Great quotes on the importance of face to face inn internal communication from the ex-Tesco CEO’s book “Management in 10 words”:
Usually, the ‘internal communications’ department at a company’s headquarters produces presentations and piles of bumf for managers to dole out to their teams. That would have defeated the entire purpose of the exercise. Our teams had to express, in their own words, what we were trying to achieve: it had to be their plan, not ours. And this worked well. Whenever people from outside visited Tesco, they always commented that, no matter who they spoke to, at whatever level, Tesco staff always seemed to know and feel part of the big picture.To help a team in any organisation understand what is expected of them – how they should behave, what the purpose of the organisation is and how they fit in – you cannot rely on a memo or an email, nor can you take the easy option of sending round a DVD to be played. Nothing beats a face-to-face talk. I stress the word ‘talk’: not high-flown rhetoric, full of gushing phrases and big words, but a simple chat, explaining what you are there to do, how you are going to achieve it, and why each and every person listening has an important role to play.
Each day in stores, depots and offices, managers would brief their team leaders who, in turn, briefed their teams. We called them Team Five meetings – because they only took five minutes and so they could be done standing up. Those five minutes made a big difference, as everyone then knew what was going on and that they had a part to play.
You can read more right now over on Marc Wright’s blog – where he has more quotes and a useful commentary.
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