Conversation Connectors:
What is real communication? Why is it so important?
In our previous article, Leadership Conversations, we discussed a simple framework for navigating conversations with a customer, prospective client, job applicant, team member, or even family member or friend. The last step of that framework was the button-down step, which was:
Button-Down
Go back, clarify and verify the next steps, finalize the details, mention them one more time for reinforcement, and remember they are not real until they are written down and scheduled! Make sure everyone knows what is happening next and who is responsible for what. “Button-Down” clarify the next steps to reinforce clarity in our communication.
This step precisely and specifically identifies the next steps, so they are crystal clear to those involved. This requires quality communication and attentiveness from the communicator and receiver.
As the communicator, we are required to be at the top of our game, providing leadership and follow-through. Timeliness and organization are key to building credit and trust in your professionalism. Without specificity and clarity, action items, critical communication, and results drift. Things get glossed over, missed, unorganized, and proper notes to stay and keep on track are impossible to effectively lead yourself or anyone to a result.
Understanding how to improve communication requires a shift in our communication. Knowing how to use questions to clarify, verify, and discover that specifically and concretely is key. Unfortunately, most don’t know the tools or have access to how they could communicate and get a different outcome. Most think they did all they could simply because no one taught them what else could have been an option from a communication standpoint. Being more specific in your communication will make the button-down more effective and give way to the next action steps that need to be taken. Without this key communication link, we can stay stuck, and all momentum ceases, and we all know what it is like restarting momentum, it is easier to keep it, and these two options will do just that.
In the coming weeks, we will use examples to better understand the options we have to be better communicators and leaders. This time we will start with one of my mistakes that anchored a great communication lesson. Our communication skills often result from learning from humbling experiences like this.
The Superpower of Specificity Â
Recently, everything going virtual and less physical proximity, electronic communication has become a tool we have resorted to without thinking of it or because it is easier. The challenge of going virtual is once the message is sent, it can create a communication gap. For those that are sloppy with follow-up or don’t keep track of back-and-forth communication, dates can get fuzzy, and information can be missed or lost. In a conversation, this can be easier to prevent, yet it is still easy to miss.
After several months of dealing with COVID, the number of vendors and professional services firms I was utilizing because of someone else dropping the ball started to drive me nuts. At that point, the same mistake kept getting made over and over. My frustration was growing because no one owned their communication and followed through, leaving me empty-handed. It felt as if people had gotten somewhat lax about getting back to people and were now too comfortable over-relying on electronic communication instead of talking to them.
This next one was the one that tipped it over the edge for me.
We were in a meeting, and a team member mentioned something to me and said we should “wrap it up a little early” based on what she shared. We had a half-hour planned for the final item, so I figured okay, well if we go 10-15 more minutes, that is still only half the time. Once the agenda item got going, it was a great conversation, and we finished in fifteen minutes. It caused some challenges because afterward, I learned “wrap it up early” meant within 5 minutes because our next call got moved up and was 15 minutes away.
I strongly stated, “why didn’t you clarify about being done in 5 minutes because the next meeting got moved up? If I had that information, I would have done it differently.” Another person chimed in, asking, “what are we accomplishing here”? Passionately, I said, “clarifying and verifying that this doesn’t happen in the future.” I got mad at this person because they were not specific enough in their communication. This was not the way to share my feelings, or for us to learn what to improve upon.
I spent some time reflecting on what I could have done better. I could have clarified and asked, “how quickly or when should I wrap it up by” She would likely have stated the specific time and reason for needing to end early. All the unspoken communication would have been made clear, which is why clarity is power.
Later, I walked over to her office, knowing I had to clean this up and apologize. When I did, I said I am sorry. I did not explain why, or what I learned, or an excuse for the mistake. I simply messed up. I was grateful I realized it and grateful I could reflect upon that conversation and realize what I could have shifted to prevent that from occurring in the first place. Instead, it would have been replaced with real quality communication. We are all human, and I made a mistake and needed to own it with an apology.
Hopefully, this article will have given you some tools to strengthen the chain’s link around this step that can lead us to the yellow brick road of results or to what could have been.
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