15 Jul Lost in Translation

Struggles with communication seem common to leaders, managers and team members. Our clients report difficulty with offering help and with asking for it; with giving or receiving feedback; and providing or asking for information.

We have been facilitating a lot lately (lucky us). The last month has taken us across the country and across a range of organisations. We have listened to people sharing the same struggle.

When we do not know and understand each other we end up “lost in translation”. The effect is literally as if we are speaking different languages. This plays out in different ways, but can be traced back to the same root causes. For example:

Managers and leaders who are reluctant to give feedback at all, or do not match the message with the recipient. In management and leadership development this draws on individualised consideration – knowing the recipient well enough to deliver feedback when needed, in a way that recipients can process and apply it. You need to understand who you are talking to – that’s what it boils down to. We might think that being a manager means that we have earned the right to communicate “our way” – but that is naïve.

Another example is team members who cannot communicate effectively. Look at how complicated a simple thing can become when people do not know each other. Imagine a team member asking another for more information.

When questioned, possible reactions include:

·       ‘you don’t trust my decision making’

·       ‘why are you interrogating me’,

·       ‘we’ve talked about this, you are wasting my time’.

·       “Oh my goodness I’m such a bad boss/ colleague, did I not express myself well enough when I gave the instructions?’.

And of course, the person asking the questions could be in a range of spaces, such as:

· “I’ll ask a question to show how useless my boss is”

· ‘I need to double check my understanding’

· ‘this is the way my brain is wired, I need a lot of information otherwise I’m paralyzed by not knowing what is expected’ or

· ‘if I understand the why I will be onboard’.

What we know is that the nuts and bolts of interpersonal communication are a combination of:

· Skills (prepare, communicate, listen, respond, close)

· Human Understanding (empathy, individual consideration)

When we improve our understanding of others, most especially the people we work with (as colleague, manager or subordinate) we lower the risk of losing ourselves in translation. If I know that to get the best out of you, I must give you a lot of information (even if that is not my default style and even irritates me a little bit), then I’ll do it (or try harder). If you know you get the best out of me by not surprising me with new info and asking for an opinion if I have not had time to process the info, will you find a way to help me process?

Getting managers or team members to the point where they have these kinds of conversations, understanding their own and other ‘default settings’ does not come naturally. You need a process and a language. Our Teams that Talk program provides both. This is why we love what we do. Some communication magic happens when the pennies drop, the eyes shine and deeper connections are made. We’ve been saying it for many years, go slow to go fast. Invest four hours of ‘slow’ to accelerate management and team performance.

We have real-world experience in leadership, management and team development, speak to us if you want a bit of magic for your teams! Once critical moment communication is when we are dealing with poor performance. That could be peer-to-peer (being let down by a colleague) or manager-subordinate (course correcting). Our next WorldsView Café conversation on 23 July is “Dealing with Poor Performance”. It is free, online, lasts for 90 minutes, and this month is hosted by Craig Yeatman (WorldsView) and our special guest Nevern Subermoney (Clinical Psychologist). Nevern brings clinical expertise in human behaviour and motivation; Craig brings decades of experience in organisational design, development, and change.

We’d really like you to join us. Click here to register, and join the WorldsView customer community.

Written by: Liezel van Arkel