SPIT Take Two

This morning, SSJCPL's Strategic Plan Implementation Team (SPIT for short) came together for their second planning session. Using PLA's Implementing for Results text as a guide, the group started in on the exercises laid out in chapter one of that book.

If you take a few moments to view the meeting notes that have been posted to the SPIT wiki, you'll see that it was an interesting session to say the least. When I first read through the notes, I admit to being just a little surprised at what can be perceived as negativity. When I asked a couple folks from the team about this, they reminded me that the questions under discussion were designed to evoke potential negative reactions to the strategic planning and implementation process. Whew!

However, while I felt a little relieved upon hearing this, that doesn't change the fact that many of the feelings included in the comments aren't still floating around out there in our branches and other departments. I found today's comments very useful not just in the context of our planning process but also as a reminder that, when I feel like I'm doing everything I can to be inclusive of staff concerns in my work, I really need to try twice as hard.

This really isn't surprising. In every organization where I've worked, the first complaint that "the front line" has with management is "poor communication". What is the answer to this all to common problem? I sure don't know, myself. What have you seen in your organization as a particularly effective means of communication between management and staff?