How does information get passed up and down the chain in your organization? Which communication techniques do the best job of keeping everyone well-informed? And are you assuring that communication is a two-way street, giving everyone's voice a chance to be heard?

Failure to communicate can ruin employee engagement. Robust two-way communication has the opposite effect. In this episode of Behind the Curtain: Adventures in Continuous Improvement, podcast hosts Dr. Mohamed Saleh and John Dyer discuss the positives and negatives of several communication techniques and share insights on tactics that have worked for them.

They begin by reviewing three common communication techniques -- monthly messages from leadership, tiered huddles, and newsletters/hall of fame boards/demonstrations -- and ultimately focus on tiered huddles. Tiered huddles, Saleh explains, include members from adjoining roles. For example, a Tier One huddle may include team members and their team leader; Tier Two could encompass the team leader and his supervisor, and so on up the chain.

Tier meetings typically have a cadence approach during the course of a day, starting with the frontline employees and then moving up the chain of command.

The cadence is meant to provide a rapid escalation process, he explains. If one of the tiers isn't able to resolve a problem, it gets escalated to the next level, and "then they have a chance to remove those barriers for you." Tiered huddles also are a good coaching vehicle, he adds.