3 Tips To Improve Communication Between Fashion Teams
And how Techpacker can be a game changer
According to the Holmes Report, companies with effective communication strategies have 47% higher returns to shareholders, more engaged employees, and less employee turnover.
Conversely, among 400 corporations surveyed over a year, an estimated $37 billion was lost due to employee misunderstanding or error due to poor communication.
Great leaders are able to communicate. However, while some leaders are great orators, speaking well isn’t all that’s required of a leader. Those who know how to use and implement the best tools for communication will have conquered one of the pillars of running a successful business.
While it is true that some people are naturally good at communicating, it's always possible to learn new skills. These will only be valuable to the extent they can be practically applied when called for.
One instant way to become a better communicator is to simply open your senses: listen and observe; this applies whether you are a leader in your organization or a member of a team. This will automatically earn you a heightened sense of situational and contextual awareness, a quality every great entrepreneur should possess.
This will make you better at reading a person or a group, sensing your team’s moods, needs, dynamics, attitudes and concerns. And in the end, it’s all about meeting the needs and expectations of those you're communicating with.
The truth is, it takes time and patience to mature into an excellent communicator, but if you practice these three essential tips as an initial step, you’ll make significant improvements instantly and benefit your business:
1) Empower your team
Getting everyone together and participating in the development process of the products is a great way to keep your team empowered. In this sense Techpacker is one of the best tools to connect teams as it allows people to work on designs collaboratively, easily interact with each other and get products made better, faster and together.
The best and most respected leaders, know how to delegate responsibilities, trust and listen to their teams and employees.
Teams which are often disengaged from one another like QA (Quality assurance) or even merchandising teams, for example, can stay in the loop of the in the creation and design process avoiding that divide which usually results in long product development cycles, errors unexpected quality issues.
2) Keep it in the open
When your team knows the direction ans plans of the company, they will feel more confident and in sync. Understanding where the company is going or what the designer is aiming at with the collection gives the team a sense of purpose, and allows also for and valuable input from its members. This will also cement the trust between the group and you as their leader.
The Techpacker library empowers everyone in the team to collectively visualize the creative direction of the collection. Its easy-to-use, centralized digital ‘bank of cards’ provides peers, employees, manufacturers and people in their teams controlled access to the brand’s digital assets where they can be seen, used and shared by everyone.
3) Avoid or unnecessary meetings and emails
Regular meetings can be helpful, but there are many tools online that can accomplish information dissemination without having to interrupt individual workflow for a project update.
Emails are outdated for certain kinds of decision-making, and practical ways of coming up with collaborative solutions are necessary in today’s increasingly virtual world.
Using Techpacker is much more effective than emailing back and forth, and having to constantly share and edit documents and sketches. With Techpacker it can all be done in a single app and everyone is kept up to date. Team members can easily search virtual documents for specific details along the design process, allowing people to update and access patterns with minimal effort.
One practical way to communicate is to use the comment section in each card and @ mention a team-member if a notification has to be sent. In addition, the comments section saves the entire conversation history (including file attachments) in one place. this way, you can always refer back to address any issues or misunderstandings that may arise.
The bottom line is that expressing what you want with clarity is key and that communication is not about your opinions or your personal circumstances, it's about needs of your team and understanding their concerns. This will add value to their work and in turn to your company.
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