This weekend we gave two rectangle pieces of material to my mother-in-law and asked her to sew them together into a table cover for us. Moments later, with a whirl on her sewing machine she handed them back to us, sewed end-to-end into a really long rectangle, when what we actually wanted was it sewn side-to-side into a square.
It reminded me of one of the most important lessons in any workplace – communication is key. With a few more words, or a simple demonstration we could have more than adequately shown what we wanted, but we were rushed, and on the phone and didn’t take the time (miniscule as it was).
I’ve seen this time and time again in so many workplaces. Staff are thrown in over their heads and not adequately communicated with and it leaves managers or business owners spouting words like: “If you want something done well…” and “Nobody listens to me!”
What can you take more time to explain today? So what if it takes you twice as long to explain it if you never need to explain it again and can delegate that task with confidence thereafter?
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Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is ‘Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can’) and a passionate entrepreneur who started at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Currently Kirsty heads up www.reallysold.com the premium online copywriting site for real estate agents and is a co-director of Elephant Propertywww.elephantproperty.com.au Launceston, Tasmania’s only boutique real estate agency purely for investment property owners. Kirsty’s other ventures are outlined at her website www.kirstydunphey.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
