A recent study by Clarizen interviewed 300 executives from around the world, asking if efforts to improve workplace communication processes had helped their businesses increase their productivity. Despite all that we have heard about the benefits of productivity in offering endless lines of communication, 81% of respondents said all their attempts failed!
Clarizen plunged further into this troubling dilemma, and it became apparent that technology was largely to blame. In fact, over-communication was the big bad elephant in the room about their productivity issues. As shown below fun infographic – published by Clarizen -, it is a problem that the inhabitants of the seven medieval kingdoms of Westeros and Essos do not seem to suffer.
Results not a big shock
The results are not really surprising, despite the fact that never in the entire history of this planet our ability to communicate seamlessly has ever shown as much potential as it does. Is today. Before instant emails, we had voicemail; which could get lost in translation, deleted by mistake, or downright ignored!
Then came the traditional cell phones, which were infamous for the loss of their signal amid important phone calls (though there was even a signal to start). Then came the advent of text messaging, where people could say yes, no, or maybe without having to talk to anyone.
Then came modern software company solutions, offering real-time collaboration environments – as if we did not have enough money to get the information out! Now, it seems like we have so many ways to be in immediate contact with other team members, people just do not seem to know how to do it – just try to cross the Narrow Sea in winter!
Companies, large and small, still need to master the technology of the company
Communication is so fast and loose, it's difficult for every human being on the planet to stay up to date with technology, while streamlining our conversations so that everyone can follow in order to keep the gears going which are sought after.
Worse, we all tend to gravitate towards different preferences. Some of them are similar to Microsoft Office 365, others rely on Google's comprehensive G Suite collaboration and productivity tools. And, still others like a traditional meeting face to face to detail the details of a project.
The four houses of dissatisfied productivity
The Clarizen study found that communication in business was ubiquitous, with four distinct "homes" adding to the complicated mission of increasing productivity by continually adding new options in The mixture. Respondents to the study stated that they had adopted one or more productivity stimulation strategies in the year preceding the survey:
- House of Endless Conversations: Basically, our ability to communicate has never been extinguished and companies feel compelled to add multiple technological applications to make everyone can follow the conversation (ie, Skype, Slack, Google Hangouts).
- House Messages: Emails, Emails and Other Email – 47% said that they had tried to switch to providers (Outlook, Gmail, etc.) or add them to try to increase their productivity.
- House of Meetings : Just under a quarter of executives surveyed in the study claim to have streamlined their meeting practices, imposed meeting deadlines and limited the number of meetings that an employee is forced to attend.
- House of Documents: 75% of respondents reported having adopted cloud-based document sharing applications such as Microsoft Office and Google G Suite.
Overloaded with information and overwhelmed with productivity
The Clarizen study and the interesting angle of the GoT shown in computer graphics can inform CEOs and managers on the current state of technology-oriented communication. We simply have not found a consistent and effective way to share information between the multiple lines of communication that we have today.
Bad, Bad!
Considering that only 16% of respondents in the study are completely satisfied with the productivity of their teams, it is logical to think that the business world needs help to redefine best practices Communication.
Collaboration applications will continue to improve, learning to seamlessly merge with other platforms to tightly link communication to specific tasks and goals. However, as humans, we still need to work on refining the way we monitor our team's progress with respect to goals, while continually striving to be verbal communicators. and more effective writings.