Did we forget how to talk to each other?
Twitter is cool. Wikis are neat. SharePoint is, hmmm, good? And email is email. These tools are all useful in helping us communicate with each other when we’re separated by great distances. They help us bridge the gap by providing fast, efficient means of communication. It doesn’t get more efficient than Twitter’s 140 character limit. But take a close look at these tools. They all share a common characteristic. They’re all based on written communication. While the written word may be very efficient for transferring information, it is not very effective at persuading people or making a real impact. And there is a tremendous difference between being efficient and being effective.
When it comes to organizations and team work, nothing is more important to success than communication. If your organization or team is is striving for continuous improvement, it’s imperative that really rich communication occurs between all team members, from top to bottom and everywhere in between. So why, if this is such an important practice for the success of organizations, do most of us choose to put some of the most important impediments to our success into emails or Wikis? Sure, we transfer the information that something is wrong and needs to be corrected. But that’s all we do, transfer information. Emails, Tweets, Wikis, and SharePoint don’t help us move others to action. Action, not information, is what moves us toward continuous improvement and success. And nothing moves people to action more than the spoken word.
I’ve been reading Bert Decker’s book You’ve Got to be Believed to Be Heard. It’s a fabulous book, and if you haven’t read it yet, you should. In his book, Bert asserts that the written word is the information channel and speaking is the action channel. According to Bert:
Speaking is like a multichannel Surround Sound experience, in which dozens of channels simultaneously feed information to the human mind. These various channels communicate a richly textured, multilayered message from speaker to listener. These channels consist of :
- Posture
- Facial expression
- Energy level
- Eye communication
- Vocal inflection
- Vocal intonation
- Volume
- Gestures and other physical actions
- And more
All of these non-verbal cues help transfer not just the information of the narrative, but the emotion and urgency of the message. They do so more effectively than any number of !!!‘s or URGENT‘s in an email can ever do. And it’s this emotion, this passion, this energy of verbal communication that motivates and persuades others to action. When you come to understand this basic premise, you then understand why communication, VERBAL communication, is essential to the success and improvement of any organization. Success and improvement require action, not just information. It requires that people in the organization are motivated to action to do the things that need to be done to improve the organization and their products.
I’ve written about the different levels of richness associated with different communication mediums, and I’ve also provided a list of tools to help distributed teams communicate more effectively, and I hope they’ve helped. But, please don’t misconstrue the message about the use of these tools for communications. Tools are good second alternatives for transferring information. But, when you need to transfer emotion and move people to action, don’t rely on tools for communication. Remember how to talk to each other and remember that face-to-face communication is the real power behind the most successful organizations and teams. So, the next time you find an impediment that needs to be removed for your team to be more effective, don’t send an email to your manager about the problem. Walk into his or her office and use your verbal skills to persuade him or her that something needs to be done, now. Move him or her to action today!!!
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Yes Chris, You are right .. We forget to keep in real communication.We used other sort’s of method.
I am not sure that I accept your premise that people aren’t talking to each other about important issues. At my current job, I have a meeting every morning. And while we do use email and IM, we are quick to pick up the phone if something is important.
At my last job, I spent at least half of every day in meeting, either to discuss problems or to work as a team to produce results.
A problem I do see with communication is lack of a common taxonomy, especially between product management, marketing and sales. (What is a “qualified lead?” What is a “business benefit?”) We helped fix that problem by putting everyone through sales training — ValueSelling.
Chris:
Great subject. To a great degree “texting” impacts productivity. Sending a few notes back and forth is one thing, but failure to pickup the phone and convey information quickly and efficiently has declined and has negatively impacted worker productivity.
We have done extensive research on knowledge worker productivity to determine how capabilities impact the way people work. This is done to quantify value creation to guide work efforts. It is inherently dangerous to make assumptions that are not based on fact and conveyed through the written word to clarify thinking. However, verbal communications creates opportunity to convey information with more personal inflection.
If you can’t pickup the phone to talk or meet someone in person, then you have no choice but to text. However, one should not replace the other. It is important to author thoughts in writing to clearly communicate complex information. It is better to leverage video and audio communications to convey important thoughts. Ability to leverage multimedia heightens productivity when used effectively to communicate important information.
Charlie
CEO at NextQuarter LLC
Chris, you are right that nothing moves people to action more than the spoken word. At the same time, nothing opens more lines of communication than to be Linked-in to the world at large. I am finding connections for future projects all over the world that I would never be able to pursue in person. So we need to be mindful of the purpose of communication when we channel energy. You should never send a text message to call off your engagement: never mind it is easier and you don’t have to put up with the emotional reaction. We forget, sometimes, that similar emotional bonds tie us into projects, and while there is not the same promise behind it, cavalier communications can indeed have serious consequences. One thing though is worth keeping in mind. You can (and probably should) use these alternative channels to give someone a quick heads-up, which can be critical, but add the comment that you will try to get together (or on the phone) in person as soon as possible to discuss details.
Not sure that I agree with you, the last thing we need is more meetings…
And applications such as email and SharePoint ensure that our concerns and thoughts don’t get thrown away with the scraps of paper on our desk.
In some situations I would agree, but every situation should be improved as appropriate.
Jack
Great question Chris.
I agree with Charles that there are many situations where one has to use text. I also agree with you that a better communication starts by shifting the balance towards verbal communication. Part of my activity is related to coaching people who have to build and run large multi-cultural virtual teams. A very simple tip I give them is to use any opportunity to replace one to many written communication by one to one verbal communication. It is simple and efficient.
In addition, even when communicating in writing there is a huge gap between monodirectional information passdown and having an efficient communication. People and teams should be trained and coached on how to use e-mail and instant messaging.
A really good, simple best practice is to have a max quota on emails and of course on meetings. Today people use IM even if they are in the same room!
Chris great topic! As a communications major I concur that there is no substitute for the face to face verbal exchange of information. All the science leans heavily towards the human interaction. Having said that and working in media sales, I also see the flipside of processing massive information from my pc and phone.
I am still trying to perfect the perfect mix in my position. Face to face dialogue leveraged by digital communication. If you have not read one study out of Berkley on the digital brain I think you will find it interesting.
Victor
It is not the method of communication. Verbal talking is notorious for not getting all of the information across to the speaker and the listener.
Plus you say it: ” it’s imperative that really rich communication occurs between all team members, from top to bottom and everywhere in between. ”
You imply the traditional hierarchy boss to employee. Teams in this structure tend not to communicate they are dictated to from on high or they are sychophant from below. Most bosses really are not interested in impassioned disagreements on approach or solutions. Mostly everybody waits for the boss to tell them what they should think.
Finallly: Wiki, Blog, IM, e-mail are tools. Talking is a tool. If you limit what tools to use you reduce flexibility and options. I.E. What if Hemingway only spoke?
Chris, I agree with your comments and I also understand where Jack Gale is coming from on your comment and the article.. I’m a face to face person and really enjoy that type of interaction. BUT my last 2 positions, I have been working remote here in NC. I pushed to keep the the “COMMUNICATION” lines open without impacting “Productivity”. Relationship building via Emails, telephone and meetings enabled me to be successful in those 2 assignments. Could it have been better, of course we always have room for improvement.
I agree that this is a great topic. I recently attended a conference of recruiters. In this the “panel” talked about recruiting techniques – everyone on the panel agreed that using tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Face Book is thier approach to finding candidates. They also spoke about how they’ve interviewed candidates (screens) using Tiwtter. Their focus is to find the Gen Y candidates. One of my fears with this type of recruiting, is what is the culture of the organization – once a candidate is hired – is the communication all through these social networking mediums? Are we teaching our Gen Y candidates professional social interactin skills?
I agree these social networking tools are helpful and if used as tools can enhance communicaiton, but I also agree that the best way to deliver a message is one-on-one.
More importantly have we forgot how to listen to each other? Far too many times people miss what is being said, or the message they are trying to deliver.
I agree with Chris. I worked for a small company managing 5 software developers. When one of the developers had a question for a client, they would e-mail the question to the client. The client would never answer. I was always telling the developer to get on the phone and call the client. Eventually, they got the message and started calling the client when we had a question. But, it is equally important to follow up the call with an e-mail restating the question and answer so you have some paperwork to back it up.
I work mainly from home or from my car and only on rare occasions do I meet up with my colleagues – so I find that emails are essential as my heavy work load does not allow me to make phone calls and then be bounced around from answering service to receptionist – when a simple email would have done the trick! I generally receive far more calls than I make unless I have set aside a day or two just to make phone calls.
One thing that I will say is that I enjoy making a phone call and getting human contact far more than I enjoy impersonal , functional emails.
I’m all for face to face, wherever possible, over other forms of communication.
Most of all, I think people need to work on their listening skills!
What a great discussion! I have a client/friend that is a communications psychologist and I have never met someone so difficult to understand (no accent). He once left me a voice message on my cell that was about three minutes long and after listening to it several times, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he said so I had three different colleagues listen and they had no luck either. I finally just deleted it and gave him a call. This is someone that should possibly just stick to emailing.
Communication skills are peramount in all walks of life and is something I have generally found lacking in most. I use to tell my children that they need to use their cheeks when speaking and to throw in a few hand gestures and smiles just to make it more interesting for the listeners. I told them that good communication skills would affect all aspects of their life right from their personal relationships and throughout their work environment.
Networking sites such as this provide us with a great opportunity of having conversations with people around the world and they can only be successful if you choose the same words you would use if the person were standing in front of you. In other words your head and your heart have to go into it.
Remember…. “the spoken word is in the air but the written word is forever there”.
Great title! And though-provoking blog post too.
NLP and other communications theory tells us that words are a very small part of the overall communications mix: One study at UCLA indicated that up to 93 percent of communication effectiveness is determined by nonverbal cues. Another study indicated that the impact of a performance was determined 7 percent by the words used, 38 percent by voice quality, and 55 percent by the nonverbal communication (full article, including interesting and amusing story, here: http://humanresources.about.com/od/interpersonalcommunicatio1/a/nonverbal_com.htm )
However, all channels of communication have their own utility – for example, I like email for its ability to time-shift, and to convey references to information (like URLs, for instance).
And I second you in making a plea for more face time – but making a plea is not enough. Deming would say that people communicate as much as the system (the system which they work within) allows. If we want better, more effective communication (not necessarily more in terms of sheer quantity), then we have to change the system (of work) so that it drives improved communication.
(See also: “Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive” by Patrick Lencioni for more about the need for engineering human systems of work)
- Bob
Communication is actually a set of skills that everyone should continue to develop. We do need several types of media including email, blogs, websites, wikis, sharepoint etc. to manage the amount of information we generate and receive. I think a major part of the many communication issues we experience is associated with balancing the type of media we use and the messages and information we send and receive. Email and text messaging seem to be replacing actual conversation. Email is often used to hide from face to face meetings that are actually necessary. At least one part of the solution is good judgment regarding when to meet and when to use electronic media. There is certainly a place for both in the business enviornment.
While face to face talk (along with physical interaction) provides much that does not exist in electronic form, I am convinced that the two complement each other by providing mechanisms that are unique to the media. And that there is nothing inherently or globally superior to any one.
Stealing a line from a current commercial “Make Time for Face Time”, there is nothing that can replace a good in-person brainstorming session. In fact, my company offers a service “Global Connect” to specifically address this issue when dealing with off-shore/near-shore dvelopment models.
On the other had, the breadth of knowledge that can be build up via forums, news groups, and other “virtual” environments, would be all but impossible if asynchronous global communication was not readily availabe.
In the end, “balance” is needed, with acceptances of both the strengths and limitations of varied forms of communication
PINGBACK http://kenhoward01.blogspot.com/2008/11/oh-irony.html
…I ran across a well written post that emphasizes this point: http://edgehopper.com/did-we-forget-how-to-talk-to-each-other/
Now having said (written) all that, an intuitive colleague at Improving, Jef, pointed out the sheer irony of commenting on this very subject via blog. Touche’…
Well, this is surely a topic discussed many times over and there is no one right answer. But! It’s true that we (Many), in organizations prefer to send emails, update Wikis, and other non-face to face contact mechinisms and I will share with you some of the reasons this remains true. Caveat: my summations are only depicting a few and not meant to exercise the list in whole.
Reason 1: It’s generational. Many established professionals age (30+) have come up in a system that talks about collabortion but rewards for individual efforts. What doea this have to do with non-face to face interaction? I think the answer lies in the details of the generation gaps; perhaps that is a different topic but there are links.
Another thought. Collaboration of this kind has not produced consistent results which one would ask, “What’s in it for me” (WIIFM). We all know that the reward systems in place today functions primarily on individual performance and less on group collaboration success.
Reason 2: documentation is ‘King’! If you want a reward or some acknowledgement that you ate a contributor, making sure you document it and get credit/your name associated with such content is the best way to measure one’s IP and thought leadership.
I am a firm believer of face to face communications vs. too much email drama and other mechinisms out there but another factor is in play, I believe plays a very big role in the lack of face to face collaboration in the context of your original post. Not all people like to interact with others in the grand scheme of things.
Communication methods like that remove the need to react instantly to a response, especially a negative or critical response – so we have learned to hide behind them. Having the time to think that email, tweets, im etc makes it easier to respond as we have time to think. They also provide means of avoiding those difficult conversations – how many times have we heard “well I sent Jones from Accounts an email asking him to deliver the impossible”?
Over my last few projects, I’ve refined a concept that I like to call Meeting ROI. This refers to the number of individually assigned action items accepted by meeting participants weighed against the length of the meeting, thus in general, the greater the action item/time spent in meetings ratio, the better.
This may be different in an Agile environment (to non-Agile). Do you think that may have an effect? I believe this will come down to relationships and personal preferences, and the requirement for a trail of evidence. So, therefore, the size of the issue to be communicated or transferred is important – you wouldn’t depend on the spoken word to communicate a contractual change however you might use that medium in an Agile environment for a piece of rework.
Also, what is the ‘culture’ of the organisation and team, and levels of trust – some will rely on everything being documented for clarity and ‘traceability’, I suspect I would ….. down to a certain level of detail and interpretation, which is where the judgement factor comes in.
This is a very interesting topic and we may find this even varies across industry sectors.
I think this is a problem in a lot of projects (using many methodologies). On occasion, some people’s primary motivation can be to cover themselves, basic human survival instinct. And, afterwards in the retrospective the individual says “I did what I was required to do” but the question is “Did they do what the project needed”.
However, I find that given the very nature and practices of Scrum this is reduced to a minimum. Emphasizing the team, results and the daily stand up all contribute.
A good PM or Scrum Master always ensures that communication not only takes place but is effective, i.e. We pass relevant and timely information, not just data as dictated by a process; and that the required action ensues.
Yes Chris you are correct. Especially that its imperative that rich communications happen between all team members top to bottom. In my opinion rich communications is when a connecton is made and can only occur face to face when the words are spoken but also a body language is expressed that conveys the same message. E-mails, texts voice mail are all useful and needed into days workplace but should never replace a face to face communication opportunity.
It IS an interesting topic since at my company we have been asing the question of ,”How do you communicate?” to potential Project Manager candidates. It can be situational, meaning, can you might need a 10 minute meeting with your two developers in person to get them back on track or you may need to send out a pointed document laying down the law to a whole team that reiterates points that you feel you’ve already effectively communicated but it’s not sinking in. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. I think we need to use every tool available to us as managers, never forgetting that reaching out to someone or a group of people is what really hits home. You can’t gauge a reaction over the phone and emails can just be cold. I agree with others in using your best judgment in certain situations and finding that balance in tools that you have available. Communication is a skill set that can’t necessarily be taught, but can be learned and refined over time.
Huntly: And, afterwards in the retrospective the individual says “I did what I was required to do” but the question is “Did they do what the project needed”.
Tweeting is cool and everything, but check out what Chris has to say about truly communicating: http://is.gd/8O46 Seems talk is underrated.
Direct communication is the key to corporate success. It provokes the present to decide its future. Diplomatic replies, indirect answers, hints etc only delay the inevitable. Some of the results of being direct maybe unpleasant, but persistent approach in this manner yields rich dividends on project success. Spontaneous decisions with this approach are the highlight. It also brings up the collective and personal weaknesses upfront and a chance to correct them upfront, an objective which a diplomatic communication may not have achieved.
The bottom line is “In corporate environment, its the right and wrong that builds the foundation of success, NOT the good and bad.”
I agree with you that face to face conversations tend to produce more accurate information. It is much easier to have a question and answer session when you don’t bring in technology that most people do not know how to use. I have seen companies make technology work, but they have more training involved than most companies are willing to supply. That is my take on technology in business. The lack of taking action is a whole different issue I could spend hours discussing my observations.
A “flatter world” also means a world independent of location/language/culture/time etc. Naturally this entails alternative methods of communication than F2F mode. Now “collaboration” is the key word. This requires us to move away from a “synchronous mode” of communication to an “asynchronous mode”. If you look at the evolution of various communication methodologies over time, it proves that they are driven by need for collaboration on a wider basis. Outsourcing/offshoring/de-risking strategies only speeds up the need for it.
As argued by technical architects, an async interaction mode helps to handle larger volumes through prioritization (euphemism for ignoring), multi-tasking, loosely coupled (location/time independence) mode, etc. These seems to be equally applicable to us now! And we end up creating separate folders in our email boxes and setup rules for handling various messages based on source, importance, time, nature of content etc…:)
Chris:
This is a great topic and an excellent discussion. I agree with you. Nothing moves people to action more than the spoken words. For fast action, there should be a lot of reliance on verbal communication.
I wonder why people avoid having a “face-to-face” communication. Is it the fear of getting an unfavorable response? Or do we avoid direct communication because of the departmentalized culture at which we are working? Or is it the apprehension that meetings tend to be lengthy while emails can be precise.
While the first priority should always be face-to-face communication, a follow-up documentation helps to avoid distortion in communication. Especially, when the issue discussed is to travel between different people. Furthermore, documentation has a long life and can be referred back, whenever required. I would prefer all decisions taken to be subsequently documented.
Emails have there own benefits. Sometimes when I am at production floor and not locatable, I receive emails. I respond according to my convenience and the urgency of the issue. Through emails, we can reach many people simultaneously, regardless of time difference or geographical location.
The ideal situation will perhaps be a mix of face-to-face and digital communication. Personal judgment can play a very important role in selecting when to use which method.
This much the same message I have been delivering also.
Great boring tomes of paper filed in dusty cupboards or their electronic equivalent are sometimes necessary, especially in public life, but they are not communication. People still have to talk to each other and to spread enthusiasm and motivation.
It is an interesting topic, I agree.
Brainstorming for design or a requirements walk through
achieves better results than merely the standard process documentation / tools of communication.
And yet I have seen design meetings yield no results and requirements walk through make requirements no more clearer than they were before.
In-person communication / meetings is a tool and like any other whose success depends on the relevance and applicability of this particular tool to the given situation and the capability of the participants to utilise the tool.
I have come across many occassions when two people sitting next to each other used emails or chat as mode of communication.
I belive the team members should be encouraged to have face to face meetings or group discussion with each other whenever possible.
Many a times I have observed that talking to each other facilitates relationship development and team building which is essential for the success of any activity.
For me e-mails, chat etc are just tools to facilitate but can not replace talking. I would rather suggest the team to record the outcome of these discussions to be documented and circulated. In cases where the teams operate remotely we use such tools.
Another advantage of face to face communication would be communication through body langauge. Why else we are using the web conferences?
To conclude, each tool needs to be used based on the circumstances, but not as a replacement of talking.
I agree with most of the comments here. In-person communication has to be the starting point for all other communication (e.g. phone, email, IM and wikis). By meeting/speaking with people I learn a lot about their personalities and how they’d prefer staying in touch as needed. It’s also all about respect because we’re all busy, differently, and a few minutes of one-to-one time helps more than any scheduled meeting with a dozen or so attendees.
I’ve also found that too many people I work with don’t understand how important good manners are, especially in a business setting.
I would argue the problem is not that we forgot how to talk to each other, rather, that we never learned how to listen to each other. Case in point, this forum, which is not unique in this affliction; how many posts are redundant? How many posts simply paraphrase a previous post? In effect, we are talking over them – we are not listening, we are creating noise. We would rather hear ourselves, even though someone else has already captured the essence than to stay quite – it is undeniable, and too often irresistible.
“Many attempts to communicate are nullified by saying too much.” – Robert Greenleaf
Undoubtedly face-to-face/in-person communication is the best form of communication and should be strived for as much as possible especially if the topic of discussion is significant/complex. This makes it more efficient to discuss a variety of alternative approaches at the same time helping with building rapport. Phone calls come in next. Chat/IM should be used to communicate something really quick/simple. Email is typically a good medium to record notes/conclusions/minutes/steps/action items/etc. and should not be used as a means for “brainstorming” a topic.
I see four factors that have moved us towards electronic communications over personal.
The first factor is related to what the current generation expects. Today’s younger generation (I’m not saying where I fall in this.) grew up with technology all around them. The web/internet is a way of life not just an option. They have learned to process information much differently then their parents. Every person under the age of 30 that has a cell phone knows how to text. I’ve seen people in the same room texting to each other! If this is how they share and process information, support them, don’t try to change them.
The second factor is related to issues such as Enron and the sub prime meltdown. In the corporate world today, more than ever, “if it is not written down, it was never said”. We need to be able to prove conversations and decision occurred. Additionally, we need to document who made the decisions. Failure to document is to invite trouble.
The third factor is information dissemination and transparency. The use of tools such as wikis and blogs allow us to say something once and provide a way for many people to use that information. This enhances the value of the communications as more people can make use of the information.
Lastly, there is the need for asynchronous communication over synchronous communication. In today’s world, we are expected to take on many roles and projects. In this mode, we cannot always engage in synchronous communication (i.e. talking to someone). We need asynchronous communication in order to prioritize what we do when.
Maybe if you want to have dinner one day, we could sit and talk about this.
Beyond getting your teams to communicate, they must know how to speak to each other in simple terms. Jargon and rambling can become confusing and frustrating, often causing persons to run back to the safety net of ‘black and white’ corp. email. Add in the readily available reply mechanisms – Crackberry’s, 3g/EDGE etc. and most will never venture outside the world of their cubicle walls.
Many of my fellow technology professionals cannot communicate beyond tech acronyms or concepts, and it kills their organizational visibility. The few team members that can wear both an IT hat and a ‘Joe the Plumber’ hat are the heavy hitters and always in high demand. They’re not necessarily any smarter than the jargon slingers, but again, are extremely more visible. Consequently, they’re also the folks getting the nice raises and upward momentum.
My suggestion is to look into your local Toastmaster’s club. The Toastmasters organization is priceless for persons looking for a safe place to learn how to communicate better. A great quote I heard once was “Toastmasters is a great place to come and fail, er practice.” Very highly recommended.
Best Regards,
–D
I agree that as technology progresses, it seems that folks “communicate” less. As a Lean practitioner, one of the key elements in continuous improvement is how to deal with information transfer and decision making. Many folks feel that E-Mail and other electronic modes of communication have collapsed the distance between communicants, but these modes have not eliminated the root cause, time to make the decision and a bias towards action.
In truly lean organizations, decisions are made at the point of generation by those closest to the process. If we continue to need multiple layers of approvals by non-resident or absentee process owners, there is no form of electronic media that will guarantee the approval is given, only that it gets there faster and waits longer. Those who truly improve, have moved decision making down in the organization to the point of execution.
I feel that we have all come to rely on technology to make things faster, but until we can all agree on the process and make decisions in “real” time or face to face, technology will just seem like hurry up and wait. How do we utimately make decision making faster?
Regards,
Ron Jacques
Communication is at the heart of the issue. No tool or methodology is going to replace straightforward, timely, and accurate information distribution by whatever means. Being between gigs, I have fired up my Art of Scrum blog again and tackled this very issue in the context of Daily Scrums, which can turn into mechanical and valueless exercises unless the communication is focused and appropriate. Tools are not a substitute for process, and process is not a substitute for communication; it is surprising how many people believe you can replace one with the other rather than building them all on a common high quality framework. I’d be interested in any feedback if you are so inclined.
http://froggacuda.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/art-of-scrum-agile-does-not-mean-by-the-seat-of-your-pants/
Hello Chris,
Very interesting conversation point. In my experience I have found that there are 3 types of people:
1/ People that make things happen
2/ People that watch things happen
3/ People that wonder what happened
Business units or Departments are a form of community that will be made up of these types of people. The clash in these groups is generally only from the first sector. People trying to make things happen that are going in either apposing or possibly conflicting directions. Generally it is type 1 fighting their way through type 2&3 groups.
Your comment is so correct when it comes to type 1 groups.
They need to stay focussed to talk, agree, plan, action and review as only by discussions they can agree and take action. Via meetings we plan together and take the necessary actions to close the gaps in our targets.
The issue is “Lean” is being replaced by “use to having”. We can no longer trim down easily as the influences of type 2 & 3 have become so common place in our world.
Look at the news…once upon a time 1 hour would give you all the day’s news…Now it is a day long event, bombarded from everywhere and anywhere with information. The ones who watch things happen – they report, whilst the ones who wander what happened – they watch. Incidentally, not to do anything about it but just to be aware.
Those that make things happen are busy doing, talking to encourage and improve…Quite often accused of not listening enough or being dangerous to the status quo…Do remember we are in the minority.
Thanks for allowing me to express my views.
Respectfully,
Luis De Jesus
Interestingly, every now and then the information being shared to type 2 & 3 about extraordinary type 1 people, can motivate them into action and a subsequent change. This then raises the question “is all the information cost and sharing, worth the converted few we get as a result”. The statistics in a high growth market says a resounding “yes”, but let us see in a low percentage growth period that is coming (arrived aready) what the answer will be.
Great point, I do use a lot of email but I hardly write in them. Instead I attache videos of myself talking about the project or send recorded audios of the conversion with the client. Might not be direct communication but it beats trying to interpet an email.
My experience is that most developers are not great communicators by nature and are not always the most socially adept people. Their jobs typically force them to focus on the technical task at hand, so it’s tough to get them to think of the big picture or how what they’re doing may affect others (or vice versa.)
This means that when issues arise (as they always do), a developer is often the last person to feel comfortable sitting down and talking directly to another person about what’s going on. Instead, developers often use email to discuss serious issues. Unfortunately, my other observation is that few programmers are good writers — at least from the perspective of writing clearly and getting to the point. So this means that the emails, reports, or tweets they send rarely solve the problem.
I recommend that members of the development team practice talking to one another, asking questions, and learn to overcome the discomfort of saying “Sorry, I was wrong,” or “Can you explain that again? — I’m not sure I understand.”
The more people communicate honestly and clearly when they speak, the less they’ll have to resort to confusing, long-winded emails that often get misunderstood.
I think the most important task for a product owner and a scrum master is communication. How do we know the validity and priority of product backlog items/stories without a constant dialog? How do we know who has the best input on the implementation of a sprint backlog item/task without constant dialog? How does operations and other stakeholders know how to plan for future releases without constant dialog?
And dialogs are both visual and verbal. The meeting of actual people can never be replaced by e-mails and such: these are just complements.
The same goes with meetings. It is funny because there are formal meetings and informal meetings and there should really be room for both. When we talk about useless meetings – how often do we mean the informal meetings? But do we plan for them?
An aspect that also should be considered, as it is spawned by good communication practices, is conflict management. Best-case communication is always hoped for, but not always present. How does the team handle conflicts that arise from the implementation of communication practices? This is an interesting question, probably big enough for its own thread, but nonetheless should be mentioned in this context.
I have been around people who can talk and spin so cleverly that at the end, the group resembles the end frame of a well written Dilbert strip. Talking, good…listening, also good…but where does that lead?
Great discussion topic Chris!
I agree, developers do have a reputation as poor communicators. However I don’t think it is acceptable. Communication skills are an integral part of any role and should be the defacto standard for developers.
Better communication reduces the view that IT people live in an ivory tower.
Personally, I see a lack of focus and leadership in the industry. We spend a lot of time using this process or that methodology or that reporting mechanism. We really need to focus on the basics. Effective communications. Team troubleshooting. Responsibility and authority delegation. Accountability for actions. And just plain leadership. We have a lot of managers in our industry and very few leaders. I’ve used a variety of methodologies to deliver product, report progress, facilitate results reporting, etc. SCRUM, Agile, XP, FDD, Interative(SDLC), even the dreaded waterfall. One of the things we forget is that this is a human engineering business. People on your team need to understand the benefit of what you are trying to do or you’ll fail. We also need to be able to lead as managers / architects / leads. Someone at the end of the day has to make the decision on what the team will do, who is responsible for what, what action items, milestones, etc we are trying to accomplish and when they are expected to be done, by who and what their dependencies are. I’ve worked in a variety of matrix organizations and the number one problem I have seen year after year is the lack of decision making and accountability. We report progress easy enough. But, what I see is a lack of leadership when responding to requirement changes, architecture / design / code reviews, action item assignment, controlling feature creep, etc. It’s pretty frustrating, especially when companies follow the model “We hire the best and just let them get the work done”. My experience is that the best can sometime self-organize and get the work down, but more times than not you will end up with direction conflict and blame or job dissatisfaction.
I would like to see more leadership in this industry of ours and less management. I think I may be a bit off topic and I apologize for the rant.
We need to make sure our communication, whether it be email, wikis, meetings(local and remote) are focused and effective. Meetings, in particular, should have goals behind them determined before hand and metered to keep people on topic and focused. SCRUM meetings are nice as long as they are focused. All types of meetings should have an initial agenda and make sure you accomplish the purpose of the meeting and shelf ratholes to be discussed afterwards.
Sometimes communications are important but not urgent. So long as people scan the wiki for recent changes (most have some kind of way to get a list of changed pages and their specific changes), a wiki is perfectly acceptable for this kind of communication. Likewise email, twitter, etc., assuming no need for a centralized repository. Of COURSE these will not do for things that are urgent, or worst of all, Really Should be done face to face, like Difficult Conversations, but that is a minority.
To answer, I do believe that we have forgotten to communicate. Emails, IM, and Wikis do serve their purpose but there is a perfect form of communication for every message and I believe that people have forgotten how to talk to each other. I want to thank Chris for his suggestion to calculate an action item ratio, that is a great idea and I believe that will be something my company will benefit from. We have recently implemented staff meetings (amazing, I know). That was a huge step for our company because we used email as a primary form of communication and we needed a better solution for managing our projects. An action item ratio just may be the perfect way to help us save our staff meetings and ensure they are as effective as possible.
I’m happy to jump in this discussion! In fact, in our team dynamics I don’t advice using any virtual tool to enable stand-ups, sprint dashboard, whatsoever… The visual advancement of the “stories post-it wave” on the board ( from to do, ongoing, done) is the best follow-up tool we’ve ever experienced. Team stay motivated, Product Owners and other decisioners passing by have a “quick view”.
And to add a comment to Chris point on ROI: we do “ROTI vote” after each retrospective, it’s an activity that seem valued by everybody, but the evaluatiun is of course subjective. Still it helps to improve meeting effcency.
Best,
Oana
Ambiguity is something developers need to learn to feel comfortable with. Communications, especially face-to-face discussions, are never as black and white as computer logic. The challenge is to know how to get a computer to cooperate and then turn around and get a human to cooperate — tapping into a vastly different skill set.
As Chris pointed out, action is spawned by direct interaction — so it is an essential part of bringing a diverse team together and get them all rowing in the same direction.
David’s point about ambiguity is very true. As well as learning to be comfortable with ambiguity developers also need to learn that managers and business bods view the world as much more imprecise than they do. This often causes issues in understanding – a classic I come across regularly is the meaning of cost estimates for design and build effort, given before we have any understanding of what we are doing.
Developers do not like them, loathe giving them and do not see the value as they are inaccurate. Business bods love them, know they are inaccurate, and use them for decision making only. Developers need to learn to view them from a business bod / manager viewpoint ot see the real busines value of these high level costings.
What a facinating article. I’m looking for an NLP expert to help with a project, could you help?
I am writing a paper on how technology has a negative effect in our lives and I agree with you. Each holiday I rarely get a call wishing me Merry Christmas or Happy New Year, it’s always a text. We are seemingly forgetting how to talk to each other face-to-face.
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