From Chaos to Clarity: Unlocking Effective Communication, my own CABS Framework

Do you have the feeling that your team does not understand what you are trying to convey even though they tell you they have understood? Are you starting to lead and you find it hard to convey to the technical teams what needs to be done?

Do not worry, you are not alone, I have been through that too and there are many people who find themselves also in the same situation,I will only tell you one thing, you can solve it easier than you think.

Today we are gonna dive deeper into the first key learning we took from that special steak and I want to give you something that would have been great for me to know when I started leading teams. Today I talk about how to communicate effectively with your team.

Let’s start with a story. This story is more of a horror story, that a colleague of mine in the industry suffered a few years ago, and when he told me about it I couldn't get over my amazement, but more importantly, he learned something valuable when it happened to him, I did when he told me and you will when you read it, I'm 100% sure.

New feature for Black Friday

My colleague was working in an e-commerce company, it was his first time leading a technical team. The marketing team proposed an advertising campaign to increase sales and profitability by 20% compared to the previous Black Friday. The proposal was approved by the business.

The task was to implement the possibility of adding a discount code which, if entered on the checkout page, for purchases with a value above 150€, would apply a 30% discount on the total purchase.

This new functionality had to be up and running a few weeks before Black Friday, an advertising campaign was going to be carried out. This campaign would cost 2 million euros and the results had to be measured.

How was it going to be measured? Through the discount coupon BF30, this would appear in the ad, so that all purchases made with this code would be attributed to the campaign.

Black Friday, campaign launch and results

By the time Black Friday arrived, the functionality was up and running, and the team achieved a very important milestone!

The day the ad was launched on TV, thousands of orders started to arrive, so far so good? until suddenly an email came in from the marketing department saying: "All sales, ALL! are? are going through with a 30% discount with the code BF30, also those that are less than 150".

24 hours later the error was solved and only orders of 150€ or more could receive the discount, as initially communicated… Or that’s what they thought. Obviously the company lost money because of the error as the feature was implemented wrongly.

What happened, the critical point that went wrong

When my colleague received the ask from the marketing department and they explained what they wanted, the ask was not clear enough but my colleague accepted it regardless (First mistake). Later that day he called the technical team for a meeting, he wanted to explain the change and get them to work on it.

He started the meeting and began to explain to the technical team: "The company is going to launch an advertising campaign. That:

• will be on media
• will need an investment of 2 million euros
• is expected to have a profitability of 20% more than the previous Black Friday.
• will track the purchases of 150€ or more.
• will be done through the discount code BF30.
• will apply a 30% discount
• Blah blah blah… - (Second Mistake)

After an hour and a half long meeting with too much data and countless "vanity" metrics, the meeting ended. My colleague asked "is everything clear to you guys?" and the team answered "yes" (Third mistake)

Have you ever seen this meme before:

Funny right? It is funny because it has happened to us all - and we identified with it, so we laugh!?

Well, it happens every day in companies, it happens between departments, it happens between a leader and his team, understanding customers… It happens as long as people are involved and the reason that happens is no more than a lack of clear communication.

Understanding and being understood is very important, especially in the workplace. My colleague made 3 mistakes, as I pointed out before:

1. He didn't ask for clarification with the marketing team - Probably afraid of looking stupid asking for info again.
2. He gave too much information to his team, diluting what the clear task and benefit was.
3. His team didn't ask for clarification either - Probably a problem of trust with his team

For not doing 1 or 2 hours of extra clarifications, and all these miscommunications resulted in an important loss for the company.

How to communicate effectively, my own CABS framework

Effective communication is a very important skill, if there is no good communication with the team/client, there are always problems.

And believe me if I tell you that in my beginnings I had a handicap that made my communication with my team more complex, as my native language differed from theirs.

Over the years I have developed my own communication framework, I called it the CABS loop framework and I would like to share it with you:

• Context of the problem/situation
• Action or task to be taken as simple and clear as it can be
• Benefits of the task, to give a reason of meaning
• Sense check, to make sure everything is 100% understood and clear. If you think at this stage it is not, the most minimal doubt about it, you start again and try to simplify even more. That’s why it is a loop ;)?

Let’s apply the CABS framework to the meeting my colleague had with the team:

• Context: Black Friday is coming and the business wants to increase the number of sales
• Action: Implement a feature that gives a discount coupon BF30 in the month of November and only applies to orders over 150€.
• Benefit: The business will increase revenue by 20%.
• Sense check: Is everything clear? Do we know which code we are using? Which month? What is the threshold? - If any of this fails, we start again

The loop is key, it is very important to always be open to clarifications and feedback because for good communication it is good to reiterate the message to validate that it is clear and everything is 100% understood.

On top of the CABS framework, I am giving you an extra tip too: Pay attention to the body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other non-verbal signals, as they can convey as much meaning as spoken words. Align your non-verbal cues with your message to enhance clarity and authenticity.

One last thing

In the last month a bunch of people have told me that they really like my newsletter and that they are learning loads from it. I love it but not one of them has reacted or left a comment on any of the posts, that's completely fine!

Why am I telling you this? Because I would like to have more feedback on what I am contributing and if you are not giving it because you don't want to do it publicly, which I totally understand, I don't want to miss out!

So, if you liked this post and you want to show me that you liked it, send me a private message with "CABS" or whatever really! and then I can measure more, if it is positive or not.

And obviously if you do wanna help me publicly please like, share and comment your feedback, so I can share?my learnings with more people interested like you!