Do you use to-do lists?
I’m that guy. When I have a lot to do, the to-do list comes out. I love to be able to read it, see it, and most importantly, I like to scratch things off it.
My wife is so gracious, we’ve been together a long time, and while she might not Mrs. To-do List, she has graciously accommodates my way of seeing the world. She knows if we’re going to organise something now, then it’s going to have to have a list. Now she just starts them herself a recent trip even had two lists,
1. What do we need to pack? and,
2. What do we need to do before we leave?
You see what I did there, I made a list of the lists we have.
Maybe you don’t write it down like I do, but have you ever added a task to your mental to-do list which involved communication. Write Bob an email, update the team on that project, tell my child they were wearing their pants inside out...but only once we’ve got home from school.
In my experience, it’s this approach to communication that means what we communicate is likely to fail. The fact that we think that communication is some item on a to-do list, is the problem. That saying it, or sending it, let's you tick it off your list and move on to the next one. In a fast paced world where we are always communicating, involved in multiple conversations over multiple mediums all at one time we can fall into the trap of thinking, ‘I communicated. Done.’
As a Nobel Laureate in literature once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
This summed up our family morning routines for years, “Buddy, I asked you to pack your school bag like 15 times now”. But I found it happening at work as well, I found myself in team meetings repeating what I thought I had already communicated. I was convinced everyone else was the problem. If only they listened better, focused more, were smarter or the classic, why don't they just respect me. Like many people, I mastered the subtle art of the opening line in my frustrated emails, 'As per my previous email...', or 'As per our conversation...'.
The problem with this approach to communication is it takes no responsibility for my successful communication and requires only that everyone else change. I am giving away my ability to communicate effectively.
In a nutshell this is the old adage, “communication is what’s received, not what’s sent.” Unless I take responsibility for what I’m trying to communicate, I may never actually communicate it. we have to move from ticking our communication off, to actually communicating.
For those familiar with Stephen Covey's concept of concentric circles of concern and influence I had to shift from looking at the issue that I was concerned about, i.e. people weren't listening to me, to focusing on the things I could influence about the problem, i.e. how can I communicate better. In other words, I could stay frustrated about how people were listening, or I could change the way I was talking. Only one of those things I had influence on.
By way of a practical application, there are two key questions, warning, both of them feel clunky at first. because this is not common practise, but both are hugely effective.
Firstly - "Just to make sure we're on the same page, why don't you tell me in your words what we're doing next?"
That, or some variation, means whoever we're talking with has the opportunity to internalise the communication. To respond, they have to do more than hear it, they have to structure it and present it back to you. It's so much more effective than our classic, "Does that make sense?". The answer to "Does that make sense?" is whatever they thought you've said, which gets us no closer to making sure we're on the same page, it's a truly irrelevant question
Secondly - "What I hear you saying is..."
Obviously this on the flip side of the equation, if someone is speaking to me I use this to make sure I have internalised what they've said. It gives someone else assurance they're been heard, or the opportunity to correct my misunderstanding.
It's amazing to me to note how often I've used these two simple, quick questions and found a disconnect. It's no wonder I found myself frustrated and feeling like I wasn't able to communicate.
To improve our ability to communicate ideas and concepts clearly, it can't rely on everyone else around us, we have to decide to change. We have to ensure what we attempted to communicate, we did actually communicate. But there are still many ways of doing it, so we have to decide what else we're going to communicate other than just our decrees, how do our values and character come through too. We'll cover that in the next thought.