The second ‘T’ of Communication: Be Transparent

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that communication becomes even more critical during periods of high change, as there is often new information each day. We hope this TEAMES & CO Framework helps you and your team build stronger communications.</p><figure id="dc91"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*ZoE2dRZrx1ROYCaRGrw8uw.png"><figcaption>Source: <a href="http://www.teamesandco.com">TEAMES & CO</a>, All rights reserved 2023</figcaption></figure><h2 id="f869">Let’s Jump In</h2><p id="6650"><b>Transparent</b> Often times as a leader, you may learn information before your team. And there will be times you cannot share all the information you know. Accepting those two facts, you need to work with your leader to understand what you can share with your team and when you can share it. Remember you want your information to be timely, but you also want to be sure you are upholding your responsibility of confidentiality.</p><p id="d078">Transparency when coupled with timely means that all teams are getting relevant information when they need it. So you will want to engage with the broader leadership team to plan the communication of information. Sharing an aligned message will help teams collaborate but having each team leader personalize the message to their team so they know how it specifically impact them and their work can engage each team at a higher level.</p><p id="6f7d">For example. Say your organization is opening a new office location. You and the other leaders set up a time to share this great news. You are growing you are excited! You want to think through questions people may have, and how you will answer them. You will not brainstorm all questions, but the e

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xercise will help you cover as much information as is possible. These could be things like: Where is the office? Will anybody be transferred, or will it be all new team members? Will your team have team members located there? You will still probably have a few questions that you will have to truthfully answer that you do not know yet, but that transparency is also important. It gives your team an open door to help and provide ideas, suggestions, and feedback. You can even invite this as part of your announcement with a statement like, “We do not have all details fully final, but we wanted to share the news as soon as possible. We invite your feedback, and many of you will be involved in the project from here through grand opening.”</p><p id="900a">Once you have the communication plan, and have made the announcement, each leader should engage their team in the details. The strength of transparency is that it invites lots of other people to make the plan even better. Engaging your team can help the organization think through all scenarios, or at least more than one leader could assess on their own. Engaging your team to assess it from their role, can help ensure that you are maximizing their expertise and thinking through all angles.</p><h1 id="0e9e">More to Come</h1><p id="5f8b">Tune in the rest of this week or <a href="https://tracy-eames.medium.com/subscribe">subscribe</a> to see the launch of the next articles about the 3 T’s of Communication.</p><p id="3013">If you enjoyed this article and want to access all of our articles (and many many more from other Medium writers) join <a href="https://tracy-eames.medium.com/membership">Medium</a> today!</p></article></body>

The second ‘T’ of Communication: Be Transparent

How to use the TEAMES & CO “3 T’s of Communication” to help you build team communications. Act Timely, Be Transparent, Use Touchpoints….and the bonus ‘silent’ T — Say Thank you!

This week we are talking about communication. Why? Because it is easily the number one question, we are asked about in our work to help leaders build effective teams.

Whether it is about daily communication or giving and receiving feedback, leaders at all levels want to improve their communication. And teams with strong communications thrive. Communication is vital. It helps ensure everybody has the information they need to be successful. It helps us build better ideas. It enables problem solving. And it allows you to connect with other team members.

At TEAMES & CO, We have a simple framework: The 3 T’s of Communication: Timely, Transparent, and Touchpoints (we also add a bonus “silent” T — Thank you).We will share all three this week, and will add links to this article as they post. Subscribe to get notifications of their launch!!.

This framework can be a helpful reference day-to-day or during times of change i.e., large project launches. It’s important to remember that communication becomes even more critical during periods of high change, as there is often new information each day. We hope this TEAMES & CO Framework helps you and your team build stronger communications.

Let’s Jump In

Transparent Often times as a leader, you may learn information before your team. And there will be times you cannot share all the information you know. Accepting those two facts, you need to work with your leader to understand what you can share with your team and when you can share it. Remember you want your information to be timely, but you also want to be sure you are upholding your responsibility of confidentiality.

Transparency when coupled with timely means that all teams are getting relevant information when they need it. So you will want to engage with the broader leadership team to plan the communication of information. Sharing an aligned message will help teams collaborate but having each team leader personalize the message to their team so they know how it specifically impact them and their work can engage each team at a higher level.

For example. Say your organization is opening a new office location. You and the other leaders set up a time to share this great news. You are growing you are excited! You want to think through questions people may have, and how you will answer them. You will not brainstorm all questions, but the exercise will help you cover as much information as is possible. These could be things like: Where is the office? Will anybody be transferred, or will it be all new team members? Will your team have team members located there? You will still probably have a few questions that you will have to truthfully answer that you do not know yet, but that transparency is also important. It gives your team an open door to help and provide ideas, suggestions, and feedback. You can even invite this as part of your announcement with a statement like, “We do not have all details fully final, but we wanted to share the news as soon as possible. We invite your feedback, and many of you will be involved in the project from here through grand opening.”

Once you have the communication plan, and have made the announcement, each leader should engage their team in the details. The strength of transparency is that it invites lots of other people to make the plan even better. Engaging your team can help the organization think through all scenarios, or at least more than one leader could assess on their own. Engaging your team to assess it from their role, can help ensure that you are maximizing their expertise and thinking through all angles.