In January, I wrote the inaugural blogpost for Discuss HR, in which I laid out some thoughts about my aspirations for Human Resources in 2011.  In it, I shared my aspiration – no surprise to you, I’m sure, as a regular reader of this blog – that we learn to hold what I call “real conversations”.  This led to a request that I use my next blog posting to outline what I mean by real conversations.  My posting will be published on Discuss HR on Thursday, 3rd March, 2011.

My goodness, I found it hard to distill into just one posting, the essentials of a real and meaningful conversation!  So, I decided to enlarge on my initial thoughts in a series of postings here on my own blog.  This first posting positions communication.  I’ll be following up with a series of postings on different areas to which we all need to attend in our communication with others.

Recently, when a valued friend and colleague (let’s call him John) wrote in response to an e-mail I sent that “your tone towards me in your email is inappropriate and not appreciated”, I knew immediately that the spirit in which I wrote had got lost in translation.

Communication, it seems, is something we all recognise as important and, at the same time, find difficult. Many organisations continue to invest in training in many aspects of communication. There is no surprise in this: we all know that poor communication skills can lead to any number of outcomes which, in turn, lead to poor business results. Improve communication and we reverse this trend. How is it, then, that even with the level of investment that many organisations make in communication, few organisations boast of their prowess in this area?

Perhaps one reason is this: that few organisations, and few organisations that consult to organisations, have taken any systematic view of what it takes to hold a real conversation, let alone what it takes to make such conversations an ongoing part of an organisation’s culture. In the next two weeks, I shall identify and briefly explore seven areas which need to be addressed as part of any systematic approach to communication in a series of articles here on http://dorothynesbit.blogspot.com/.  I hope that you will find these article interesting both as you consider your own approach to communication and as you consider the prevailing culture of your organisation and its common communication practices.

Meantime, I am interested to hear your questions and I also have some questions for you. Some of these questions are organisational:  to what extent, for example, do you see HR as guardians of effective communication in your organisation? How desirable is it – and how realistic – to have a communications policy which identifies the aspirations of your organisation?  Some of these questions are for you as an individual seeking to communicate:  what are the situations in which you find communication most difficult?  And what is it that you find most difficult about communication in those situations?

Please share your thoughts and questions here on the blog.  This is invaluable for me as I seek to write about the issues that are most pressing for you in your work.