Russ Schoen

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with a participant in an innovation workshop about what stops people in their organization from implementing new ideas and new strategies. The response was “we don’t have enough time/or resources to do it.”  This is a common response that I hear from many people from a variety of industries… so it got me thinking about this question: What % of problems in a team or organization are directly related to Communications, Teaming and Collaboration and NOT due to resources such as money, technology or time? What do you think? 10%? 25%? 75%? Well if you guessed more than 75% you would be right! At least that is according to some articles in Harvard Business Review which state over 80% of a team’s and organization’s problems are due to communication issues. In their August 2005 HBR article, Richard Steele and Michael Mankins also found that the average team only achieves 63% of their financial objectives and that the team’s biggest blocks are…. you guessed it: * how well they communicate, align and how they hold each other accountable to results… so I invite you to think about what are you doing deliberately to help your team’s or those you work with collaborate better?