Writing Within Organizations

George, an executive at a large local corporation, recently asked me to work with his team of staff members and managers. The focus was on the document review process, which was an unending source of frustration to all concerned. The staff members felt their hard work was butchered and rendered incomprehensible by multiple layers of management. […]

A contractor for a major space mission was preparing to present to a NASA panel for a design review. Their presentation was very complicated, with a lot of technical information on each slide. The consultant they were working with warned them that the presentation would probably irritate the panel.

When a person is having a heart attack, her left arm may hurt. The illness is in her heart, but another part of her body is sending pain signals. When pain is felt in a part of the body other than its actual source, doctors call it “referred pain”. Referred pain occurs because of subtle nerve connections between the actual source of the pain and location where it is experienced. In other words, the locations seem unrelated, but they are connected.Communication is the Heart Communication is at the heart of every organization. Do people understand each other? Do they know what is expected of them? Do they feel good about the people they work with? To a great extent, the answers to these questions depend on how successfully managers and staff communicate with each other.

According to a recent Gallup study, only 34% of the US workforce report that they are engaged at work. American businesses annually lose up to $550 billion in productivity due to lack of engagement. Engaged employees are happier, more productive, more profitable, less likely to call in sick and less likely to quit. Considering that the