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Preprints & Reprints A BETTER CLASS OF COMMUNICATION During my early career I worked in a government institution organised and run on classic civil-service lines: rigid, over formalised and bureaucratic. The primary means of communication was paper, usually in triplicate, with the time needed to move letters and notes between departments typically 12 or more days. Why 12 days? For senior managers, simply dictating a letter, then having it typed, corrected and signed off could take two or three days. For junior managers, who had to use the typing pool, this could extend to over five days during busy periods. The internal and external mail system would then take a further two days, or more. If the original letter was dictated on a Monday morning, this meant that it was posted late on Friday, arrived the following Monday, and then the process began again in reverse. Today many organisations achieve delays of less than 3 days, but this still seems excessive in a world of rapid industrial restructuring, company downsizing and market transformation. To say the least, the telecommunications industry is in the vanguard of this technologically driven change process, which is being intensified by deregulation and competition. Getting results fast and minimising the time to market are now the name of the game So three years ago I decided to moved my entire 660 strong department onto electronic working. I did this with the dual promise that I would destroy all internally generated paper and respond to any electronic communication within 12 hours. As I am blessed with an understanding family, a robust constitution that requires little sleep, and a determination to see just how far electronic working could go, I took this as a 24 hour, 365-day-of-the-year obligation on my part. Of course, people outside my organisation still write me letters and I likewise respond, but if their letter contains an e-mail address, I reply electronically. So how has this all progressed? Statistically, the change from my old civil-service days has been dramatic. My average response time to any communication is now about three and a half hours. I have replaced over half of my external paper mail with electronic communications, 98% of which - both internal and external - is completed within 12 hours. All my managers are on-line, and have access to laptop computers enabling them to communicate from all points of the globe. During the working day the vast majority respond to communications well inside my 12 hour deadline. Their desire, like mine, was to find ways to work smarter - not longer or harder. Commercial pressures had already seen workloads increase and the working day expand. We had to rise to the challenge and find ways to vecome more effective - better communication was just one obvious ingredient. Overall, we have seen our operational performance improve dramatically with the adoption of electronic working. Inevitably, however, statistics tell only the least interesting part of the story. For myself, the greatest benefit I have received from the 35-60 e-mail messages I process each day has been a dramatic increase in the time I spend engaged in the oldest means of communication: talking. The number of letters I now write has fallen from an average of 12 a day to less than five a week. I also make fewer telephone calls - and most of those I do make are made on the hoof, from pocket or car phone. True, I send far more e-mail than I used to send paper letters, but I spend less time doing it because it can be less formal, more terse and to the point. In reply to a page-long business case to buy equipment from David, my response would typically be: D = GO. P. In response to a group message requiring several diverse actions by Bill, Mike, Dave and Anne, my response - sent as a single e-mail copied to all four - might be of the form: B = OK - do it, but take care. M+A = I have no idea, but Roger might. D = I suggest you buy one and try it. A = Can I have a full copy to read? P E-mail does not suffer from decades of formalised ritual, it is new and experimental. You can do what you like; discover what works and what doesn't in your organisation. That is the real power. For me it not only cut the time I spend on formal communication, but it has also put me into direct communication with a wider range of people. With a widened span of contacts, I have a better foundation from which to tackle the most important part of my job: a dialogue with my customers and colleagues devoted to understanding and directing BT's Research effort. With less time spent on formal communication, there is more time to walk the floor and talk to people. As a result I am now a more effective and efficient manager and mentor. With more effective communication we were able to reduce the managerial hierarchy from four to two layers. It was also possible to empower everybody in the organisation to respond more quickly to the needs of customers and colleagues. Answers to questions, approval and agreement are only a message away. So decision-making can be immediate and cerebral reassurance is always on line! So what are the problems? Well, e-mail can be too easy and too popular. Messages get copied to everyone. In some organisations, people receive over 300 messages a day, just sorting through them is impossible. You have to repel borders if you are to avoid electronic overload, which requires both self-discipline and management to discourage unnecessary communications. Living in a faster-paced world dictates the discipline of keeping up with communication, and adjusting to a business life that becomes more chaotic, less ordered and more opportunistic. Also, everybody has to remember that, even if you can reply quickly to a message, you don't always want to. Some replies need careful consideration if feelings are not to be hurt, or complex situations made worse. And finally there is the problem of sockets. To try to honour with my 12-hour promise, I travel with screwdrivers, crocodile clips, a set of international connectors, and a nose for sockets. As an engineer, it has been fascinating to discover the number of different socket types and communications technologies used around the world - and as an executive immensely frustrating. For example, the same RG11 connector is used in Europe and the USA, but with a different pin out. The most recent development designed to thwart my efforts, is the installation of arbitration units in some North American hotels. These add long delays while some mysterious negotiation decides which carrier and circuit will carry my international call. From the point of view of my computer, this is just as bad as 30 years ago when international calls were all connected manually. Perhaps in a few years, digital mobile-radio will eliminate my socket hunt? I now have a GSM cellular telephone connected to my laptop, and, within Europe I can roam from country to country. But as the majority of my overseas travel sees me in North America, where the mobile radio standards are different, I don't expect to see a dramatic improvement in my performance. So, responding to 98% of messages in less than twelve hours is about as fast as I am likely to get for a while. Long live my screwdrivers and crocodile clips! |