WHAT’S the common denominator between marriage and management? According to my spouse, married people and managers have many things to say but for some political and benevolent reasons must consume only a short period of time to say it.

“That’s why our natural tendency is to try to pack in as much as we can in one sentence,” she emphasized while we’re inside a Jollibee outlet enjoying the promotional give-away by BPI MasterCard.

That’s another thing I like about her. Bonnie is an intelligent partner. She knows that nagging can be dangerous to a happy, married life. Just the same, I cautioned her that communication is not about the number of things we say and the time needed to say it, but rather it’s about the things that are understood by the receiving party.

For those of you who are planning to get married this year. Let me tell you one thing: Marriage is made in heaven, but a lot of the details have to be worked out here on earth. I was coming from the point of the 1982 international bestseller “One-Minute Manager” by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, which is still around and still selling millions of copies around the world.

This monumental book lives up to its name, literary and figuratively for being an excellent and concise business homily. If you don’t have a copy of the book, then let me tell you it’s basic thesis. It talks about three ingredients in communication and leadership: First is one-minute goal-setting. Second is one-minute employee praising. And third is one-minute employee reprimanding.

Managers communicate with one another using a variety of channels like bulletin board postings, intranet, e-bulletins, memos, circulars, payslip messages, elevator announcements, e-mail, instant messaging, video teleconferencing, and face-to-face meetings. That is the meaning of “channel richness.” You have more than one reason and option to communicate with people.

If management decides to limit its option by posting its message in the bulletin boards, no matter how impersonal and one-way it appears to be, then we can suspect that there is something wrong with one’s organizational style. Just like in marriage, posting a message on the door of a refrigerator would convey a different message to the recipient and other observers, including your own kids.

In the corporate world, the choice of channels is important because management would want to make sure that its message to the employees must reach them in a timely and effective fashion. As a long time human resource head of different major industries, I’ve always come to the conclusion that the best way to communicate with people is through a general monthly assembly, if not done through the so-called birthday clubs where top management talks to celebrants in a kapihan (coffee break) setting.

In the United States, this is commonly-known as town hall meetings. In Japan and the Philippines, this is best known as Labor-Management Cooperation (or consultation). One ideal example of LMC is Unilab’s Bayanihan that has successfully stood the test of time.

Whatever approach that management takes, it must be complemented by MBWA (or Management by Wandering Around) where line supervisors and leaders must deal directly with subordinates by regularly spending time, walking and talking with them in their work area or shop floor, and not inside the comfort of their air-conditioned rooms.

The channel richness of face-to-face interaction between management and employees must necessarily be summarized in a one-page document posted in bulletin boards or intranet.

Knowing how and when to use channel richness is a major communication issue to employees in many organizations today. Sometimes, when management practices a one-way process, like by limiting itself to bulletin board postings, it becomes a fodder to many employees to organize a union.

Believe me, when you have been in people management as long as I have (5,000 years), you get used to different types of employees such as those who could be suspected of placing radio receivers in their teeth (connected to their labor lawyers) so that you have to be careful in talking with them.

Anyway, the other sure fire way to maintain industrial harmony is for you, from time-to-time have a serious, after office hours talk with potential rabble rousers in a beer garden, preferably decorated with dancing young girls. This management approach is usually not found in management guidebooks. I am not exactly endorsing this approach. But what I’m saying is that while the problem employees are enjoying their drink; make sure that you as the manager would make sure to foot the bill.

Rey Elbo is a business consultant on human resources and total quality management as a fused interest. Send feedback to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or follow him on Facebook or LinkedIn for his random management thoughts.