Introduction

This is Part 2 of 2 of my “10 Key Ingredients For Great Office Communication” blog. In Part 1, I talked about the following 5 key ingredients:

1. Communicate in a way that builds trust, honor, and respect.
2. Define clear expectations for everyone upfront. Take the time to get this right.
3. Communicate accountability mechanism to all team members.
4. Exercise EQ (Emotional Intelligence). In other words, act maturely. Don’t be a jerk.
5. Believe in and cheer on your teammates. (The prerequisite for that is believing in yourself)

In this blog post I’ll talk about the remaining 5 key ingredients, plus a bonus ingredient for those who are sticking around to the end. 🙂

10 Key Ingredients (Continued)

Ingredient #6: Recognize crucial conversations and pay special attention to them.

There’s a best selling book called “Crucial Conversations”. It’s about the art of conversations when stakes are high. I highly recommend it. The truth is that the nice and comfortable office space can be deceiving, and we often fail to recognize the high stakes of the conversations we have in these cozy office spaces. When people are ill prepared for the conversation and fail to recognize the potential high stakes and gotchas, they can get caught off guard and act immaturely.

The sad fact is when people get into a heated conversation, they often screw up by falling into fight or flight mode. In these circumstances people want to get their way, but don’t listen well to others, so it’s easy for conflicts to arise and escalate. It’s ironic that in these crucial conversations is when we need to keep our cool and perform our best, yet too often we do the opposite, even to the degree of damaging relationships with coworkers. So we need to develop the wisdom to recognize and prepare for crucial conversations.

Ingredient #7: Prefer face to face over electronic communications.

In an office environment, our default communication device is our computer. It’s easy and tempting to want to use it for every kind of communication. But I’m sure we all know, no matter how many words or emojis you have used, somebody has misinterpreted you before b/c they couldn’t tell what tone of voice you were using, what body language you showed, the smirk on your face, or that wink in your eye.

So, whenever possible, prefer face to face communication b/c people will get to experience the whole you, and nothing can beat that, and you can also avoid a lot of misunderstanding and confusion. Plus it gives you a chance to walk around, loosen up and burn a few calories.

Ingredient #8: Venture out and mingle with people in other areas of work.

Ok, you may ask me: “I know this sounds good and I should do this, but who has the time?” I totally understand. It’s rare that we have all the time to get our own work done, not to mention spending time outside of it. But, if we only spend time in our own little world, we will undoubtedly become tunnel visioned. When we work for an organization, we need to always keep the greater vision of the organization in mind, and that needs to be the driving force behind each project we work on. Ultimately you are working toward the overall success of the organization, not just your project. But if each member of the organization is only preoccupied with his/her own work, it will be hard to collaborate with other departments and come up with products or services that fully showcase what the organization has to offer.

I know that just about every time I got out of my comfort zone and ventured out to talk to people in other areas of the company, I’ve always learned something new about my company, or the projects they are working, or new ways of thinking, or telling them about what you are working on, or simply getting to know some people and their personal lives. It is rewarding and well worth the time and effort.

Ingredient #9: Don’t be a victim of GroupThink. Always think for yourself and offer your unique perspective.

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that someone else has got this, I don’t need to speak up or stick my head out. Chances are everyone else is thinking and doing the same thing. If you see something obvious that needs to be done but nobody has said anything else, maybe you should be the first one that does something about it. I’ve had this happened to me so many times. I see something that obviously needs to be addressed, but I tell myself that it’s so obvious that I’m sure someone else will speak up or fix it soon, but then nobody says anything until it’s too late, and I missed an opportunity to speak up and help out the team.

Ingredient #10: Don’t try to be politically correct. Speak your mind, but focus on being caring and sincere.

There’s enough political correctness BS going on already. People are tired of it! Frankly, I believe at the end of the day, people appreciate those who speak their minds with unfiltered words but have good intentions, more than those who beat around the bush, sugar coat the words, tiptoe around tough issues in order to avoid offending people!

Yes, we need to exercise wisdom and discretion with our words. Yes, we need to be considerate and caring. But we shouldn’t sacrifice the true meaning of our words at the fear of offending people. I’ve seen too much of this in the political arena and at professional settings. You hear people talk about things but when they are done, you have no idea what they just said. It meant absolutely nothing.

Sure, it sounded good, everybody got fuzzy warm feelings and nobody got offended, but it’s b/c nothing useful was communicated. People are not stupid. They are sharp. Soon they will ignore this kind of communication and prefer someone else who may not use the most polished words but can convey useful meaning to people. You may or may not like Donald Trump, but the fact that he got elected is proof that people would rather prefer a businessman who doesn’t mince his words than another career politician.

Now, as promised, here’s the bonus…

Bonus Ingredient #11: A daily checklist. On a daily basis, know

1. what your current priorities are
2. what your boss is expecting of you
3. what you are expecting of your subordinates
4. who is depending on you for what
5. you are depending on who for what
6. the big picture and the end goal. Don’t be tunnel-visioned.
7. work is just work. Don’t make it more than what it is. There’s always another job.

Wrap up

Proverbs 18: 21 from the Bible says, “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” I think about this verse often to remind myself that what I say and how I communicate to others matter a lot.

So, my fellow readers and office dwellers, don’t be deceived by the comfort of a nice office space, or the ease of a computer. Communication in an office environment can be tricky, and it is an art to navigate through it. But, you can continue to improve and reap the rewards of great office communication. I hope I’ve offered you some insight and motivated you to become a better office communicator today!