Within every organization, there are people who spread the “news”. Are you using them to your full advantage?
An often-underutilized resource in organizations is the informal “grapevine” of communication. While normally used by employees to discuss rumored initiatives, general feedback, and occasional gossip, most managers are not using (or even recognizing) this as a tool to disseminate and test information.
The first key, though, is to identify the spreaders. Who are the people most likely to start sharing information? Who are the people others come to for “news” or for their “perspective”? Who are the people seen as the leaders or as those “in the know”?
Second, identify a goal of sharing information through informal networks. Usually, it is either to test seeing how a new idea may be received or to begin planting seeds for a new change coming.
Third, begin to share casual information with the spreaders. See how they respond, listen to their initial feedback and thoughts. As you begin to refine the idea, wait for them to return (because they always do) with more feedback and thoughts gathered from sharing the information.
Finally, launch your idea, usually with much more ease and better reception than just dropping it blindly on everyone.
Be careful about using these informal channels for nefarious purposes. But using them to test the waters and refine your efforts to improve your team or organization is a significantly underutilized resource in the leader’s toolkit.
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