Third Quarter Results: A Promising Indication - Audio

Greetings Everyone,

I am honored to present you with an audio recording summarizing our third quarter results. I believe you will enjoy the good news I have to share with you. Simply press Play on the video player below (If you would like to view a larger view of the audio recording click on the 'Full Screen' icon in the lower right hand corner of the video player). Thank you for all of your hard work and have a great day.

Third Quarter Results: A Promising Indication

Greetings Everyone,

Congratulations on a successful third quarter! While our market forced us to painstakingly restructure our business strategies, our third quarter results highlight the success of our efforts. 

Through our team’s perseverance we achieved great third quarter results. Profits rose an astounding 9% over last quarter. Our improved profitability was fostered by our innovative sales and marketing initiatives, which produced an 6% sales increase, and our reinvented production planning system, which increased production efficiency by 12%.

Our great results were achieved by you, our wonderful workforce. Kathy’s ingenious sales plans, combined with Greta’s creative marketing programs, helped us break into new markets. Additionally, Rick’s drive to improve manufacturing efficiency, combined with Chris’ revamped production planning system, have produced faster order processing, improved work flow, and decreased inventory. All of these efforts to increase sales and cut costs, combined with your unwavering dedication, allowed us to prosper in this difficult market.

Moving forward we will continue to improve product quality and pioneer new market segments. We have the knowledge, skills, and resources we need to maintain our success. Thank you for your hard work and I look forward to the promising fourth quarter ahead of us. 

The Perfect Catch

She hit hard, a sudden jolt. Heart leaping, he felt her pulling away. She was fighting for freedom, he to catch her. The thin line between them determined success or failure. The run ended, the two united. He admired her beauty, but had to release her. The fish swam away.  

Quality: Our Competitive Advantage

Quality is our competitive advantage. We recently received accolades from a customer whose lounge chair mysteriously vanished from their lake shore patio during a storm. Three years later the customer discovered their chair submerged below their dock. Upon its return to dry land the chair still looked, felt, and worked like new. As stated by the customer, "Our chair is in perfect condition. It is amazing." It definitely is remarkable, and is a testament to the level of quality with which we produce patio furniture.

Reflecting on this example I realize our ability to produce such a bullet-proof product is due to you, our sophisticated and proficient employees, whose collective knowledge and skills have garnered our company a well-earned reputation for producing high-quality patio furniture. Through our T.C.F. Quality Initiative we will continue to design and produce Time Tested, Comfortable, and Fashionable furniture collections that differentiate our company from the competition.   

Hearth & Home Magazine acknowledged us for "providing the best quality products" in our industry with "the most salable designs,” putting products on showroom floors that produce "the highest profit margins." Top this off with ranking first among retailers for "providing the fastest, most consistent delivery" and we have poised ourselves as the leaders in our industry.

Telescope Casual Furniture has a promising future. With our dedicated and wonderful workforce producing superb products and services I am confident in our ability to continue excelling in our industry as we prosper and grow.

Developing a Social Media Platform

Social media is transforming the business landscape, completely changing the way organizations communicate with their business partners and the public. In order to remain competitive in our business environment ABC Corporation is developing a social media platform to capitalize on the benefits social media sites provide. Yet, in utilizing social media technology it is integral to remain aware of the threats social media can present to ensure our business's reputation and relationships are not harmed. Therefore, when utilizing new social media sites we believe it is wise to take a cautionary approach, ensuring our business is able to capitalize on potential benefits and mitigate any possible risks.

The corresponding white paper, found here, provides further insight into social media’s role in business, ABC Corporation’s stance and subsequent reasoning surrounding social media, and six key guidelines for effectively utilizing social media platforms.    

Encouraging Employee "Voice"

I came across another insightful article I wanted to share from HBR. The article, titled Good Communication Goes Beyond Open Door Policies, provides an interesting perspective into workplace communication between managers and their employees. As stated in the article, “managers can only know what they are hearing, not all the things they aren't.” While open door policies encourage employees to speak with their managers, it has been found this passive policy is not sufficient for promoting employees to continually speak up about business topics. Rather, “employees are much more likely to be forthcoming when their input is solicited.”

The insights in the article speak to the importance of managers taking the initiative to encourage employees to share their knowledge, ideas, insights, criticisms, and suggestions. Further, an environment must be developed that fosters open communication and stifles fears of speaking up too much. Employees may be enthusiastic to share information under their own will; yet, if managers do not take the initiative to seek out information they may be missing out on substantial insights that could be of great value to the organization.  

Think Before You Speak

The attached HBR article, A Simple Communication Mistake to Avoid, written by Peter Bregman, provides a great story about the importance of practicing effective communication.

As we have learned thus far effective communication is essential to leading successful organizations. In the article Bregman speaks about the importance of thinking about how we communicate based on the needs of our audience. Within our routine business interactions we find ourselves in situations where we must think about how we are going to communicate with our audience in order to avoid reacting in an unprofessional manner that would stifle communication and collaboration.

Upon reading Bergman’s article I related his message to a variety of communication scenarios I have witnessed within my organization. Far too often I have seen co-workers react in ways that are not conducive to effective communication and collaboration. Rather than taking the time to think about the situation, as Bregman suggests, the individual reacts based on their emotions. However, if they had simply considered the situation from all perspectives they would have been able to shape a more appropriate response. In turn, more successful communication would have resulted, leading to a more productive solution. In the future I will consider Bregman’s message, as it can prove valuable for shaping communication that fosters strong working relationships. 

A Call to Action

We find ourselves in difficult times as our market is continually changing and forcing us to re-examine our business strategies. While demand for high-quality, American-made products has increased, our business is threatened by cheaper imports, unrelenting competition, and diminishing market sales.

Our workforce is our greatest asset and most precious resource for success. The knowledge and skills you posses will propel us through these difficult market conditions to prosper into the future. Through constant innovation our success as an organization will continue, and we will further establish our position as a market leader. We encourage you to initiate actions and make decisions you believe will add value to the organization. Great deeds will always be rewarded, and honest mistakes will never be punished. It is through success and failure that we learn and grow.

We remain committed to our mission to “consistently supply products our customers can rely on for quality and value...and provide the best service possible.” Through teamwork and perseverance we will achieve this mission, as your roles are directly related to our strategy and ability to achieve our goals. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to continuing to grow as an organization. 

We Should Never Stop Learning

We witness incidents of effective and ineffective organizational communication on a daily basis. While some organizations may have more occurrences of one over the other, the examples we observe provide valuable insight into improving our own communication skills.

My organization has very effective organizational communication skills regarding the implementation of new policies and procedures. When a new policy or procedure is enacted in our organization it is communicated to employees through e-mail, inter-office mail, and posted in the appropriate locations throughout our facility. The extensive distribution of the new policy or procedure ensures it is readily available to the appropriate audience, as well as guarantees employees are aware of, and have access to, the proper documentation.

   

Admittedly, a recent example of poor organizational communication occurred last week in an e-mail correspondence between our production manager, a manufacturing supervisor, and myself. In the e-mail I incorrectly stated the supervisor had requested a specific change, when in fact the supervisor had discussed the change with the Director of Engineering, who then approved the change and requested its execution. My inaccurate statement left the supervisor feeling as though I was placing blame on him for the undesirable change, in turn producing a defensive reaction. Looking back, I should have reviewed my choice of words more carefully before sending the e-mail.  This would have allowed for more effective communication, in turn resulting in the issue being dealt with more efficiently than it was.

      

Reflecting on examples of good and bad organizational communication provides valuable insight into how we can be more effective communicators in the future. I think it is important to continually observe communication tactics and learn from them to achieve continual improvement. What tactics do you employ to improve your communication skills?