Why isn't my team taking action on this hot issue?
Why isn't my team taking action on this hot issue? You might be using the wrong mode of communicating.
Just because you delivered your message does not mean it was received!
If you want your message to land, it's essential to select the correct mode of communication. What's the correct mode? It depends.
Communication methods can be broadly classified into 2 categories: "asynchronous" (two or more events not happening at the same time) and "synchronous" (occurring at the same time). In this context, the events we're referring to are: when the message is delivered, and when it is received. Email and text are asynchronous, while meetings and calls are synchronous.
The key characteristics of asynchronous modes like email and text are: People get the information when (and if) they read it. Your intended message may be missed, delayed, or misinterpreted. Feedback from recipients can fragment into multiple threads.
Asynchronous communication does have its place. It's best for: Pre-meeting alignment, including providing an agenda & distributing data for review, and post-meeting summaries like meeting minutes & action item lists. Asynchronous modes are terrible at conveying urgency or calming emotion.
In contrast, consider synchronous modes like online meetings and teleconferencing. Communicating by these methods, everyone gets the same info at the same time and feedback from participants comes real-time and is heard by everyone.
Synchronous communication is best for analysis, review, & debate, decision-making, and conveying urgency. It's not good for communicating large data sets or leaving a "paper trail".
Face-to-face in-person is the ultimate form of synchronous communication because it adds advantages over online meetings and calls. In person, you can "read the room”, picking up on body language and other non-verbal cues to tailor your delivery and messaging on the fly. For technical projects, in-person allows you to see a production process or prototype design with a level of depth that remote communication just can't do.
In-person synchronous communication is best for ensuring engagement, building relationships, calming emotion, seeing parts and witnessing processes. It has the same drawbacks as the other synchronous modes.
There is no single "best" mode of communicating, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Want to share a data set for review? Email it. Want to rally a team to deal with a crisis? Have a meeting (in person, if possible).
Communicating with clarity and influence at all organizational levels and with customers is a hallmark of effective teams, a key career differentiator, and a CAEDENCE Consulting LLC specialty. Our novel, highlight interactive, role-play based workshop will equip your team to communicate effectively even under the toughest, highest-pressure circumstances. Our experts will fine tune that mission-critical management presentation for you to have maximum impact.
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Over the years we’ve been exposed to Six Sigma, Juran, Deming PDCA, 8D, Dale Carnegie, A3, Shainin, and more. Each technique works pretty well, and has been demonstrated many times in a wide variety of industries and circumstances. At the core they are all essentially the same!
Each approach relies on an underlying logical flow that goes like this: [a] make sure the problem is clearly defined; [b] be open to all sources of information; [c] vet the information for relevance and accuracy; [d] use the process of elimination to narrow down all possible causes to the most likely few; [e] prove which of the suspects is really the cause of the issue; [f] generate a number of potential solutions; [g] evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility and risk of the potential solutions; [h] implement the winning solution(s); and [i] take steps to make sure your solution(s) don’t unravel in the future.
The differences between the paradigms resides in supplementary steps and toolkits. For example, 8D contains the important “In
