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Graham_McHugh's avatar
Graham_McHugh
Iron Contributor
Aug 24, 2021

Microsoft Teams Chat vs Channel Posts

In my experience, people tend to avoid posting in Microsoft Teams channels and use chat to communicate with team members instead. My guess is that the reluctance to post in channels is tied to the fe...
TerenceRabe1's avatar
TerenceRabe1
Brass Contributor
Aug 25, 2021

Graham_McHugh 

 

Yes, I strongly believe it matters. Team leads and champions absolutely must visibly model this behavior, but not just them, your org leadership should do it too. Leadership is not just about making the big expensive decisions, it's also about leading by example.

 

This leadership from the top will also go some way to addressing the fear of ridicule which is at the root of the fear of public speaking. Team/channel owners can also reward channel posts with like/love emojis and engaging with the posts in a sincere and supportive manner.

 

Finally, it's essential to have compelling use cases for people to understand and accept the "why". Valuable insights shared in 1:1 or group chat are locked in to only those participants, whereas a channel message is a transparent, inclusive and democratic mode of communication... <tough love>if you can't come up with a relatable example of why this is good for the business then you need to take a step back and reassess whether Teams is the right tool for that workload and/or team.</tough love>

 

I'd also give some thought to Yammer as a KM tool 😉

 

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