Communication plays a critical role throughout the decision-making process, from identifying problems to evaluating implemented solutions. It enables collaboration, ensures stakeholders are informed and engaged, and supports the consistent execution of strategies across all stages.
Key Insights
- Communication facilitates problem identification, idea exchange, and evaluation of alternatives, forming the foundation for sound decisions.
- Engaging stakeholders through tailored communication requires clearly defined objectives, appropriate channels, and consistent messaging.
- A successful communication plan includes assigning responsibilities, encouraging two-way dialogue, and regularly assessing message clarity and effectiveness.
This lesson is a preview from our New/Current Leader Certificate Program Online. Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
Let's talk about the role that communication plays in decision-making. First of all, it assists with collaboratively defining and certainly with articulating the problem or opportunity that exists. And we're going to use our communication skills to collect the information that we need to better understand the problem or opportunity.
Communication will also support the process of exchanging ideas and exploring the different alternatives to be able to solve the problem or take advantage of the opportunity. So it really facilitates the creation and the evaluation of the alternatives. And it's going to help us in being able to clarify the planning and implementation of the solution that is finally chosen.
And as we implement, we are going to need to be collecting feedback. And at the end of that solution being implemented, we're going to need to evaluate what happened. Was it effective? Do people think it was helpful? And we're going to do that through communication.
We're going to be communicating with our stakeholders. I talked about earlier, stakeholders being people who have a stake in the decision. And so examples of stakeholders could include the employees in the organization, the labor unions, management and executives, our customers, our suppliers and vendors, regulators, other government agencies, and even the general public.
So with communication, we can't just assume that communication is going to happen. We have to plan out our communication. So to plan communication, we have to understand what our stakeholders need us to communicate to them.
And so we can use that information to help us set some communication objectives. What are we trying to achieve by doing these communications? We need to determine the appropriate communication channels. Are we going to do this in person? Are we going to send Teams messages? And we need to develop key messages that we're going to use consistently throughout the process, as well as create a communication timeline so we know not only what the message is, but when the messages are going to be delivered.
And finally, as part of communication planning, we need to assign responsibilities so that everyone knows who is responsible for the communications. When we implement a communication plan, we are actually creating the communication materials and resources, and we are transmitting them via the selected communication channels and platforms that we have determined are appropriate. We certainly want to evaluate whether our communications are clear, concise, and whether they are aligned with the objectives that we have established.
And while we are implementing a communication plan, we certainly want to encourage two-way communication. We're not just communicating with people. We want to receive communication back, and we want to ensure that our communication plan is effective.
