by Lynn Tipton, Executive Director
My department knows the sentence above: I repeat it at meetings, in emails, and have even said I want it put on my tombstone (but I want to be cremated, so I guess there won’t be one). No matter how many leadership and management books I read, lectures and workshops I attend, or gurus I meet, I think most everything comes down to communication. We are either effective, or we are not.
I know we all struggle with it, and all the more so since we have multiple media at our fingertips all day (and night). I’m trying to proactively ask myself before each email and phone call: what do I want from this communication, and how can it best be delivered? Most of the time, I’m reaching for the phone instead of email because I have realized that many work colleagues don’t check their emails as often as I think they will. I’ve been told that emails are skimmed for action steps and put in a file to be read later; that certainly works against timeliness. But I understand why: there aren’t enough hours in the day for phone, email, text, social media and e-browsing. I probably average six to ten links per day – all with a request to review it, check it out and/or let the sender know what I think. This doesn’t include the many links on Facebook and Linked-In asking for my time. I could spend a few hours every day at these links, and there just isn’t enough time. I have to decide which ones to actually visit and which to skip.
Budget preparation is well underway; I know many of you work diligently on your city and county budget messages. Budgets are plans, and tools, and financial records all in one; they are critically important communications tools, too. I want to wish each of you well during budget season and I look forward to learning your best communication strategies – if we are going to thrive in multi-media governments.