Symph Talks: Communication

This is the first post in our Symph Talks series, where we share advice from our Symph team meetings.

Why communication matters

Everyone wants to be heard, at home, at school and in relationships. It would be suffocating if all you could ever do was what you were told, with nobody hearing what you have to say.

That is why two-way communication matters so much at Symph. It is much easier for executives or directors to give orders and expect employees to follow, but we believe that is not always effective or sustainable.

A study of a company in the Netherlands found that "when employees voiced their opinions less often, their conflicts with colleagues increased. Conversely, employees who thought their manager was indeed paying attention spoke up more often and got along better with one another, improving the organization's functioning as a whole."

Symph believes in ideas, creativity and collaboration, and that needs a team with voices. Nobody on the team was hired only to follow rules. If they had been, Symph would not have grown into what it is now, and it would probably be little more than one person behind a laptop with a limited skill set.

If you want your team to perform as well as they can (or better), pay attention to what they think and how they feel. Be sensitive to it, ask them, listen and try to understand.

That is what makes collaboration work and keeps the internal workflow smoother and more pleasant. It takes extra effort, but it is worth far more than it costs.

As Dave, CEO of Symph, puts it, "Your team is a safe environment."

You can always count on your team to do their job for the company, so be someone they can count on too.

At the end of every week we have team meetings where we listen to the brains and hearts of our founders. These talks have amused us, taught us and helped each of us in more ways than one, so we are sharing them in the hope they help you too. That is where Symph Talks comes from.

Read another Symph Talks post, on setting priorities, here.