Communication

Last week, I reflected on the top lessons I learned from 2023, so, this week, I will go deeper into one. One of the issues that came up last year was that we saw the basics of communication had fallen apart. The year was replete with miscommunication, causing trust issues, resentment, and anger.

I am not certain of the causes, but it was clear that we lost the intentionality of messaging while the amount of communication increased. It became a case of quantity over quality.

Part of the cause must be the sheer volume of communication and messaging confronting receivers. Take e-mail as an example; it took on epic proportions during the pandemic, and it hasn’t let up. I believe the e-mail is also closely followed by instant messaging from corporate networking tools like Teams or Slack. There are many ways to send messages without engaging the recipient except to drop it in their inbox.

During COVID, this became an art form. People sent messages at all times, and schedules became packed as everyone was busy staying in touch. Additionally, online meetings increased as we all tried to keep in touch. With the working hours filled with meetings, the only time to review messages was late at night. Perhaps this is how productivity increased, but it became of life where one was “no longer working from home, but sleeping at the office”.

Hybrid work in 2023 possibly continued the trend. However, the issue with this pace and cadence is that the deluge makes it hard for people to respond thoughtfully. People need time to think and plan, and with more things to react to, with little time to triage, there is no time to prepare to send messages.

A byproduct of all this overwhelming messaging was that people sent messages and believed they had done their part. Last year, I heard “Well, I told them once” a lot. The problem is that we assume they are solely focused on our message, however, they may not catch the message as intended in the melee of multiple communications.

Trust started to deteriorate because, with little time to prepare, context was often lost in the sent messaging. We could not ascertain intent when antiseptic words replaced nuance, and receivers of messages were left to use only one sense to gather information – sight by reading. Without being able to use all our senses to communicate, we must just read, and this limits understanding. Making this worse was a reluctance to speak to people by phone or face to face. It has been proven that the least effective way to communicate is by written word.

That was last year, and so not to drive through the rearview mirror in 2024, allow me to offer some thoughts for 2024 communications based on Bill Jensen’s book Simplicity:

1. As the sender, you are accountable to ensure the receiver understands your message. This means no “fire and forget” messages. You must make sure they know your intent
2. Messages need to be user centred, we need to think about what is important to the receiver, and every message we send needs to include these three things; otherwise, it is useless to someone: Know. What specifically do they need to know? This means no dump of data but a distillation of relevant information, usually based on the context of why. Feel. How do you want them to feel about the message? Emojis are a great invention, but ask if I want them excited, angry, or engaged. Do. What specifically do you want them to do due to your message? This is critical. Too many messages are cc’s and we know that cc is just a form of cya.

We have found these to be useful guidelines both in Forrest and with our clients and, if you take a moment, check over the next batch of e-mails or texts and see if they meet this framework.

I leave you with a quote from George Bernard Shaw that is a great reminder in our day-to-day lives: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.