Costs of Not Having Results-Oriented Communications (ROC)
Blog: Jim Sinur
Let’s stop burning money on poor communications. Identifying the actual costs for not having the best communications aimed at specific outcomes and attaining the goals of anyone organization is an elusive task. However, some irrefutable trends point strongly to higher and growing costs. Let's start with some base studies done within the last decade. One study was aimed at large organizations, and the other was at small to medium organizations.
The Past Base Studies:
In "The Cost of Poor Communications," David Grossman reported that a survey of 400 companies with 100,00 employees or more each cited and an average loss per company of 62.4. million per year because of inadequate communication to and between employees.
In her article "Top Ten Email Blunders that Cost Companies Money," Debra Hamilton asserted that miscommunication cost even smaller companies of 100 employees an average of $420,000 per year.
It’s Much Worse Today:
If these studies were refreshed, I would assert that the numbers are much higher for several reasons. One is that we are moving to distributed responsibilities and matrix-management styles create confusion over day-to-day priorities operationally, longer-term priorities tactically or strategically. To compound this problem, we can communicate faster-automated collaboration and communication tools across various communication channels.
You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet:
The future of work is hybrid, adding another level of complexity and opportunity for misunderstanding with a potentially new crisis of confidence for the workers at the edge. Recently, Gartner says “By the end of 2021, remote workers will represent 32% of all employees worldwide, impacting how and where remote workers use IT.” Our employees want and can demand these new freedom levels, and organizations need to get that talent is now hybrid. Unfortunately, this opens us to a more extreme lack of focus and losing perspective on purpose. It also does not optimize innovation; therefore, the credibility of the organization and individuals wanes.
What’s at Stake?
Besides just time and productivity loss because of chaotic communications, project failures have and will continue to be. These, in turn, result in the following: