How do you use communication to engage your team in company growth plans?

Get and keep everyone on your team engaged in your company growth plans by consistently communicating the company’s key messages.

Give your team the confidence and stability they need for their roles and commitment to the company. This confidence stems from understanding the company goals, so be sure the team knows and is comfortable with the leader’s plan. Because it’s the strength of the plan and commitment to the plan that’s going to ensure the success of the company and protect the employees’ future.

Communicating the plan once is a good start. Communicating the plan repeatedly is better. Communicating the plan consistently is where you find buy-in and commitment from the team. Following are suggestions for developing a regular habit of team communication.

Annually

Pull the entire team together and share your goals and plan for the year.

Annual kick-off meeting 

• Communicate your vision of the company’s future.
• Talk about why your vision is important.
• Explain your plan to get there.
• Let the team know how they are critical to your collective success.
• Be open about how they will be impacted.
• Talk about how your team is expected to contribute to the execution of the plan.

Introduce each initiative with a corresponding goal/objective, one at a time. Allow for discussion so the team can engage with the ideas, understand how the new ideas will be incorporated, and know how they will be individually impacted.

Quarterly 

Share your progress along the way. Bring the team back together each quarter to remind them of the plan (initiatives + goals/objectives) and update them on your progress and/or challenges.

Quarterly all-team meeting 

• KPIs – Review all Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you are tracking annually. KPIs are the numbers that tell your story and allow you and the team to make adjustments to ensure the company is on track to reach its goals. A Key Performance Indicator worksheet will help you keep track of your KPIs.
• Quarterly priority – Discuss the progress to the initiative you’ve identified as the quarterly priority.
• Progress towards annual goals – Celebrate the wins you’ve made and be honest about the progress.
• Establish next quarterly priority – Providing a shorter-term goal makes “wins” more accessible. Create reasons to celebrate and keep the team engaged in the progress.

Effective communication is critical in times of change. It helps create a healthy culture and a unified team that achieves goals. Take the time to communicate the company's key messages, reinforce them regularly, and the team will reward the company with loyalty and effort.

Meeting planning chart

Don’t make your planning more difficult than it needs to be. Here’s a chart to keep track of when you’ll meet and what you’ll discuss.

Set your agenda for the Annual Kick-off Meeting and each Quarterly Meeting.