eight reasons why accounting firms need to work on internal communications first.
by bruce w. marcus
a terrific definition of chaos is when a client asks two different people in your firm the same question – and gets two different and conflicting answers.
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another form of it is when there’s a crisis, and the press calls and gets somebody on the phone who hasn’t been briefed – but who answers the questions anyway. there’s real horror for you.
a managing partner bemoans the fact that his or her clear and well-defined vision of the firm has become so diluted by the time it gets transmitted down the line that there’s cause to wonder if everybody is working for the same firm.
it’s at times like these that somebody gets the idea that maybe the concept of internal communications is more than a management cliché. but how much more? where does internal communications begin? with email? or regular staff meetings? a private social network platform?
why do so many internal communications programs so consistently fail to communicate important information within a firm?
the answer, we find, is not in the mechanics and devices of communication, which is too often the first stop for an internal communications plan, but in the content. it’s only when we realize the difference between content and mechanics that we can properly formulate an internal communications program that works. content is the gold. mechanics are merely the vehicles.
technology fools us into thinking that because we have facts, we have information. we now have incredibly sophisticated ways and devices for gathering and distributing facts. but in reality, we are inundated with the flow.
information overload
experience now tells us that a major cause of the failure of internal communications is trying to tell everything to everybody, randomly and often irrelevantly. information overload, no matter which communications devices are used, results in people not hearing information they really need. information overload, then, means no information at all.
a basic tenet of a sound program is that not everybody has to know everything about everything. success lies in defining who has to know what, and why.
nor does internal communication do much when it’s random and disorganized, and not focused on objectives. it does work, though, when there’s a plan and a program, no matter how simple, for your own firm, no matter how large or small.
the profound need for internal communications
the consultant david maister talks about the one-firm firm, in which all of the people in a firm, regardless of their specialties or positions, function together to enhance the firm and its objectives. everybody understands those objectives, and recognizes that what’s good for the firm is good for them. of the many elements that contribute to the harmoniously successful firm – the one-firm firm – none is more fundamental than good internal communications.
at the same time, internal communications is bidirectional. allowing people to be heard – internal communication must work both ways – is crucial to making a firm of any size function as a solid phalanx to the marketplace.
the cost of poor internal communications
relegating internal communications to second-class status can be costly, even to the smallest firm …
- the service promise you make to clients can’t be fulfilled if the people who have to make the promise a reality don’t understand and accept it.
- in most firms, people go to clients, to the offices of other firms, to other cities. with half the staff off site on any given day, an internal communications program is necessary to keep everybody informed of everything they must know in order to function productively.
- in even the best run firms, turnover can be high. that means that new people must be educated constantly, either from scratch or by updating. no goal can be fulfilled, if the people who have to make the promise a reality don’t understand and accept it.
- motivation begins with communication. if everybody who shows up for work every morning has a different view of why he or she is there, then there’s no cohesive motivation. all the motivational speakers in the world aren’t going to help.
- if there’s no clearly defined internal communication plan, the most urgent directive, no matter how clear or simple at the outset, is garbled, distorted and diluted as it goes down the line to the people who have to act on it.
- cross-selling is doomed if the firm’s professionals are uninformed about all aspects of the firm’s range of skills and experience.
- there is a great deal of information that must be imparted to every individual in the firm. but each person has a different degree of responsibility, experience and access to the firm’s practices. each must use the information differently. each bit of information means something different to each individual in a firm.
- and of course, there’s always the need to fight rumors and misinformation.
these compelling reasons dictate that internal communication not be arbitrary or random; that carefully designed programs are both necessary and cost-effective.