Are you talkin’ to me?

After seven long articles about the Future of Project Management (thanks to all the folks who followed the series), I am returning to some shorter articles about the most important and time-consuming activity that all great project managers understand … communication.

Within the Seven Consulting expert Program Managers and Project Directors group, we spend well over 50% of our time on projects in communication with sponsors, stakeholders, teams and this percentage is likely to increase as AI automates many of the administrative processes of project management and stakeholders become more demanding for inclusion in delivering projects that impact them.

We all know that communication between people is both complex and demanding and we all can get better at it.

So … to get started let me talk about the growth of some poor communication behaviours I have observed in our new hybrid working world.

Is your screen frozen or are you just not listening?

In so many Team or Zoom meetings I have attended or facilitated, it is common to see some folks in the meeting with their screens turned off (often on mute) and those with screens on, occasionally looking down at either their phones, emailing or looking somewhere else.?

This type of behaviour would generally not be tolerated in a face-to-face meeting. When I am facilitating a face-to-face meeting, I ask people to turn-off phones or, if they are waiting for an urgent call, when the call comes to leave the room to deal with it. Meetings are about people connecting and to connect you need to be present in the meeting.

However, apart from “blank-screen” participants, there is another really disconcerting behaviour I see way too often. Perhaps it just me but I also find very off-putting when, after you say something, you have 10 faces just looking at you … just looking …blankly! Is my internet slow, am I drooling or am I not communicating well enough? Simply, it disconcerts me.

As many of you know, I have spent my life communicating as an educator, consultant and author and, folks say I am a pretty OK at it …. so I suspect, sometimes when I don’t seem to be connecting with people perhaps I just haven’t been clear enough in trying to communicate my ideas but I believe in many other cases,??the lack of feedback or response is something we have just come to accept.?

Many years ago, Professor Albert Mehrabian studied what factors influenced effective communication and he suggested that effective communication was determined by 3 key factors –?Verbal?or the choice of words used,?Vocal?or the tone, pitch, pace and volume of how the words are said and?Visual?or the facial and body expressions used when communicating. While there are slightly different conclusions, the optimum mix or these factors was roughly:

·??????Verbal??- 10%

·??????Vocal??- 35%?

·??????Visual - 55%

There are many profound implications from Mehrabian’s work. For example, many politicians have engaged vocal coaches to address how they sound (Vocal) when they are speaking. Certain cultures have very different views on expressive body language (Visual). Personal note: as a young Australian raised in a British-centric culture (i.e. be calm and carry on ... don’t show emotions) when first I went to Lygon Street in Carlton (an historical centre for Italians in Melbourne), I was fascinated while watching Italian folks over a coffee gesticulating while they spoke in an animated way with each other.??It was awesome!

Get the Visuals, Verbals working?for you

Having spent decades teaching folks face-to-face in many countries, you get pretty good at looking for visual clues (often very subtle) as to whether you are getting your message across. Understanding Mehrabian’s model, in a hybrid world, it is the lack of visual clues created by the behaviours I raved about earlier that really makes it hard for us to get feedback as to whether we are connecting and communicating or not.?

Of course, checking in every so often whether folks are agreeing with you or not is one way to get this feedback but, personally, I find this tends to get repetitive and lose impact.

So, here is my first Tip for you.?Encourage visual and verbal feedback during on-line meetings.

Whenever I am facilitating a Teams or Zoom meeting, I explain that I need help from the participants in making sure I am communicating effectively (or words to that effect).

I suggest that during the meeting visual clues such as nodding in agreement, thumbs-up or thumbs-down or other visual clues are really welcome and I acknowledge and thank the person/s who do this during the meeting. Of course, you can also suggest the use of “emojis”. I also encourage people “jumping in” during the conversations rather than waiting for a break. Don’t let the need for smooth-flow stop debate and inter-action. I also encourage people to say “I agree Rob” or “ I disagree Rob” or similar verbal clues.

For sure, this sounds really simple and obvious but, I can attest that, once folks get used to these types of behaviour, it catches on and meetings become more enjoyable and productive.

I used to speak at large global conferences and, in a Boston conference, the conference organisers gave all participants (over 500)??… wait for it … Red, Green and Yellow cards (about 3 x 5 cms). If they agreed with what a speaker was saying they could hold up Green cards and, if not, a Red.

Sounds weird but I can tell you it was amazing. I’d say something and hundreds of Green cards would go up. I say something else and lots of Red cards were there amongst some Greens .. time to stop and have a conversation .. had I mis-communicated my point?

Now I am not suggesting you give Zoom participants Green and Red cards … or am I???

I have just finished reading a good book … Scott Walker’s?Order out of Chaos?. Scott is a world-renowned hostage negotiator. He states “A negotiator knows that the person is not going to open up until they feel seen, heard and understood.”

More on this and other communication tips next article. See some of you at Seven Consulting’s brilliant Delivery Summit in Sydney June 1.