I thought my desk was clean. Then I read today’s blog entry from business coach, Jack Bergstrom. Check out the pictures and see for yourself. Or just let me describe it to you: clutter-free. His desk is clear of papers. He keeps five active paper files, each dedicated to his primary business tasks. His bulletin board has only a few, meaningful images. And his computer desktop has five active folders.

His point? “Everyone performs better, achieves more, with less stress, when they focus on one thing at a time,” writes Jack. “You can quote me on that!” I just did. And I agree with him. I think we focus on so many things in our lives that we actually mistake being only marginally cluttered for being organized. The contrast between my desk and Jack’s desk proves it.

You can consult Jack’s website on how to de-clutter your personal and professional life. But since you’re on my blog, take a minute to think about the communication streams within your own business. How cluttered is your organization’s communication? How focused are you, really?

Try to account for the following:

  • How many projects does your average employee take on at once?
  • How many different teams are your employees interfacing with?
  • How many “priority” and “mission critical” initiatives do you have going right now?
  • How many internal communication channels (web, email, bulletin boards, flyers, team meetings) do your employees need to consult to stay abreast of company information?
  • How many external information channels inform and shape the work going on within your organization?

No matter how large your company or how it’s organized, this is bound to be a long list. We rarely lack for information. What we lack is good information. How can you de-clutter the communication streams at your company?

Here are a few ideas:

  • Be on the lookout for communication turf battles. Don’t let the web site be the sole domain of one department while email is dominated by another. Find a way to merge competing streams, making one reliable pool of good information.
  • Take a look at your strategic initiatives. How appropriately are they communicated? Is the information about them timely and trustworthy? Does the messaging conflict with messaging about other initiatives?
  • Engage employees in the streamlining process. Get a feel for how synchronous or conflicted their sources of information are and how they navigate those sources. Get a feel for how they then forward information along. Get your employees to recommend changes — and then take them up on it.
  • If the above seems overwhelming, a professional communication audit may do wonders for you. A communication consultant can help you understand how communication functions within your organization, where it breaks down, and make recommendations for enhancing it.

I, for one, have been thinking about my own company’s messaging for quite some time. I think it’s a bit cluttered. It’s getting better, but it still needs help. Even communication consultants, I suppose, find that communication is an imperfect game. But one worth striving to improve, nevertheless.

If I could only transfer that to my golf game. . .

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