You have to draft a written response to one of the following scenarios:
Scenario 1: The new proposal was drafted by a team of people that do not fully understand the technical situation and have a goal of creating issues for your progress.
Scenario 2: The new proposal was drafted by well a intentioned team wanting to be transparent, but they just don’t know what they don’t know.
It is easy to see how each scenario would create a very different written response on your part. What if I told you there is almost always someone that can tell you exactly which situation is the most accurate. I had a recent situation similar to this and almost selected the wrong choice. This would have hurt feelings and likely caused my objectives more harm. I asked an unlikely source and found the truth. I changed the nature and tone of my response and was very successful.
How often do you take that extra time to learn the context of the messages you receive? How often when you don’t, do you get it wrong and create more harm than good?
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Take a minute, please!
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2 comments:
Pearls of wisdom, John. We can all learn from each other if we take the time and effort
I used to try and do most all of my communication through email. It was great to keep track of conversations and follow-up on commitments. The problem is the context issue you mentioned.
A great leader once told me to make sure I know my audience when I am communicating. Its really hard to get to know someone when all you are doing is exchanging emails.
I now try to keep a mixture of formal and informal communications so that I can cater my messages to the audience. There are so many ways to communicate now, email, IM, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, telephone... But, I have found the most effective means of communication is still face-to-face with a hug or a handshake. Its not cheap, but by far the most effective.
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