Brief intro

The ability to communicate well is one of the most sought after skills in the job market.
However, companies almost always focus on one side of this important skill because they care more about what you bring to the table than what they can do for you.
Communication does not flow in one way, and communication alone can’t and won’t fix an organization’s broken communication structure.

A common story

Case in point. In order to meet a deadline a busy manager assigns task A to person X and task B to person Y. He forgets to tell person A that their task will depend on some other task B because he thinks it is a trivial detail.

He also fails to realize that task B will also depend on A in some limited but important way. So off X and Y go to do tasks A and B respectively until they get stuck. X and Y realize that their two programs rely on each other in a fundamentally simple way. However, the two programs they have both built diverge fundamentally in some way. That is poor communication.

Not only has the manager failed to communicate, but now the project is dangerously in danger of being full of half-baked solutions. Now X and Y have to pull all nighters or work extra hours to push through this “thing”. Even then collaboration has been hampered. X and Y can try some form of integrated patch-work or tear the whole thing apart and start anew, something for which they have no time that is unless they work odd hours. Odd hours tax not just the body, but the mind, so it looks like X and Y are doomed to come up with a half-baked solution if they try to compromise with time. The best option is to work out some kind of deadline extension and start the entire project from scratch.

Effective communication

To communicate effectively, you first have to understand the other person and what they are or aren’t saying to inorder understand what they really mean. You have to understand how communication works in that company and then adjust in a way that can bring about positive change. Effective communication results in results, good results. constructive results. If results aren’t forthcoming, it does not matter how good your intentions are, you are not communicating effectively and that may lead to poor quality results. Furthermore you would be sending your colleagues the wrong message if you insist on your style of communication.

Great communicators

It’s important to know when to be blunt and when to be subtle, but listening comes first. Listening as much as possible. Great communicators minimize confusion because they do a lot of listening before talk.