"Communication Lessons From the Deaf" - one week in

I've been thinking a lot about the communication lessons post I did earlier in the week, and the article that inspired it. I've been trying to employ the principles and become a better listener and communicator. Here are the basic lessons:

1. Look people in the eye when engaging in conversation
2. Don't interrupt
3. Say what you mean as simply as possible
4. Stay focused

They sound simple, but are very difficult to implement, especially when you've developed deep habits of multitasking, jumping to conclusions, and talking around a subject. Here are some specific things I'm doing to try to implement the lessons.

I am trying very hard to hear people out, to let them finish their thoughts (and even allow a little silence afterward) before I talk. I'm finding this yields a very different conversation, one with longer statements, but less misunderstanding and frustration, like the article says.

I've taken a couple of steps to try to stay focused. I do a lot of my work on the phone. When I'm on a call now, I leave my desk and sit in a reading chair. In other words--I leave the computer, which is the biggest multitasking temptation out there. I also refrain from taking notes till a phone call is over. This is quite difficult for me. My notes are a bit of a mess, but I'm learning that hearing and absorbing everything that's said is better than having perfect notes--since perfect notes by their nature can't capture everything in a dialogue.

But the hardest by far is #3. Saying what you mean. In that I envy my former boss, a Swede, who was very direct and "crisp," to use his term. Even though he sometimes could rub you the wrong way, you never, ever were unclear about what he wanted, what he thought, or what he meant to say.

So I've still got to work on that.

I'll report on progress again next week.

communication, oral communications, effective communications

Communication lessons from the deaf

Is it possible that losing one sense can improve one's ability to communicate? Aerospace consultant Bruno Kahne asserts this in an amazing article in the magazine Strategy + Business ("Lessons of Silence").

Deaf people focus intensely on whom they're talking to face-to-face, they don't mince words, and don't interrupt. As a result, writes Kahne, they communicate must more efficiently than hearing people.

Here's one of a number of startling passages in a very short article:

Deaf people are direct. This is why people with hearing sometimes perceive sign language as blunt to the point of rudeness. It’s not. It’s just explicit. The deaf tend not to hide behind soft language, struggling to find the most diplomatic wording and hoping that the listener will be able to discern what they “really” mean.

I'll be reading this article again and again, and working to employ these techniques. Let me know if I'm communicating more clearly, won't you?

(Hat tip to Doc Searls for pointing this piece out.)

communications, oral communications

Bosses, choose your words carefully

From The Mistake Bank.

[The Mistake Bank has received permission to publish excerpts from the Harvard Business School Press/50Lessons series "Lessons Learned: Straight Talk from the World's Top Business Leaders," The books are full of great stories, including some very useful mistake stories. Our first is from Paul Anderson, Chairman of Spectra Energy]

As I progressed in my career and got into increasingly more responsible or powerful roles, …it was almost like my words took on the power of the position, and things that were casual before were no longer casual. I had my first example of this when I was a manager. It was fairly early in my career, and a woman named Sarah had come in. I was running a planning organization, and Sarah came in to me and said, “Look, I don’t have any background in planning—I’m from the IT group—but I would love to join your organization. I’ll work hard to learn what I need to learn to do a good job. I will strive to do anything you need done. Just give me a chance.”

I said, “Well, that sounds fair to me. Why don’t you join the organization? I’ll give you a year. At the end of the year you will either be a planner and contributing; or, if it’s not working out, you can go back to the IT group, and we’ll assume that it was a nice try but it didn’t work out.”

So she joined the organization and she was outstanding; she was the best new employee we had that year. She took on everything; she learned. She became the “go-to” person—everybody came to her with their issues. She was a star, there was just no question; she was doing an outstanding job.

And I thought, “Well, this has to be one of the best moves that I’ve ever participated in,” and I was quite comfortable that things were working out nicely. But at the end of a year, she came into my office, and she was in tears. I said, “Sarah, what’s wrong?” And she said, “Well, I don’t understand why it’s not working out. At the end of a year, you said you’d tell me if it was working out and you haven’t told me that, so I must assume that it’s not working out and I’m going to have to go back to IT.” I was flabbergasted, and of course I told her, “Hey, you’re doing a great job!”

But it struck me that I’d made a casual comment: “…in a year we’ll know.” She had gone back to her office and marked her calendar, and, by God, at the end of a year she expected me to walk into her office with a decision. That casual comment was very powerful to her, and so insignificant to me, that it really struck me that I had to be very careful in making comments as I went along.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Press. Excerpted from Lessons Learned: Straight Talk from the World’s Top Business Leaders--Managing Your Career. Copyright (c) 2007 Fifty Lessons Limited; All Rights Reserved.

For more information about the "Lessons Learned" series, including a showcase of 50 Lessons video stories, please follow this link.


management, narrative, leadership, communications, oral communications, organizational behavior, Mistake Bank