Simple, real life communication tips for team work

PM findings #6: Don’t take communication at work personally

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Communication matters , but we shouldn’t take it personally at work

They say we spend approx 70% of our wake time communicating.

Communication is the biggest portion of our lives in general and work time, thats why it is so important for success.

Illustration source: freepik.com

Communication style and manner, is also very visible part of the team’s culture, so everyone in the team should pay attention to that and it should be also in close attention of overall management.

As management for overall company, PMs as well should define proper communication channels for the projects, to support the flow. I’d say being transparent, honest, open and keeping flat communication manner is the way to go, but thats what we have defined in our company/team, maybe yours is different. So setup channels to support your values and be guards for that.

Just to mention quickly, that I have started my career as Contact centre agent and dealing with so many clients and requests, gave me better stand in communication with the stakeholders as well. So we should praise every chance to improve our communication skills.

When writing this post, it hits me, that supporting people over the phone and in written format, helped me with remote work as well, because I was used to have various type of conversations over the phone, not in person (be that sales, customer care requests, handling conflicts or complaints). Probably that’s why I don’t have much discomfort of joining teams remotely.

There are many insights from my contact centre years, but one of the major ones is realizing that you take the “role” during the work and conversations are not personal. Working in customer care taught me that even if the client on the phone is yelling, he is not yelling at you as Anna, but he is mad at quality of service, maybe some other issue and you need to resolve the issue and don’t put personal emotions in that.

In many cases, PMs are the ones facilitating discussions, handling conflicts and many other type of communications, and in order to run these successfully you need to put “persons” aside a bit and get focused on the problem and solve it.

Being more introvert type myself, realizing that you take the “role” helps better.

Well, we are all humans, sometimes ego can come in or we can get overemotional on issues/conflicts, especially when we are tired, but in general, it is good to remember: things we discuss, deal with during the work, almost always are not “personal”.

Feedback you give or receive for example, is not to you as a person but to the “role” you play in the team. If we question your “idea”, we are not criticizing you, just the idea. Having this approach will help to have more “open” team members, who are having healthy discussions, debates; outcomes of which will push teams to further improvement.

Some simple tips for better communication

List is not prioritized and it includes really simple, obvious ones, which still get missed sometimes.

1. When you ask someone to have a meeting or jump to the call, mention the topic of the discussion, so the person knows what you are going to discuss and come prepared as you do. If you have some materials, share it beforehand as well.
2. Try to setup processes which will allow async work/communication. This is very important especially if you are remote and have stakeholders in different timezones, but with co-located team as well, this will help team members to have “their quality work times” and don’t be so dependent on each other and always distracted.
3. This is for remote meetings, please, when you join the meeting a bit late, stay silent don’t interrupt conversation by just announcing you are there or sorry to be late, use the chat if there are many members, if you are few: you can say that, but always remember to stay silent for couple of seconds, making sure no one was talking at the moment you joined.
4. No difference if meeting is online or in person, same rules apply to both: this means don’t get distracted with something else, if you are there, BE there.
5. Setup emergency contact channels especially for product support. It is not always that product teams have 24/7 support available, so setup clear communication plan for emergency cases: who to be contacted, what channels to be used,etc.
6. If you have agreed on communication tool, lets say Slack, its better to get sticked to it. Don’t just decide to make the phone call on regular question. Use alternative communication channels only in case of emergency, if no respond was received with agreed channel or if the channel is not available to you.
7. Btw, if you are using Slack or any other communication tool, its always better to send a message first, asking if its fine to have a call.
8. Use Slack or other tool statuses, mentioning if you are away or you are slow to respond etc. That way people who reached you, will know what you are up to and when to expect the respond.
9. When you are sending a message or talking with someone, make sure your message is clear: why it is being communicated and what actions, if any, are expected from the person you have communicated that to.
   Let’s discuss on 2 very common scenarios.

Scenario: 1: Team member is writing to some other member saying that we have an issue here. It is always not clear, is that just for information or the person who has been reached, needs to take some action, what prior actions were already taken.

So in order to save everyones time, I guess the ideal structure of communication “message” should be : a)main issue/question, b) background of what this is coming from, what has already been done c) suggested possible solution/ thoughts from the person who is raising the issue d) what is expected from the person who has been reached.

Ah, and this doesn’t have to be long, these points can be covered in very short format as well ;)

Scenario 2: Team member posts a question if this is expected to be working like that? Imagine how great would be if the message would include WHY he is raising that, for example: I have checked the requirements, its not matching it, is it known? is it fine? or : I don’t think this is usable as implemented, do you guys think it is still fine to have it like that? and so many other options.

Having the context with complete message helps to run better discussion, without back and forth checking questions.

10. Jump on a call, if you see that the person you communicate with still doesn’t get your point. Instead of lengthy threads, sometimes a quick call can be more efficient.

11. Sometimes it is better to discuss stuff in private. I am sure who worked in more or less big companies, has felt that feeling of receiving nasty emails cc-d with whole line of managers on very small mistake. Slack or any other tool we use in tech teams, is no different.

If you have noticed a mistake made by someone else, especially when that happened for the first time, its not recurring issue that you want to raise, I would recommend mentioning it with him in Private, not in the channel with bunch of other people there. We all make mistakes and pointing it to the person in private shows that you want to help on that and it also builds the team spirit.

🍒 This list is endless, add your tips/rules in the comments, also mention which ones from my list caused you troubles or annoyed you most ;)

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