A Reminder About Communication
Today’s post probably won’t be anything new to anyone reading it but some experiences over the last couple of weeks reminded me that success in most everything is about communication. It doesn’t matter if it’s sports, relationships, business or most any other area. What and how we communicate makes all the difference.
Sports Example
My son had multiple soccer games last week. The two games that I watched their defense played extremely well. The biggest difference to those games and some others I have watched in the past was how the defense was communicating. They communicated positioning, the need for help if it was needed and found ways to encourage each other. At the same time they were also helping correct each other so they could improve real-time. They did a great job, especially considering it’s a group of teenage boys.
What We Communicate
There are two aspects of communication I want to talk about. First, what do we communicate. This is a fairly nuanced subject but what I want to focus on today is being deliberate in what we communicate. It is critical that we choose what we communicate instead of just saying the first thing that comes to our mind.
Last week I had an experience with a colleague where he made a couple of mistakes that could have been avoided. They were things that we had discussed in the past and I am responsible for coaching him so I knew that I would need to have a conversation with him. I was pretty frustrated with him and with the negative consequences of the mistakes on our customer service.
I had a decision to make at that point. What did I want to communicate with him? Did I want him to know how upset I was? Did I want him to know that he his errors had made us look bad? None of those were right. What I wanted him to understand is that we could have avoided the negative impact on the transaction and our customer service if we had followed best practices. I had to deliberately decide what I wanted to communicate with him.
How We Communicate
Continuing with the example above, once I knew what I wanted to communicate with him, I then needed to be deliberate in how I communicated with him. First, I had to take a few deep breaths because if I had immediately reached out to him, I would not have communicated well and all I would have communicated was frustration. I also knew that instead of just jumping in, I needed to change my approach and ask questions. The questions would help me deeper understand what happened but would also help lead him to the way it should have been handled rather than me just telling him how to do it differently. Finally, I knew that I needed to have him go in and correct the situation himself. This wholistic approach had a much better chance of successfully getting the right message across.
Some Additional Points
These two examples bring out some important points about communication. First we need to know/decide what we want to communicate. Second we need to be deliberate in how we communicate. If we don’t, we will be less successful in our communications.
Here are a few other things to consider:
What is your communication style and what is the style of the person you are communicating to? You can refer to a previous post here for more information on this topic.
Be aware of the non-verbal communication. Especially in today’s world of video chat, it’s key that you understand how your facial expressions and body language communicate with your audience.
Be aware of methods of communication that are not really communication. This could be a whole blog post in and of itself, but the key here is to recognize the limits of text based communication. Email, chat and mobile messaging are so heavily used and for good reason. But they do have limitations and it can be difficult to communicate emotion and other key communication queues that may impact the message you are trying to get across.
Be aware of the verbal queues you are passing on. Tone of voice, speed of speech and things like sighs all communicate a message.
Summary
I think my biggest suggestion here is to be deliberate about communication. There is just too much riding on it to leave it to chance. Evaluate the message you want to communicate and then figure out the best way to do it. And if you really want to get into the weeds, take a look at my previous blog post on knowing yourself or reach out to me with questions.
Any effort you put into improving communications will be worth it.