problem we’re solving has some complexity and some uncertainty in it. The only way that we can really get our team working on the problem is to take the problem apart into logical pieces.

What we find, of course, is that the way to disaggregate the problem often gives you an insight into the answer to the problem quite quickly. I love to do two or three different cuts at it, each one giving a bit of a different insight into what might be going wrong. By doing sensible disaggregations, using logic trees, we can figure out which parts of the problem we should be looking at, and we can assign those different parts to team members.

Simon London: What’s a good example of a logic tree on a sort of ratable problem?

Charles Conn: Maybe the easiest one is the classic profit tree. Almost in every business that I would take a look at, I would start with a profit or return-on-assets tree. In its simplest form, you have the components of revenue, which are price and quantity, and the components of cost, which are cost and quantity. Each of those can be broken out. Cost can be broken into variable cost and fixed cost. The components of price can be broken into what your pricing scheme is. That simple tree often provides insight into what’s going on in a business or what the difference is between that business and the competitors.

If we add the leg, which is “What’s the asset base or investment element?”—so profit divided by assets—then we can ask the question “Is the business using its investments sensibly?” whether that’s in stores or in manufacturing or in transportation assets. I hope we can see just how simple this is, even though we’re describing it in words.

When I went to work with Gordon Moore at the Moore Foundation, the problem that he asked us to look at was “How can we save Pacific salmon?” Now, that sounds like an impossible question, but it was amenable to precisely the same type of disaggregation and allowed us to organize what became a 15-year effort to improve the likelihood of good outcomes for Pacific salmon.

Simon London: Now, is there a danger that your logic tree can be impossibly large? This, I think, brings us onto the third step in the process, which is that you have to prioritize.

Charles Conn: Absolutely. The third step, which we also emphasize, along with good problem definition, is rigorous prioritization—we ask the questions “How important is this lever or this branch of the tree in the overall outcome that we seek to achieve? How much can I move that lever?” Obviously, we try and focus our efforts on ones that have a big impact on the problem and the ones that we have the ability to change. With salmon, ocean conditions turned out to be a big lever, but not one that we could adjust. We focused our attention on fish habitats and fish-harvesting practices, which were big levers that we could affect.

People spend a lot of time arguing about branches that are either not important or that none of us can change. We see it in the public square. When we deal with questions at the policy level—“Should you support the death penalty?” “How do we affect climate change?” “How can we uncover the causes and address homelessness?”—it’s even more important that we’re focusing on levers that are big and movable.

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Simon London: Let’s move swiftly on to step four. You’ve defined your problem, you disaggregate it, you prioritize where you want to analyze—what you want to really look at hard. Then you got to the work plan. Now, what does that mean in practice?

Hugo Sarrazin: Depending on what you’ve prioritized, there are many things you could do. It could be breaking the work among the team members so that people have a clear piece of the work to do. It could be defining the specific analyses that need to get done and executed, and being clear on time lines. There’s always a level-one answer, there’s a level-two answer, there’s a level-three answer. Without being too flippant, I can solve any problem during a good dinner with wine. It won’t have a whole lot of backing.

Simon London: Not going to have a lot of depth to it.

Hugo Sarrazin: No, but it may be useful as a starting point. If the stakes are not that high, that could be OK. If it’s really high stakes, you may need level three and have the whole model validated in three different ways. You need to find a work plan that reflects the level of precision, the time frame you have, and the stakeholders you need to bring along in the exercise.

Charles Conn: I love the way you’ve described that, because, again, some people think of problem solving as a linear thing, but of course what’s critical is that it’s iterative. As you say, you can solve the problem in one day or even one hour.

Charles Conn: We encourage our teams everywhere to do that. We call it the one-day answer or the one-hour answer. In work planning, we’re always iterating. Every time you see a 50-page work plan that stretches out to three months, you know it’s wrong. It will be outmoded very quickly by that learning process that you described. Iterative problem solving is a critical part of this. Sometimes, people think work planning sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s how we know what’s expected of us and when we need to deliver it and how we’re progressing toward the answer. It’s also the place where we can deal with biases. Bias is a feature of every human decision-making process. If we design our team interactions intelligently, we can avoid the worst sort of biases.

Simon London: Here we’re talking about cognitive biases primarily, right? It’s not that I’m biased against you because of your accent or something. These are the cognitive biases that behavioral sciences have shown we all carry around, things like anchoring, overoptimism—these kinds of things.

Both: Yeah.

Charles Conn: Availability bias is the one that I’m always alert to. You think you’ve seen the problem before, and therefore what’s available is your previous conception of it—and we have to be most careful about that. In any human setting, we also have to be careful about biases that are based on hierarchies, sometimes called sunflower bias. I’m sure, Hugo, with your teams, you make sure that the youngest team members speak first. Not the oldest team members, because it’s easy for people to look at who’s senior and alter their own creative approaches.

Hugo Sarrazin: It’s helpful, at that moment—if someone is asserting a point of view—to ask the question “This was true in what context?” You’re trying to apply something that worked in one context to a different one. That can be deadly if the context has changed, and that’s why organizations struggle to change. You promote all these people because they did something that worked well in the past, and then there’s a disruption in the industry, and they keep doing what got them promoted even though the context has changed.

Simon London: Right. Right.

Hugo Sarrazin: So it’s the same thing in problem solving.

Charles Conn: And it’s why diversity in our teams is so important. It’s one of the best things about the world that we’re in now. We’re likely to have people from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and national backgrounds, each of whom sees problems from a slightly different perspective. It is therefore much more likely that the team will uncover a truly creative and clever approach to problem solving.

Simon London: Let’s move on to step five. You’ve done your work plan. Now you’ve actually got to do the analysis. The thing that strikes me here is that the range of tools that we have at our disposal now, of course, is just huge, particularly with advances in computation, advanced analytics. There’s so many things that you can apply here. Just talk about the analysis stage. How do you pick the right tools?

Charles Conn: For me, the most important thing is that we start with simple heuristics and explanatory statistics before we go off and use the big-gun tools. We need to understand the shape and scope of our problem before we start applying these massive and complex analytical approaches.

Simon London: Would you agree with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: I agree. I think there are so many wonderful heuristics. You need to start there before you go deep into the modeling exercise. There’s an interesting dynamic that’s happening, though. In some cases, for some types of problems, it is even better to set yourself up to maximize your learning. Your problem-solving methodology is test and learn, test and learn, test and learn, and iterate. That is a heuristic in itself, the A/B testing that is used in many parts of the world. So that’s a problem-solving methodology. It’s nothing different. It just uses technology and feedback loops in a fast way. The other one is exploratory data analysis. When you’re dealing with a large-scale problem, and there’s so much data, I can get to the heuristics that Charles was talking about through very clever visualization of data.

You test with your data. You need to set up an environment to do so, but don’t get caught up in neural-network modeling immediately. You’re testing, you’re checking—“Is the data right? Is it sound? Does it make sense?”—before you launch too far.

Simon London: You do hear these ideas—that if you have a big enough data set and enough algorithms, they’re going to find things that you just wouldn’t have spotted, find solutions that maybe you wouldn’t have thought of. Does machine learning sort of revolutionize the problem-solving process? Or are these actually just other tools in the toolbox for structured problem solving?

Charles Conn: It can be revolutionary. There are some areas in which the pattern recognition of large data sets and good algorithms can help us see things that we otherwise couldn’t see. But I do think it’s terribly important we don’t think that this particular technique is a substitute for superb problem solving, starting with good problem definition. Many people use machine learning without understanding algorithms that themselves can have biases built into them. Just as 20 years ago, when we were doing statistical analysis, we knew that we needed good model definition, we still need a good understanding of our algorithms and really good problem definition before we launch off into big data sets and unknown algorithms.

Simon London: Step six. You’ve done your analysis.

Charles Conn: I take six and seven together, and this is the place where young problem solvers often make a mistake. They’ve got their analysis, and they assume that’s the answer, and of course it isn’t the answer. The ability to synthesize the pieces that came out of the analysis and begin to weave those into a story that helps people answer the question “What should I do?” This is back to where we started. If we can’t synthesize, and we can’t tell a story, then our decision maker can’t find the answer to “What should I do?”

Simon London: But, again, these final steps are about motivating people to action, right?

Charles Conn: Yeah.

Simon London: I am slightly torn about the nomenclature of problem solving because it’s on paper, right? Until you motivate people to action, you actually haven’t solved anything.

Charles Conn: I love this question because I think decision-making theory, without a bias to action, is a waste of time. Everything in how I approach this is to help people take action that makes the world better.

Simon London: Hence, these are absolutely critical steps. If you don’t do this well, you’ve just got a bunch of analysis.

Charles Conn: We end up in exactly the same place where we started, which is people speaking across each other, past each other in the public square, rather than actually working together, shoulder to shoulder, to crack these important problems.

Simon London: In the real world, we have a lot of uncertainty—arguably, increasing uncertainty. How do good problem solvers deal with that?

Hugo Sarrazin: At every step of the process. In the problem definition, when you’re defining the context, you need to understand those sources of uncertainty and whether they’re important or not important. It becomes important in the definition of the tree.

You need to think carefully about the branches of the tree that are more certain and less certain as you define them. They don’t have equal weight just because they’ve got equal space on the page. Then, when you’re prioritizing, your prioritization approach may put more emphasis on things that have low probability but huge impact—or, vice versa, may put a lot of priority on things that are very likely and, hopefully, have a reasonable impact. You can introduce that along the way. When you come back to the synthesis, you just need to be nuanced about what you’re understanding, the likelihood.

Often, people lack humility in the way they make their recommendations: “This is the answer.” They’re very precise, and I think we would all be well-served to say, “This is a likely answer under the following sets of conditions” and then make the level of uncertainty clearer, if that is appropriate. It doesn’t mean you’re always in the gray zone; it doesn’t mean you don’t have a point of view. It just means that you can be explicit about the certainty of your answer when you make that recommendation.

Simon London: So it sounds like there is an underlying principle: “Acknowledge and embrace the uncertainty. Don’t pretend that it isn’t there. Be very clear about what the uncertainties are up front, and then build that into every step of the process.”

Hugo Sarrazin: Every step of the process.

Simon London: Yeah. We have just walked through a particular structured methodology for problem solving. But, of course, this is not the only structured methodology for problem solving. One that is also very well-known is design thinking, which comes at things very differently. So, Hugo, I know you have worked with a lot of designers. Just give us a very quick summary. Design thinking—what is it, and how does it relate?

Hugo Sarrazin: It starts with an incredible amount of empathy for the user and uses that to define the problem. It does pause and go out in the wild and spend an enormous amount of time seeing how people interact with objects, seeing the experience they’re getting, seeing the pain points or joy—and uses that to infer and define the problem.

Simon London: Problem definition, but out in the world.

Hugo Sarrazin: With an enormous amount of empathy. There’s a huge emphasis on empathy. Traditional, more classic problem solving is you define the problem based on an understanding of the situation. This one almost presupposes that we don’t know the problem until we go see it. The second thing is you need to come up with multiple scenarios or answers or ideas or concepts, and there’s a lot of divergent thinking initially. That’s slightly different, versus the prioritization, but not for long. Eventually, you need to kind of say, “OK, I’m going to converge again.” Then you go and you bring things back to the customer and get feedback and iterate. Then you rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. There’s a lot of tactile building, along the way, of prototypes and things like that. It’s very iterative.

Simon London: So, Charles, are these complements or are these alternatives?

Charles Conn: I think they’re entirely complementary, and I think Hugo’s description is perfect. When we do problem definition well in classic problem solving, we are demonstrating the kind of empathy, at the very beginning of our problem, that design thinking asks us to approach. When we ideate—and that’s very similar to the disaggregation, prioritization, and work-planning steps—we do precisely the same thing, and often we use contrasting teams, so that we do have divergent thinking. The best teams allow divergent thinking to bump them off whatever their initial biases in problem solving are. For me, design thinking gives us a constant reminder of creativity, empathy, and the tactile nature of problem solving, but it’s absolutely complementary, not alternative.

Simon London: I think, in a world of cross-functional teams, an interesting question is do people with design-thinking backgrounds really work well together with classical problem solvers? How do you make that chemistry happen?

Hugo Sarrazin: Yeah, it is not easy when people have spent an enormous amount of time seeped in design thinking or user-centric design, whichever word you want to use. If the person who’s applying classic problem-solving methodology is very rigid and mechanical in the way they’re doing it, there could be an enormous amount of tension. If there’s not clarity in the role and not clarity in the process, I think having the two together can be, sometimes, problematic.

The second thing that happens often is that the artifacts the two methodologies try to gravitate toward can be different. Classic problem solving often gravitates toward a model; design thinking migrates toward a prototype. Rather than writing a big deck with all my supporting evidence, they’ll bring an example, a thing, and that feels different. Then you spend your time differently to achieve those two end products, so that’s another source of friction.

Now, I still think it can be an incredibly powerful thing to have the two—if there are the right people with the right mind-set, if there is a team that is explicit about the roles, if we’re clear about the kind of outcomes we are attempting to bring forward. There’s an enormous amount of collaborativeness and respect.

Simon London: But they have to respect each other’s methodology and be prepared to flex, maybe, a little bit, in how this process is going to work.

Hugo Sarrazin: Absolutely.

Simon London: The other area where, it strikes me, there could be a little bit of a different sort of friction is this whole concept of the day-one answer, which is what we were just talking about in classical problem solving. Now, you know that this is probably not going to be your final answer, but that’s how you begin to structure the problem. Whereas I would imagine your design thinkers—no, they’re going off to do their ethnographic research and get out into the field, potentially for a long time, before they come back with at least an initial hypothesis.

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Hugo Sarrazin: That is a great callout, and that’s another difference. Designers typically will like to soak into the situation and avoid converging too quickly. There’s optionality and exploring different options. There’s a strong belief that keeps the solution space wide enough that you can come up with more radical ideas. If there’s a large design team or many designers on the team, and you come on Friday and say, “What’s our week-one answer?” they’re going to struggle. They’re not going to be comfortable, naturally, to give that answer. It doesn’t mean they don’t have an answer; it’s just not where they are in their thinking process.

Simon London: I think we are, sadly, out of time for today. But Charles and Hugo, thank you so much.

Charles Conn: It was a pleasure to be here, Simon.

Hugo Sarrazin: It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Simon London: And thanks, as always, to you, our listeners, for tuning into this episode of the McKinsey Podcast . If you want to learn more about problem solving, you can find the book, Bulletproof Problem Solving: The One Skill That Changes Everything , online or order it through your local bookstore. To learn more about McKinsey, you can of course find us at McKinsey.com.

Charles Conn is CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation and an alumnus of McKinsey’s Sydney office. Hugo Sarrazin is a senior partner in the Silicon Valley office, where Simon London, a member of McKinsey Publishing, is also based.

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Why Business Communication is a Form of Problem Solving

May 24, 2022

Problem Solving and Communication: How It Works in Your Business

Many see communication as the glue that binds teams together and enables them to work successfully. Without clearly expressing ideas or business goals, how would you expect individuals to execute them effectively? While this might seem like a no-brainer for some business owners, many still are not aware of the advantages of good communication within an organization.

One of these benefits of effective communication is problem-solving. Effective, clear, and constant communication can resolve some of the most challenging problems your team and organization face. However, every business owner, team leader, executive, or manager should know certain aspects of business communication when utilizing it to solve problems.

Wolf Creek Business Growth Institute dedicates itself to providing practical and professional insight to businesses to help bolster growth. Our coaches believe that communication and problem-solving go hand in hand when you want to increase performance to reach your goals. Contact our business coaches when you want actionable advice to grow your team and business.

[Related: Picking the Best Business Coach ]

The Basics of Communication & Problem Solving

Before you try to solve problems within your company by simply talking to people, you must first understand “the communication pie.” This pie chart breaks down the individual factors of interpersonal communication. This communication model states that communication is:

• 55% non-verbal, including eye contact, posture, facial expressions, etc.
• 38% tonality, which includes pitch, pace, volume, emotion, etc.

Non-verbal and verbal communication is just the start to understanding how we communicate with one another. Another vital aspect of interpersonal communication is an individual’s learning style. This is categorized as how a person absorbs and processes information explained to them. The three learning styles include:

• Visual learners – take in information visually and often visualize scenarios in their minds.
• Auditory learners –understand and process information primarily by hearing it.
• Kinesthetic learners –comprehend information physically, including hands-on exercises and physical expression.

With this basic understanding of how we communicate with each other, you can start to learn how communication helps with problem-solving.

Communicate at Everyone’s Level

To start utilizing communication when problem-solving, you need to tie in your employees’ communication and learning styles. This involves learning the different communication styles of your employees and peers as you’ll want to present problems in a format that they will engage with and properly process. Basically, you’ll want to communicate with them in the way that is recognizable to them.

There are many ways you can start speaking to the people in your organization to accommodate everyone’s learning styles. For example, you can:

• Be flexible when outlining expectations for assignments
• Be open to questions
• Clarifying information when necessary
• Develop individual plans based on their styles
• Play to their strengths
• Take time during meetings to explain the same information in different ways so that everyone can understand it

For problem-solving with communication to be truly effective, you must understand everyone’s communication styles, which is the foundation of problem-solving.

Building Trust and Ownership

When using communication as a form of problem-solving, the last thing you need to know is to build trust and ownership within your team. To do this, leaders need to be open to differing perspectives. Leaders do not have all the answers and need to rely on the judgment and input of staff members.

As a result, there will be disagreements within your team, as everyone will have their own unique way of handling a situation. Healthy conflict is essential when communicating to solve problems. Conflicting viewpoints and explanations for one’s reasonings will bring diverse solutions to the table, which can help resolve problems more efficiently.

Lastly, individuals need to take ownership of their ideas and solutions . Team members should not feel uncomfortable sharing their thoughts or fear conflict. For communication in problem-solving to work, you must communicate to them that they are open to expressing their ideas.

Hopefully, you have cultivated a workplace culture where personal accountability is critical. If not, Wolf Creek Business Growth Institute has worked with many organizations to promote and prioritize workplace accountability. Contact our coaches today to learn how this could bolster your workplace culture.

[Related: How to Make Personal Accountability a Core Value ]

Contact Wolf Creek BGI Today to Integrate Communication with Problem Solving

Do you want to integrate communication styles with solving problems within your organization? Then contact Wolf Creek BGI . We will help analyze the different communication styles of your staff members and create an action plan suitable for effective problem-solving. Contact us today at 225-219-8866 when you are ready to see how communication helps with problem-solving in your business.

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Business Communication: A Problem-Solving Approach prepares students to take charge of the communication challenges they'll face on the job. With a focus on effective decision making, the text provides a process for analyzing communication problems and thorough support for designing successful solutions. Students will gain a realistic picture of today’s business environment, including the impacts of the global pandemic, the importance of inclusive, socially responsible communication, and AI technologies. Numerous end-of-chapter scenarios provide a wide range of opportunities for problem solving in context. This release continues its strong coverage of style and grammar, visual communication, and skillful oral communication. This release was developed with a focus on today’s caring, collaborative, diverse, social, and highly pragmatic “self-driver” students who value flexibility and authenticity. All advice includes the “why” to support students in their future workplace success.

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About the Author

Paula Lentz

Dr. Paula Lentz is a Professor and Academic Program Director in the Department of Business Communication at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She teaches Business Writing, Advanced Business Writing, and MBA courses. In addition, she directs the College of Business’s Business Writing and Presentations Studio and is also a developer and coordinator of the department’s Business Writing Fundamentals Program.

Dr. Lentz is particularly interested in qualitative research that explores narratives and organizational cultures, genre theory, and writing pedagogy. She has published in such journals as Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, Wisconsin Business Education Association Journal, Equal Opportunities International, Journal of Health Administration Communication, and Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management. Her book, Rhetorical Theory and Practice in the Business Communication Classroom, co-authored with Dr. Kristen Getchell of Babson College, received the Association for Business Communication’s 2019 Distinguished Book on Business Communication award. She also serves on the Association for Business Communication’s Executive Board and leads its Academic Environment Committee.

She continues to do freelance editing and provides consulting and writing services. She received a BA from Coe College, an MA from UW–Eau Claire, and a PhD in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication from the University of Minnesota.

Kathryn Rentz

Dr. Kathryn Rentz is a Professor of English at the University of Cincinnati. She taught her first business writing class as a doctoral student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the early 1980s and has been teaching workplace writing ever since. She helped establish the University of Cincinnati’s professional writing program and has served as its coordinator. She has also won the English Department’s teaching award, directed the department’s graduate program, and helped direct the composition program.

Dr. Rentz’s affiliation with the Association for Business Communication goes back to her beginnings as a business writing teacher. She has performed many roles for the ABC, including serving on the board of directors and chairing the publications board. She served two terms as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Business Communication and was Interim Editor from 2000–2001, for which she won the Francis W. Weeks Award of Merit. In 2008 she won the ABC’s Meada Gibbs Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2011 she was elected Second Vice President for the association. She served as President in 2013–2014 and Past President in 2014–2015. In 2018 she won the Distinguished Member Award.

Dr. Rentz has published articles on business communication pedagogy and research in such journals as Business Communication Quarterly, the Journal of Business Communication, Technical Communication Quarterly, and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. She has participated in many professional meetings and seminars over the years and is always learning from her colleagues and her students.

Kristen Getchell

Kristen Getchell is an associate professor of business communication in Babson's Marketing division. She teaches business communication courses in graduate, undergraduate, and executive education programs. She currently serves as Co-Director for Babson Executive Education's Leadership Program for Women & Allies. Her current research and consulting interests include virtual communication and collaboration, AI and business communication, and persuasive strategies in virtual sales interactions. Her scholarly work has appeared in publications including International Journal of Business Communication, Business Horizons, Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, British Journal of Educational Technology, and International Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. She has served as the Director of Rhetoric in the Arts and Humanities Division. Prior to her work at Babson, she served as Coordinator of First-year Writing at Curry College. She served as an NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative (FAR) at Curry College and currently serves in the role again at Babson. She is a member of the Association of Business Communication and currently serves as the Vice President for the Eastern Region for ABC.

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Improving Problem Solving Skills

Introduction

Problem-solving skills are an important part of our lives. Be it a mundane daily activity or at work, most of the time our work is centred around problems and how to solve them. In a managerial set up, most of the work is problem-centric. Be it solving a problem for a client, supporting someone who is solving a problem or searching for new problems to be solved, problems define our activities. Problem-solving skills are, thus, important in the workplace.

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Skills for Problem Solving

Different problems require different set of skills to be solved. For example, solving a problem for a client requires not just knowledge but also good verbal, listening and persuasion skills. Solving a problem within the organization with other employees require teamwork, coordination and effective communication among them. Hence, to improve problem-solving skills there needs to be effective communication and understanding of the situation.

Efficient Methods of Problem Solving

Problem-solving skills can be improved in many ways. There are four basic steps to efficient problem solving in any situation. They are:

• Defining and understanding the problem
• Searching for alternatives
• Evaluating and selecting alternatives
• Executing the solution

Defining and understanding the problem is the first step to problem-solving. It is important to look deeper into the problem beyond what might seem like the obvious.

For example :  The substandard performance of the employees might be seen as a result of laziness or an unwillingness to work and improve oneself. However, the real reason could be that the employees are untrained and unskilled at their jobs. Understanding the roots of the problem makes way for efficient search for solutions.

Now that the core of the problem has been identified, we need to search for alternative solutions to fix the problem. The aim is to find the most efficient and rational solution that is agreeable to all the parties involved.

Thus, if there is a difference in opinion regarding the implementation of a certain standard or protocol, the manager can either take a survey to understand the opinions of the employees or call a meeting to discuss and, if necessary, bring changes to the proposal.

Once all the alternatives are considered, we need to evaluate each and every single alternative so that we can come to a conclusion by selecting the most rational solution. Selecting the solution also requires the opinion of the employees and staff, what they consider to be the best option and how the executives in higher positions would react to it.

For example : Choosing between cheaper alternatives or low production due to a reduced budget depends on the situation of the firm. The cheaper alternatives for production will ensure the same number of units are produced, albeit low quality and hence, lower prices. Reduction in production, however, will ensure that the quality is good and the price of the product will be maintained or even raised.

Executing the solution requires the leadership of the manager and good and efficient coordination and communication with all the employees and entities. The problem will be directly handled at this stage and efforts will be made to change it.

For example : If the decision to use cheaper alternatives for production is made, then changes are made in the manner of production, networks are set up to get access to the cheaper alternative, bargaining and networking is made etc.

Thus, improving problem-solving skills require a basic knowledge of the situation as well as having the creativity and resources to solve it.

Related Posts:

• Interpersonal Communication Skills in Workplace
• Self-Disclosure On Social Media
• How to Overcome Cross Cultural Communication Barriers
• Manager Communication Skills
• Types Of Thinking-Tips And Tricks To Improve Thinking Skill
• Decision Making Process, Models, Biases And Errors-Explained

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