Tedded - Business Book Review

I am reading “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. I will write a book review as soon as I finish it. The book is amazing.

Today, I’d like to write more on communication. Malcolm Gladwell, at one point in the book, wrote about the miscommunication between two colleagues that led to a tragedy. In our normal setting, miscommunication between yourself and a colleague or a boss might not lead to a life and death situation but it might reduce your productivity at work.

I will tell you the simple concept and techniques to have a better communication especially at work.

I will focus on one on one communication.

Communication Mitigation

Malcolm Gladwell referred to the study of the linguists Ute Fischer and Judith Orasanu that when trying to persuade another person, we have six levels of mitigation.

Gladwell wrote and gave examples of the life and death events in the book but I’m not going to spoil it. Instead I’ll give you an example of a less vital event.

(When trying to persuade your boss and colleagues to go to McDonald’s for lunch because we are running out of lunch time. Suppose there is no other fast food restaurant around)

1. Command: “Go to McDonald’s”

2. Obligation Statement: “I think we need to go to McDonald’s”

3. Suggestion: “Let’s have something quick, like McDonald’s”

4. Query: “What would you like to have in 20 minute?”

5. Preference: “I think it would we wise to have fast food”

6. Hint: “Oh, we have little time for lunch” … This is the most mitigated statement of all.

The communication mitigation, as the author pointed out, is heavily related to the Power Distance Index (PDI) of culture. In a low PDI culture, people rarely mitigate the message. People in low PDI culture, think of Americans, talk straight. On the opposite end, people in high PDI culture, think of Japaneses, rarely say things directly; they hint.

People from the Western countries (predominantly low PDI) probably think that “hinting” is a bad idea and a sign of weakness. On the other hand, people from Asia (high PDI) will often think that “commanding the boss”, even in the life and death situation, is rude and totally disrespectful.

The difference of the two cultures is that for those in low PDI culture, the responsibility of the communication relies on the speaker. The speaker has to make him/herself clear. On the other hand, in high PDI culture, it is the job of the receiver to think through and understand the message.

…

Your Duty as a Speaker

Most contemporary businessmen, business books, ideas, theories, and so forth stongly support “candor”, friction free communication, flat organisation with free flow communication, honesty, etc.

As a speaker we need to aim for two things;

1. Full Understanding

2. Willingness to Implement

Understanding is not only the understanding of the content of your message, it also includes your intent, your sense of urgency, your emotions, and so forth. “Commanding” often lead to the understanding of the content but sometimes, the receiver might misjudge your intent and other factors. The receiver might translate “straight” as “rude”, “urgent” as “dictatorial”, and “passionate” as “picky”.

To have the receiver of the message implement, willingness is a must. Implementing by force is not acceptable. Human nature dislikes command and order. A clear message with a blunt “do this” will not persuade the receiver wholeheartedly.

On the other end of the scale, “hinting” will not neither give the receiver full understanding nor drive willingness to implement (because the receiver normally do not know exactly what to do).

Now, you might say that “Okay, we’ll be in the middle. We’d better use ’suggestion’ or ‘query’.” Well, that’s not the case because ANY of those levels can be implemented depending on the situation.

Speaker Checklist

1. What’s your point? What exactly are you trying to communicate. There are times when we have more than points to communicate. Don’t. Don’t try to communicate more than one point at a time. The receiver might not be able to prioritise the importance of each point and how they are related. Or worse, the receiver might not understand any point you are communicating at all.

2. What do you want? What is the outcome that you want to see. In the best case, what is your most desirable event that will happen after the conversation. It can’t be more annoying when a person is arguing for an argument-sake. You can use it in a brainstorming session when the question is open-ended. However, when trying to persuade anyone, you need to know what do you want.

3. Who are you talking to? It’s cool to say that you talk to anyone similarly; you never change your message; you are honest. Wrong. You need to know who you are talking to in person. You need to know the preference of the receiver whether the receiver prefers plain and direct approach or something more humble and soft. You need to know the PDI of the receiver. You need to know the behaviour of the receiver. Even better, you need to know the current mood of the receiver.

4. What are the options? From the zero-mitigated statement to the most mitigated statement, what is the most appropriate? Is there only one way or there are multiple options.

5. What will the receiver hear? This is one of the most important steps. It is the step that you have to listen from the receiver’s side. The outcome that you need to get from the step is to check whether the receiver understand the content or not. First of all, study it by yourself. Think of a statement and change it to the six levels of mitigation. What do YOU think of each level? How will YOU understand? I did that for the “go to McDonald’s” myself and I think of each level. I changed my role and see how will I react to different level. The result is profoundly different and startling. The different levels of statement make me think, feel, and understand ultimately differently. Try it and you will know that simple deviation makes you understand differently. You receiver will too.

6. How should the receiver feel? When you select the best level of mitigation and approach, that is just the first half (or less) of the story. Unless you communicate by e-mail or a letter, body language and your voice is more significant to the outcome of the message than the content per se. Taylormade your body language and the tone of your voice that will foster the best outcome, read “highest willingness to implement”.

7. What’s the best place and time? It is apparent that communicating exactly the same message in the same way can have dramatically different outcome in different places and times.

8. What’s the worst case scenario? What if the consequence does not turn out to be as planned? What will you do? You need to prepare for different consequences apart from the most likely case.

If you have thought through all of them, you are prepared to communicate persuasively. However, in reality, you don’t always have the prestigious time to think of all the eight steps. If you can, good. If not, identify your past failure and learn from it.

…

Learn From The Failures

What are your failures? What is the pattern?

You might often fail because you don’t always know what to say, or say too many things at a time. Focus on the step 1

If you are talkative and often speak of things you don’t know what should the outcome be. Focus on step 2

If you talk to EVERYONE similarly or on the other extreme, you can’t talk to any person that you are not familiar with. Focus on step 3

You might find yourself using the same pattern all the time “hinting”, “suggesting”, “commanding”, etc. Focus on step 4

If, most of the times, the receiver misunderstood what you are trying to say. Focus on step 5

Maybe you think that I did all the things right but they don’t like me or never follow me. Focus on step 6

If you don’t say the right thing at the right time, all your effort is meaningless. Focus on step 7

Sometimes, you did great communicating but when the outcome is not what you expect, you switch off and don’t know what to do. Focus on step 8

…

For me, personally, I often miss step 3. There are times when my communication is ultra-effective with one kind of people but have zero effect on others. I need to understand my receivers more. What about you? What is your communication failures, flaws, or weaknesses?