Tag: communication

Prepared to communicate

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If you do not have time, if you are too busy, if you have many things to do, if you are juggling different tasks.

Then avoid sending important messages or giving important speeches.

Effective communication requires time and intentional effort. No, you are probably not a natural communicator, and people will not get it one way or the other.

Depending on your role, communication might have different degrees of importance for you. If you are a leader, or if you are in a position of power, you should probably have it among your key priorities. But unless you can dedicate enough time to prepare for it, silence is your second best option.

[The time it takes me to prepare for a speech] depends on the length of the speech. If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.

President Woodrow Wilson

I agree, but

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We have heard that agreeing with people is a way to defuse conflict. And we have taken it so far that the words I agree are two of the most used in companies.

Of course, they are mostly misused.

They are often an easy way to gain some short-term sympathy, to prime the others to positivity, to prepare the ground for what you are going to say next. They are a delay to the inevitable.

I agree, but.

To come to a real agreement implies that you are going to at least slightly change your perspective. It means the actions that follow I agree actually show that you are in agreement. It means that you are ready to support what the other just said, even outside the current conversation.

If instead you are just preparing the ground for disagreement, be brave enough to own it and say I disagree instead.

I agree, but erodes trust, openness, and candor.

It is just not worth it.

Engagement

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If you are in a position of power, it is important for you to acknowledge that any one of your actions that suggests external causality (i.e. if you do this, I will make this happen) is going to reduce both intrinsic motivation (i.e. the tendency to seek challenges, to use curiosity, to learn) and the internalization of factors such as values and responsibilities.

Using a popular term, we could say that it reduces engagement.

In this study, you can find quite many of such behaviours that are very common in organizations: setting deadlines, giving directives, carrying out performance reviews, imposing goals. The single individual will feel that they are not in control, that they are not autonomous, that they are not competent.

It takes guts to go against what decades of management practices have made normal. And it starts with awareness.

The greatest gift

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If there is only one thing you are going to dedicate more time to in the future, make it be listening.

Do not rush to tell your piece, learn to sit still with your assumptions and conclusions, give others the space to come up with their own version, accept that silence is not you giving power away.

Listen. Truly listen. To understand. To help the other understand.

It is the greatest gift of all.

All the time

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We will act fairly.

Once this bad period is over.

As soon as we have launched this very important new service.

When the new manager will be up to speed.

If only we would win this next bet.

The fact is, integrity does not allow conditions. You are either fair, or you are not. And actually, once you start cheating, cutting corners, taking shortcuts, there is good evidence that you are onto a slippery slope that will take you deeper down the hole. Raising up from there is not as easy as one would think.

Find your principles, set your boundaries, draft your rules. And be genuinely committed to them.

All the time.

The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former classmates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

Clayton Christenses, How will you measure your life?

P.S.: How important this is for organizations! This is why organizational culture fails so often. As culture is often built in meetings and not anchored to reality, a company can find hundreds of ways and reasons to deviate from it. When that happens, there is no sanction. And the culture drifts …