The confusion that occurred earlier this week, when the VP of my department was concerned about one of my projects, got me thinking. If the directors at the highest level were communicating with their bosses, this situation could have been avoided. Where there is no communication, confusion is the direct result.
My suspicion concerning the events this week leads me to believe that my department VP was getting false information about this project from another VP. Both directors under these VPs were obviously not communicating the project information I was giving them. I provided project status to these two directors, as well as the managers under them. My question is why was this information not communicated up to the VPs? But as I mentioned earlier this week, did the VPs pay attention to the information in my executive summary? Anyway, going back to the topic at hand, it is the job of these directors to make sure the information flowed up. I did my part by communicating to the team members, managers and directors with bi-weekly status reports and updates. But for some reason, the communication link was broken and panic set in.
I learned that if there is a break down in the communication chain, the first thing that management will try to do is blame you. Luckily, I did everything I should have on my end, by making sure the managers and directors were copied on important project issues. Plus, I SAVED all of my e-mails, in case I needed proof to back up the information that I sent out. So when you do everything in your power and have the proof to back it up, the only person they can blame is themselves. But, I doubt that their ego will allow that.
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