Start Communicating Better Dammit! For E-mail, Conversations, or Meetings
Since starting my own company, I’ve come to the realization just how important communication is! It is SUPER important. You want to save as much time as possible in a conversation by being as efficient and effective as you can. Not only will you save time for yourself, but equally if not more important - you’ll save time for your teammates! This is especially crucial in a startup when everyone on your team is time-strapped.
I’ve decided to write this primer on communication with practical and real examples along with a quick takeaway comment below each dialogue.
1. Be specific and concrete:
Not so great: We need to do more social media because it will help the business side
Better: We need to target our social media efforts to our target audience in an attempt to establish more credibility before we have conversations with them.
Ever find yourself asking for more details? Yes, this statement can be applied very generally. However, removing the vagueness and communicating the exact thought helps to convey very precisely your idea, which leads to actionable items. The person receiving the comment won’t have to start a lengthy conversation understanding “how will this help the business side?” or “what do we need to do?”.
Not so great: We need help with introductions from our mentors
Better: We need to ask Patrick to introduce us to the Food Service Providers that he knows of.
Have you ever wondered why people have a puzzling look? Sometimes when they are too focused on a different topic, you need them to paint them a picture.
Not so great: Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem? (attaching crash report)
Better: The crash report tells us we have a null pointer exception on line 256 in YesTapUtils.java when a user transitions from the menu screen to the order screen.
Summarizing the problem will lead the reader through a mental journey so they can draw a logical conclusion to help you. Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for whom you are asking for help.
Not so great: I can not get this to work, can you help me?
Better: I’ve been trying to use ssh with git-bash. I’ve looked through the first 20 articles from google with search term “ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer” but still could not get it to work.
If you can tell the person you’re asking help from what you have tried in the past, you can save them time from trying the same solution. Help the other person help you by telling them what you have tried already.
Tip: 90% of the time Google solves the problem. I get extremely annoyed if someone asks for help and I can find the solution on Google easily - it means they did not do their due diligence...thankfully my team does their due diligence. :)
Not so great: Open up the application to the cart and pay to get the error.
Better:
1. open the application.
2. tap on a menu item
3. tap on the cart button to transition to the cart.
4. tap on the pay button
5. Prompt is shown with “check internet connectivity”
Making a clear list of your steps is much easier to understand and to digest for your reader to reproduce and recreate your experience.
2. Put a deadline to your request:
Not so great: We need to finish writing the proposal
Better: Kinson, can you finish writing the proposal by 11pm tonight?
Don’t rely on someone volunteering for the job. Everyone already has 110% on their plate, designate a person to manage it. If they can not manage, they’ll let you know.
Not so great: We’ll have the meeting later
Better: Let’s schedule the meeting for 4pm later today. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll do it at 9am tomorrow.
When everyone has 110% on their plate, “later” means never. Put a time down to get things done.
Not so great: So, I was reading an article and it suggested that startups should make decisions based on analytics...blah blah blah
Better: I read an article that suggested that we understand our customers based on analytics, can we put analytics in to our next release to understand how long they are using the application to make orders?
Yes, its good to know about the article...but if there are no actionables, then that doesn’t help move things forward
3. Keep it short and sweet when sending email requests:
Not so great: Hey Dave, I noticed that during your presentation at the last meeting, you were able to clearly communicate the message. I was wondering if you could help me look over the next presentation so that I can make it as clear and concise as you have.
Better: Hey Dave, do you have 15mins to help me prepare for my next meeting?
Get to the point; you can fluff it up later when you meet with the person. Busy people can get over 100 emails a day and they don’t want to read more than they need to.
4. Set an agenda for meetings and stick to the schedule:
Not so great: Let’s meet to talk about the proposal.
Better: Let’s meet to talk about the proposal. I’ve laid out an agenda:
1. Roundtable Introductions / Backgrounds
2. Key Decision Makers / Key Stakeholders
3. Business Value / Value Propositions
4. Next steps - Next meeting date / action items
The agenda helps the person you are meeting prepare and give you what you need.
5. Other miscellaneous communication tips:
Team - Make it EASY for your team to help you move forward. Indicate that you are blocked if so.
Customers - Make it EASY for them to help you. Make it specific and actionable
Businesses Meetings - Always have an agenda prior to the meeting. Note down actionable items throughout the meeting and summarize towards the end of the meeting.
Test Team - Make it easy and clear for them to reproduce bugs (List steps) and give them as much information as you can about your environment.
Development Team - Be specific and detailed with the end-to-end scenario that you are looking for. Let them decide how it will get it done.
Complex issues - always try to go from the richest form of conversation to the least rich. (i.e, richest to least rich: in-person, video conferencing, voice, and then email/text message.)
Key take aways:
Next time you are in a conversation, notice whether people are asking for more details about your comment or whether they are trying to clarify what exactly do you mean. If so, that means you have to be more specific and concrete!
If you are finding deadlines slipping, then start putting dates to requests.
And one more thing...keep your emails short and sweet. I can promise you this works...start tracking how long it takes people to reply before and after you do this!
All opinions are mine. Feel free to take away or leave as much as you’d like. If you think this was helpful, please add your comments below! - Kenneth Yip | YES.TAP
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