An explanation with quick tips about how to achieve better results communicating with your team
In my other post, I already mentioned that communication is the main problem of most projects, companies, and even families. There are many kinds of research giving high percentage rates and explaining the why but I won't waste your time bringing them here.
Throughout my career I had the pleasure to lead many people but "with great power comes great responsibility" and those responsibilities made me think about better and standard ways that I could communicate and be sure that the given message was fully understood. In theory, it seems easy as most things but we only discover that isn't after a while so I created these standard 4 points for communicating a task:
what is the task (micro and macro)
how to do
deadline
implications of not doing it
What is the task
Usually, when we are communicating the task we mostly say "We need this thing done by tomorrow" and that is pretty much it. No wonder why such a high rate of failures in this area. Yes, it is important to explain what is the task in a simple way (micro), however, also explaining what fits in the big picture (macro) gives people a sense of matter and magnitude. Suddenly the importance of every task now is understood no mattering how small this task is, they all have a purpose and without it, something will miss.
How to do
How to execute this step will change depending on the situation, your degree of experience in the field, and so on. When hiring our team we base it on many things and one of them is their capabilities and skills, so why should I explain how they need to do their job? The answer is simple: To be on the same page! You explain how to do it, or both discuss how it should be done or in the third case, our team member explaining to us how it can be done will create an agreement between both parties on how to do it.
Deadline
Deadline is the latest time or date by which something should be completed. This step is more than just communicating it, it should be also discussed to make sure the time given is enough for the task to be executed.
Implications of not doing it
Before I mentioned about sense of matter and magnitude and this step is here to add another one, the sense of urgency. More than just knowing that if we don't perform a task will impact our organisation in someway, knowing exactly how it will impact can bring us urgency and even guilty of not doing it. It is harder for us to feel bad of something that we don't really know.
Example 1:
"Sweep the floor, so the whole office can be in nice condition for people to work. (what is the task) Use a vacuum cleaner and mope (how to do). It should be finished by 8 am before the people arrive at work (deadline). If we can't finish in time, the noise will impact people's work because they need deep concentration during work time. (implications of not doing it)"
Example 2:
"Develop the chatting feature, so the users will be able to communicate to each other. (what is the task) Use flutter as frontend and PHP as backend (how to do). It should be finished by 10/08 before we engage on the next project (deadline). If not developed until this date, the other teams won't be able to progress in their areas. (implications of not doing it)"
After reading it might seem that it is just a meter of putting pressure on our team giving them all the information and that's it, but that's when the empowering comes. Empowering the team means giving them the responsibility and authority to make decisions. There is a big chance that after the task was planned and communicated "something" might happen and the course needs to slightly move to the left or right, empowering give the team with the freedom to make decisions and take the risk trusting that they will do their best. It doesn't mean that the team doesn't need to communicate with their leader, it just means that the leader doesn't need to jump in every second "something" happens. To finish, I also want to mention that empowering is giving everyone in the team the same right and the same voice to take decisions that can impact our organizations. Being part of something is not just watching but giving the community the chance to change its course. I am not part of a movie when I watch it but when I can contribute with my skills and ideas.
Thanks for reading and I hope you can achieve a bit more.
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