How to help good managers become great communicators

For the cascade to flow both ways, employees and the executive team must both play an active role.

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Most comms pros understand that managers can greatly impact engagement and retention, but few come to a consensus on where manager comms can fall apart. The executive team can play a substantial role in engaging employees, changing perceptions, motivating behavior and, perhaps most importantly, tying it back to business results.

That said, solid manager comms requires a commitment to:

It sounds simple enough, and nothing that a good old-fashioned manager communications cascade can’t fix, right?

If only it were so easy. The laundry list of barriers to effective manager comms begins and ends with a lack of direction and support. This creates a lack of accountability, where managers feel like the above asks are not their job and they push back on the comms department. They’re processing the change as more work and not finding the time. The stage fright is also a real concern.

Of course, today’s pace of change will continue to accelerate as the nature of how we work shifts faster than ever. The good news: With better comms skills and tools, your managers can better navigate and survive change.

That’s where you come in.

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