Poor communication is a hindrance to good business. Poor communication can damage a company’s culture. Any person charged with running a business probably knows that.
But Steve Rector has another take on the subject: “Poor communication is the root of all evil,” he says. “That’s the theory with me.”
The president and CEO of Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point has a lot at stake when it comes to communication. He oversees a staff of 1,000 people, employed in a variety of departments and disciplines. If communication breaks down on his watch, the results can be far-reaching and difficult to correct.
“Effective communication has been the most consistent challenge across the whole organization,” Rector says. “How do you not break that chain of communication; how do you keep it flowing from the bottom up and top down, horizontally and vertically? It has been a huge challenge to ensure that we keep communicating effectively each and every day.”
Rector has met the challenge by acknowledging the various ways a large group of employees will seek and absorb information, and then working with his leadership team to construct varying avenues through which management can disseminate information.
“You start to learn that people will learn and absorb things in different ways,” he says. “Not everybody learns the same way. Some people are visual learners, some are auditory, some have to touch the message and have it in their hands in paper form. So it’s communicating all the time, in various media so that it’s constant repetition. That’s how to start to make it effective, and make sure it’s a two-way street.”
But there are always ways to communicate more, and that is the ongoing task for Rector and his management team, in an effort to keep everyone throughout RMC Bayonet Point engaged and motivated to carry out the center’s health care mission.
