The shrink was in yesterday, talking about personality styles and what they mean, and the tactics a good and faithful employee needs to employ to communicate successfully with the people around you. This information was filed dutifully with the last go-round from this particular shrink, and the Watson-Glaser results, and the Meyers-Briggs, and the Good Whale guy, and the Five Love Languages, and the Flag Page dude, and the Women Are From Mars, Men Are From Venus schtick, and the lessons learned at the fall-backwards-I’ll-catch-you workshop (lesson No. 1: don’t fall backwards), and the reams of academic stuff from grad school, and the proposal for a dreamstorming session at church involving large Post-In Notes and a potluck, and the last missive from my wife wondering why I don’t listen better.
How can I listen? I’m way too busy trying to figure out what to say and how to say it.
Not only are the hills alive with the sound of music, they’re alive with the peripatetic movements of communication consultants brandishing their valid and reliable instruments and practically giving away the secrets of how your employees can talk more gooder at only $100,000 per secret. But only if you act now.
There’s an academic term for this: ick. That money should by all rights be going to you, because you know how people can communicate more effectively, and if you don’t now you will soon, because I’m going to tell you.
There’s no discounting the importance of good communication. Good marketing is based on consistently effective communication. Unless you’re selling Lady Gaga on a stick you can’t just hold up your product and have people flocking to you waving fistfuls of cash. You have to tell them something about your product in such a way that they want your product. And that goes whether you’re indoors, in the friendly confines of your office, doing reenactments of Care Bears episodes with the folks from Operations, or outside, making sales calls.
Okay, so what’s good communication?
Good communication successfully delivers all dimensions of a message successfully to its intended recipient. So in order to make that work you need to understand all the dimensions of a message and how they’ll be perceived by the person on the other end. And in those two components you can find all the contents of the highfaluting theories being peddled by so-called communication consultants.
Or, simply, think before you speak.
Think about what you want to say, boil it down to one or two essential truths, and then think about how to say it in such a way that those essential truths come across unsullied.
One of the reasons bombshells are so heavy is so that the explosive will explode when it’s supposed to. Yes, the shell makes a fine crackling noise when it explodes, and the boiling-hot, deadly shrapnel is a huge bonus, but it’s all about the gelignite, and getting that to go when and where it’s supposed to.
Think of your communication acts as bombshells. I realize it’s almost illogical flattery to think that a memo informing the design team that lines 12 and 13 have to be moved a eighth of an inch would be a bombshell, but the person who put lines 12 and 13 there for a reason would like to see you outside. And bring your playbook.
Something is always going to be offensive to someone. Ham it up and a vegetarian sees red. But if you enter into your communications knowing there’s a risk of offense you can plan a defense. It might be for you to tell them to – in one of my favorite phrases of all time, courtesy of the Canadian parliament – go forth and multiply themselves. If the essential truth you want communicated is, “You’re an idiot,” and you decide upon careful consideration of all alternatives that saying, “Go forth and multiply yourself” is the best alternative, then by all means, be my guest. Here are your white gloves and opera hat. But leave me out of it.
So step one is understanding that your message is the chocolate that melts in their mouth, and the medium and the words chosen are the candy shell that guarantees the chocolate melts in their mouth and not in their hand. Step two is realizing that some people don’t like brown M&Ms.
The shrink would tell you some people don’t like brown M&Ms because their brains are wired to not like brown M&Ms, and you have to avoid brown-M&M-speak when talking to these people. I’m telling you that there isn’t some sort of psychiatric field hospital where you can tie these people down and perform a Meyers-Briggs with the spring from a ballpoint pen and some dental floss. You have to communicate on the fly to a broad spectrum of M&M lovers, and you have to push the chocolate through the candy shell, regardless of its color.
Understanding that someone will invariably misunderstand your intent and your content, here’s what you do: Use short sentences. Avoid adjectives. Eschew surplusage. Offer to show your work, but don’t show your work. Stress tangible outcomes. And always communicate via the richest media channel available.
Media-richness theory is one of the pet concepts I got out of grad school in exchange for $20,000 and a permanent case of writer’s cramp. It basically states that certain communication channels can carry more information than others, and that a key to effective communication is choosing the appropriate channel to carry the message.
Simple, but I can eschew even more surplusage: Say it face-to-face whenever possible. Walk down the hall and talk to people. Don’t send an e-mail. Don’t pick up the phone. Don’t hide behind convenient media because they’re convenient. Do the hard work, take the extra step, and you’ll be rewarded for it.
Face-to-face is not a panacea. One of my clients could reduce a Harvard MBA to a plate of aspic in face-to-face settings, and he knew it. But those people are far between, and the alternative is often worse.
So there you go. Say it in person, keep it short, emphasize the bottom line, offer more. Do that and you can communicate professionally with just about anyone.
Try it, and if it works, don’t thank me. Just send me the hundred grand you don’t send the communication consultant. Heck, I’ll settle for fifty.
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