5. Communication Systems
(Or: "How to stop playing broken telephone with your company's future")
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5.1 Internal Communication
The Art of Not Drowning in Notifications
📅 Daily/Weekly Updates
Stand-Ups That Don't Suck
Format Good For Pro Tip Time
WhatsApp Voice Notes Remote teams Limit to 60s per person 5 min
Slack Threads Async teams Use 🟢/🔴 emoji for status 3 min
Google Form Data-heavy updates Auto-compile into weekly report 2 min
🔥 Horror Story:
A Delhi startup's "15-minute standup" became 2-hour debates. After 6 months:
• 37% of workday lost to meetings
• Key projects delayed by 11 weeks
• 3 top engineers quit over "time waste"
Stand-Up Template:
markdown
# [Team] Standup - YYYY-MM-DD
**Yesterday:**
✅ [Done]
🛑 [Blocked by X]
**Today:**
🎯 [Top 1 priority]
**Needs:**
🆘 [Help wanted from @Name]
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✉️ Email/Chat Discipline
Slaying the Notification Dragon
The 5 Commandments of Messaging:
1. Subject Lines Are Sacred
o Bad: "Update"
o Good: "URGENT: Client X contract edits needed by 5PM"
2. Thread Death Penalty
o After 5 replies, mandatory Zoom call
3. Channel Dictatorship
Topic Channel Response ETA
Life-or-death Phone call 15 min
Urgent Slack @channel 1 hour
Important Email 24 hours
FYI Newsletter Whenever
💀 Nightmare Scenario:
A 217-message WhatsApp thread caused:
• Missed investor deadline
• Two team members dating (then breaking up)
• ₹8L deal collapse due to crossed wires
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🛡️ Communication Health Check
"Is your team aligned or just noisy?"
Parameter 😱 Tower of Babel 🛠️ Some Rules 🛡️ Navy SEAL Precision
Meeting Hygiene No agenda/outcome Some structure 22-minute hard stops
Message Quality "Pls find attached" Clear asks Structured templates
Emergency Comms Mass panic calls Defined chain Encrypted crisis channel
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🚨 Communication Emergencies
"When everything goes sideways:"
Disaster First Response Prevention
Critical typo in client email Recall message + call Use Grammarly Business
Slack/email outage Switch to SMS fallback Printed contact list in safe
Miscommunicated deadline Over-communicate correction Dual confirmation system
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📌 Founder's Comms Toolkit
1. The 5-Minute Rule
o If discussion takes >5 minutes → Jump on call
o Document conclusions in shared notes
2. The Notification Charter
o Employees can mute after 7PM
o Urgent tags cost ₹100 per misuse
3. The Zombie Thread Killer
o Weekly "message diet" where teams:
Archive dead threads
Convert key info to SOPs
Celebrate most ridiculous miscommunication
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🎯 Final Thought
"Clear communication is the oxygen of scaling. Without it, growth suffocates."
