Why Every Executive Should Have an Audio / Video Communication Tool

Every organization struggles with alignment. The founder / executive / leader has a vision – but how to get there? The journey requires everybody on the team not only knowing the desired end result at a high level – it requires frequent and rapid course correction as markets evolve and the organization learns new information from customers and competitors.

For better or worse, there are tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people in any given organization making decisions every day that will determine the direction and pace an organization moves. Whether the organization is successful or not comes down to whether those decisions are all moving in the same direction.

For example, when a competitor launches a new product, how should your sales, marketing, and customer service teams position your company relative to your competitor? The competitor’s product may be missing a few key features that your team should be highlighting. Or it may be a great product with a lot of similarities to yours that shows the direction the market is moving in, but is less proven in the market. There are a number of ways to position this, but if 20 people try to answer this themselves, they will likely come up with 20 different answers.

A leader’s job is to set the direction of his / her team and make sure that the team has the information and resources to execute in line with that direction. Yet one of the biggest frustrations that most employees have is some mix of ambiguity, lack of clarity on direction, and seemingly contradictory directions.

Historically, one of the biggest barriers to solving this was time – an executive can only spend so much time reinforcing the vision and answering questions. However, smartphones change this dynamic completely. Now, when you receive an email from a competitor announcing a new product, you can easily record a quick voiceover giving your view on how to position your product and send it out at scale. When you see an industry news update, you can give your perspective on how this will affect your company in seconds.

Every executive should have a video communication tool because consistent reinforcement of your company’s direction will not only improve performance but will also show how much you care about developing your employees by helping them grow and think like executives themselves.