So you think you are a good manager?

Did you know 9 out of every 10 employees say they have worked for a bad manager? So claims research carried out on behalf of UK law firm Eversheds. The research further says that 97% of employees want their bosses to communicate better.

'That can't be me,' I hear you say. 'I use email, I have a mobile phone, a Blackberry, Instant Messenger, am on Facebook, Bebo, Linked In, Twitter - heck I am participating in Web 3.0 fully, how the heck can any of those ungrateful employees say I don't communicate? The key point is that THEY don't listen.'

Evolution in Communication

1894 - the dawn of the communication era when the first phone calls were made and someone had the idea that a free wire to every home would allow postal services to 'monetise' real-time communications rather than mail. Fast forward to 1989 and the birth of the internet and we are undergoing 7 year cycles we are told from Web 1.0 which was essentially the era of 'Find me', Web 2.0 was 'Join me' and Web 3.0 in which we are now living unless you hadn't realised is about 'Follow me'. Will Web 4.0 be the era of 'Oi, what are you looking at?' or 'Stalk me'? The very act that you are reading this, written by a guy in London connected to the web via thin air but presented to a web population of over 1 billion people world wide, is evidence of the 'Follow me' era (you can follow me also on www.twitter.com/nigel_dunn which works over Instant Messaging and your PDA/phone - go on you know it makes sense.....really).

So why they heck are 97% of employees saying bosses don't communicate? Bosses have never been more accessible and communicative - they don't even have to have an open door anymore, the communication network means they can be seen while working at home by any one or more fancy devices.

The Lost Art of Communication

As we enter each phase of web and communication development it seems that the exciting part is the ability for each individual to be found, joined and followed. This is a very narcissistic point of view. If you think that is a big and clever word for a chap like me it's because I borrowed it from Graham Jones, an Internet Psychologist who is a co-member at my club. Not one of those snooty clubs in London that don't allow Ladies, I am talking about The Ecademy. I think Graham has a point. The web has exploded all around us and it provides us with such an amazing platform to communicate and yet we have siezed it in the main as tools for self-promotion.

So when we communicate, are we really just saying what we want to say and people hear only what we say, yet that actually is not what they want to hear? I have read that back to myself and convoluted though it may sound, it makes some sense.

I remember the late Robin Cook, who a few months into his job as a Cabinet Minister, woke up one day and found that Britain had overnight become involved in a small fracas in Sierra Leone or somewhere similar. As we he pulled on his dressing gown and watched the TV he must have called his Private Secretary (no not the one that may have been on his 'company's books'-type who also makes the breakfast, although I did see him with his then 'Secretary' on a train to Brussels once doing anything but taking notes, the rest of that is history), and he demanded why had no one told him. The be-suited Civil Servant cleared his throat and probably said that the memo was in his 'Red Box' with all the other memos which he had declined to read. The Ministerial equivalent of a 'cc' on an email which did not get read.

The point being that the explosion of communication has its downside - too much information can lead to filtering otherwise our poor heads would simply explode. People want knowledge, direction, information and news but they would like relevance, context and delivered via they way they work, with a skinny latte to go if you please.

What can Managers do Better?

So if 9 out of 10 of you ungrateful people who I have ever managed think I'm that bad and 97% of you who didn't bother to listen to me wanted me to communicate better, what the heck was I saying that a) you didn't understand and b) didn't want to know? And for that matter, what on earth did you want me to say?

As I sit here, bristling with communication devices - I have Skype, email, IM, phone, PDA, camera, headphones, loud-hailer and even a plain old landline - I have never been more able to communicate but still it isn't good enough? I haven't got time between answering all the emails you people below me send clogging up my Blackberry-style device to answer everyone or for that matter think of what you might want to know. Go read my Twitters, my blog and free downloads on my website - somewhere in all that guff will be what you need to know.

Is that standard management practice or have I got it wrong? Perhaps this Web 3.0 'Follow me' stuff is going to take us further away from what is required. The problem with all this self-promoting, follow me webby communication is that it is very much like Robin Cook's dilemma. How do you know what is relevant in all this communication? Do people really want to know once I have finished this blog article I will be walking the dogs?

Management 101

How I hate such pithy lines - what the heck is '101' anyway? What I mean is that sometimes we have to go back to basics. In a world full of twittering, IM'ing, pinging, running up the flapoles and see who saluting, reaching out, bouncing off, internalising perhaps the more we communicate the less we say.

Certainly, the numbers don't lie - 97% reckon managers could communicate better. Wow. So as you hunch over your Blackberry reading my twitter advertising this blog on your journey to the office, don't delete it as irrelevant. Take a look, think about it and then perhaps the first person you see who works for you just take them over to the photocopier and ask them 'Do I say anything that makes sense to you? What actually to do you want to hear from me that will help you do your job better or help you develop?'

I know it's whacky, but it may just catch on. Then again they may just look at you as if you "just don't get it". But it's worth try.