what's the right way to address a direct report who lacks communication skills?

Question

I have a direct report who is mostly great. He's smart, competent, has great ideas, and is very pleasant. He's not particularly communicative, though. He doesn't regularly update me/our team on projects when he should; he basically forgets (or chooses not to?) share relevant info that's important for everyone else to be aware of. I don't think this stems from shyness; I think he's simply careless about communication. What's the best way to address this without discouraging him?

Paula R. Joseph · Answer

Nikki, it may be a lack of organization skills or unawareness of how important that can be to his project. I'd ask him to set up a simple project schedule with timelines and action items. For instance, every Friday have him send an email to you/the team about the project's accomplishments for the week, milestones that are due in the next week, and who owns each task. Start with that and continue to refine it with him to be as precise, proactive and engaged as you need it to be to feel informed. And encourage him to mirror this practice for other projects or even his own personal life. He might be a visual learner and seeing everything in a document might just click. Good Luck!

what's the right way to address a direct report who lacks communication skills?

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