Is not a secret that 80% of interpersonal conflicts are related to a lack of communication or ineffective communication. Although we have a complete dictionary to learn new words, speak face to face, and even though we have emoticons nowadays, communication or effective communication is still a topic that we ignore every single minute of the day.
Working in IT is like working in Medicine, communication is a thing. Don’t you believe me?
Imagine a surgeon having wrong communication with their team by the time they are working in a patient surgery.
Try to ask ChatGPT something you believe is the right question and see what it says as a response.
Is not the same as asking ChatGPT: Hey, can you please create a picture of a guy fishing, than hey can you please create an image of a guy fishing. It seems the same, but they are different, they differ not only lexically, but semantically. A picture is not the same as an image, not at least for ChatGPT.
Well, the same happens with humans, as an IT Leader I have dealt with communication issues within my teams (and outside of them). I usually try to be clear and concise with my instructions, however, we always have room for improvements. The methodology I use to ensure effective and natural communication usually works fine, however, you can’t always control what the receptor listens, understands, and then interprets as instruction or information.
As Tony Nadal says in his TedEx Talk in one of his stories when an upset father approached to him after watching a disastrous game his son did in the tennis court, ” is that what you are teaching to my son?”, then Tony replied, “No, that is what he learns, what I teach him is something totally different”.
In one of these family days, we went to dinner at Chillis and the waitress asked us for the dinning request, we told her our specific plates, for me, for my wife and for my kids, however, she messed up everything, ha!, mam, you writed down our dinner’s plates in your food order notepad. Why this communication failed then?
There is another similar story with one of the company managers, I asked him to provide me some data in Excel ( I was new at the company by that time), I created the Excel template and sent it out to him, that Excel had certain headers sorted with a very specific requirement. I also explained in the body of the email what and how I wanted it, columns and rows, guess what… yes, he sent me the columns as rows, and the rows as columns. I said, what? Why not just follow the instructions I gave? I even provided the template to avoid errors or interpretations. Why?
I can continue with examples and examples that I have seen thru my career, not only with me, but with a chain of emails where I was copied, people responding any other thing but not what they were asked for.
So, I believe, at this point you got the point, right.?
Well, let’s see what I do everytime I require to have a clear conversation with anyone outside my body.
Number one: Listen.
Yes, it sounds very basic for you, but, believe me, I have “seen” how people does not actively listen, they usually listen to reply, but not to understand. As a good friend of mine said, ” We have two ears to listen and one mouth to speak, however, we speak more than we listen”. One of my best bosses I have had in my career, said in a conversation with other peer after he requested important information to fix an urgent problem in the network, this was for me the most clever statement that I have ever heard:
“That is a good answer, for something I didn’t ask for.”
Effective communication is a vital skill that can help individuals build strong relationships, resolve conflicts, and achieve their goals. Try to not interrupt the other person while he/she speaks, that will give you the opportunity to get the full idea, data or information about the discussed topic. I always say to the people who interrupts me or someone else : ” Do not talk while I interrupt.!”
Pay attention to what others are telling you, be attentive and try to “listen slowly”, that will allow you to pass judgement and prejudices that might arise while others are speaking about a topic.
Number two: Write.
Yes, once you had carefully listened to your partner, start to write down the instructions or the important information from that conversation. For instance, if you are receiving direct instructions from your boss, you can type them in your computer or in your pocket notebook to make sure you got the right words in the right context.
If you are in a meeting, write down the most important words or direct instructions for you, for your team or for the company.
Writting is a tremendous tool we have to improve our communication and understanding of the conversation.
Number three: Repeat.
It might sound a little bit weird for someone but its actually a useful method for an effective communication. After you listened your interlocutor and take the important notes of the full and direct instruction, repeat is the confirmation of what you listened and wrote down in your note pad. Repeat is so powerful not only by the fact that you actually are telling your partner that you paid attention, but by the fact he or she feels safe after hear you to get the clear instruction or data and he/she will not longer have to worry about the outcomes after your conversation with him/her. Repeat helps you to understand the information you are receiving. You can also use silence frames to allow the other interlocutor to process the information that is getting back from you.
Number Four: Confirm.
After you repeated what you wrote in your note pad, your interlocutor should confirm what you wrote and confirm is actually the rigth process to validate the instruction or data they provided in the conversation.
Confirmation is also used in IT processes, handshake process, even a ping, requires a pong (return back the ping, as acknowledge).
Servers, routers, switches, etc, all of them uses the confirmation to validate an effective communication.
So, going back to the human communication, confirmation is the last but not the least step to have an effective communication within your teams, family, company, department, peers, etc.
Final thoughts, all these 4 steps work for people around the world, you can use it with your peers at Japan if you are from the US, you can use it for your suppliers in Mexico if you are in Canada or India, or Europe and viceversa.
I honestly hope you find this article a good piece of piece of advice and tool to improve your communication with whom you interact every day, and remember, you must stay open to feedback, even if you do not agree with it.
~Bitvorous
Leave a Reply