Chapter 16
Communication Shortfalls
Your company is insisting it
wants great teamwork. Everywhere you look, it's team this and team that.
Employees get the message loud and clear. But that's the only message they get.
Once they "team," they
feel like they have climbed a tall tree, to the highest branches, and as far as
they can see, there's nothing. No mail trucks, no telephone lines, no smoke
signals. They're literally up in a tree, left to their own devices, blinking.
Even if you create a team with a
magic wand, it must be sustained the old-fashioned way, with lots of TLC --
Teaching, Learning and Communication.
TEACHING, LEARNING AND
COMMUNICATION
Team are about knowledge. How to
get it, how to improve it, and how to pass it on. In the old days knowledge was
a byproduct of doing business; today it is the primary driver. The distinctions
between working and learning have never been blurrier.
Examine again our list of team
dysfunctions: mismatched needs, confused goals, cluttered objectives,
unresolved roles, bad decision making, uncertain boundaries, bad policies,
stupid procedures, personality conflicts, bad leadership, bleary vision,
anti-team culture, insufficient feedback and information, ill-conceived reward
systems, lack of team trust, and unwillingness to change. Every one of these
dysfunctions represents a failure of learning.
For instance -- leaders paying
attention to their leading, and listening to those they are leading, should
learn their way toward better leadership.
Teams that have struggled with
ambiguous objectives in the past should have learned the knack for identifying
a fuzzy objective in the present, and be able to discuss among themselves how
to bring it into sharper focus.
Team members who have gone up in
flames doing battle with one another for reasons having to do with one
another's personalities must learn the futility of infighting and intolerance,
and develop the skills for better appreciating one another (or at least not
going at one another with chainsaws).
If we are not learning from past
experience, it is probably because we are not sharing what we have learned with
one another. This is the paradox of communication -- that so often we all know
the right answer to a question, but for various of reasons we keep our mouths
shut about it.
An influential article about this
paradox appeared years ago Organizational
Dynamics magazine. It was titled "The Abilene Paradox: The Management
of Agreement," by Jerry B. Harvey. He starts by citing an absurd outing
his own family went on one very hot day down in Texas. The family has been
sitting comfortably at home when the father-in-law says, "Let's get in the
car and go to Abilene and have dinner at the cafeteria."
When polled, every family member
says that sounded like a good idea. So they pile into the car and drive the 106
miles in 104-degree heat to Abilene. Once in Abilene, the conspiracy of
cheerfulness dissipate. Everyone wants to know whose idea the trip was. "I
just went along to be nice," some say. "I went along because you went
along."
The drive to Abilene encapsulated
an important rule of behavior -- that people miscommunicate as much from good
intentions as from bad. And it is death to teams. How many times have you
happily consented to do something you didn't want to do, in order to be a
"team player"? A team worth its salt will shudder at that kind of
behavior passing itself off as team behavior. It is a form of laziness and
cowardice -- and one every team has to stand watch against. It is a sign that
the team is too polite to be a team it hasnt "stormed" it way yet
to better understanding.
COMMUNICATION HORROR STORIES
How important is good
communication? Pick up this morning's paper, and you will find communication
snafus on every page. We guess that over half of the debates and disagreements
you read about are less about true differences of opinions, than about grotesque
misconceptions of the other side's intentions.
Here's how miscommunication
undermines a team:
Teammates May and Gloria, who sit
on a suburban school recruitment panel together, hate each other's guts. May's
goal is to get more kids of color into the school system, even if it means
busing them in. Gloria is equally determined to see that the school's excellent
standards are maintained. At first they argued their case before the full
panel, but their points of view quickly hardened, and communication between the
two came to a halt. Without direct communication, they began to demonize one
another, thinking the worst of one another's intentions. The animosity was so
complete that they stopped cc'ing routine items to one another, and even
scheduled illegal meetings on the sly, without the other one present.
To Gloria, May was a Maoist,
willing to destroy the system in order to push her agenda. To May, Gloria was a
racist, pure and simple.
Both are dead wrong. May does not
want minority kids admitted at any cost. And Gloria is acting purely out of
appreciation for a successful program. But their relationship has become so
toxic that it is regularly compromising the mission of the panel, to the point
that the school board rolls its eyes before the panel makes a presentation.
Poor communication destroyed the panel's effectiveness for the remainder of
that school year.
This kind of shutdown is the
opposite of the Abilene Paradox, but just as common -- it is a mutual
conspiracy to betray one another. May wont share what she learns with Gloria;
and Gloria intentionally alters what she learns with May, to throw her off the
track. Team objectives have been replaced by interpersonal war.
Here's a less venal example:
A logistics team at a Naval
supply depot in Virginia is honestly confused. The issue whom to report to.
Their written charter names their own team leader, and her supervisor, as the
immediate chain of command. Half the team reports to them. But the team is
fortunate enough well, perhaps fortunate isnt the right word to have an
engaging, charismatic, and high-ranking champion in the depot's executive
group. This officer is involved in the tactical decision-making of the group,
and he enjoys the loyalty of the other half of the team. There are no hard feelings
between any team members, yet the overwhelming emotion on the team is
uncertainty. Who gets what information? What is the basis for sharing: the
leader's need to know or the curious champion's desire to know? Who's in
charge? This situation has been going on for over 18 months. The confusion of
loyalties, however well-intentioned, is tearing the team apart.
Team members around the world are
staring at one another right now, with rhetorical question marks poised over
everyone's heads. Do I understand what you just said? Did you get what I meant?
Are there truly things that "go without saying"?
Lets break communication down
into its base elements, then build it up again.
Good communication is a series of
checks we run, first on ourselves, and then on the other person. Listening is
three-quarters of communication. Do not doubt this, because we have a graph to
prove the point:[2]
|
Talking
|
Listening to ourselves
listening
|
|
Listening to
ourselves
talking
|
Listening
|
v
Talking
Picture yourself "
communicating." Be honest now didn't you just picture yourself talking?
And talking is important. If only we said what we have to say more clearly, or
more slowly, or simply louder -- the world would understand better and we would
get our way more often.
In our rush to be heard and
understood, we focus way too much on ourselves doing the talking. We are the critical factor in
communication, it is true. But our listening is much more important than our
talking, because our listening determines whether we learn anything, and actual
communication occurs.
v
Listening
Instead of
beginning in the familiar upper-left corner, with us talking, begin in the
opposite corner, with us simply listening to the other party. This should be
the easiest part, but it gives many people conniption fits. You simply listen. Ain't no better way
to say it.
If you are having
troubles with listening, listen up. The other squares, with the more mysterious
labels, may hold the key.
v
Listening to ourselves talking
Are we going on too long? Are we
embellishing? Are we getting in little subtle jabs at people? Are we
"winking" in our speech, assuming things for the group that they
perhaps should not assume? Are we annoying the hell out of people with our
gabby self-importance?
There are many sources of
contamination in ordinary speech, and some of the worst crop up in team
dialogue, where we are unconsciously working to express:
our
importance
our
superior knowledge
our
political convictions
our
prejudices, which we hope others share
our
disdain for the thoughts of a perceived adversary
our
insecurity about what others think of us
our
lack of stature in the group
our
unfamiliarity with the topic at hand
our
worry that someone is waiting to gun us down
It is as if we have erected a
wall around ourselves to prevent us from expressing our most sincere
convictions. An encounter group industry exists to help people breach their
walls. If you feel that you are consistently undermining your own best efforts,
you might consider getting help of this type. There are a billion good books on
how to do this, too. You can descend the interior staircase of your soul and
get to work dusting the place.
For our purposes, however, we
will simply remind you that whatever you have to say needs only to pass the simple
test of teamwork: Are you saying something that is germane to the team as a
whole -- to its objectives, to its overriding vision, to the tasks it has set
out for itself? If so, you are on solid ground, even if you are neurotic and
still crave approval.
If not, fix your message so that
it is direct, relevant, and respectful of others. People will understand. And
lo and behold, the respect you have been craving will start to trickle in.
v
Listening to ourselves listening
We are talking about developing in
ourselves a deeper skill of listening, an awareness of our awareness. Why's
this good? Because it is a state of respect for others that generates respect
in others. And you will be surprised, once you get to this state, and become
comfortable in it, how much better your eventual thinking becomes.
Here's a series of checks you can
run, as you are doing your best to hear what the other person is saying:
Are you thinking too much? If you are busy framing a reply while
your teammate is expressing him or herself, you aren't being fair. Forget your
reply. Do your teammates the justice of paying attention to their thoughts.
Are you leaping to conclusions? If you are insecure or hasty, you
may mentally finishing off your teammates' thoughts for them. This is rude and
arrogant. Let them finish, and listen the whole time.
Don't analyze. You may think you're doing the team a favor
subjecting its thoughts to your rigorous instant analysis. Quit with the
analyzing, already. Think of a conversation as a garden, not a shooting
gallery. You can analyze later, when you're both in the mood.
Don't be so cock-sure. We have a tendency to run what we are
hearing against our internal database of what we know for sure. "That
won't work
." "Hey, that violates Robbins Second Law.
"
"Man, is that stupid!" Who knows, maybe your internal database is
wrong (just this once), and the speaker is right. Ask yourself, "I wonder
what the second right answer is?"
This square probably sounded the
most far-fetched to you when you saw it. We think it is the most important of
all. It is a check against your own agitation, your own ego-needs, your own
impulsive reflexes -- your worst communication dysfunctions.
Teams hit the rocks not because
of differentness, but because of their response to it. Teams whose members are
individually so sure of what's what, have ROADKILL stamped on their foreheads.
("So this is what you think of me." "I knew I couldnt count on
you." "There you go again.")
Teams whose members are less
certain are more open, and more curious about what the next person is really
thinking, and why he or she is acting that way. Focus on curiosity, and the
respect implied in that term.
A component of good communication
is proper feedback. People, especially teams, need to be told what's what.
Former New York City Mayor Ed Koch used to go around asking everyone,
"How'm I doing?" It was his signature remark. He knew it was
obnoxious -- begging for affirmation gets old quick. But he was a shrewd
fellow. He knew
the
political value of being known for a single funny catch phrase,
the
undeniable human appeal of being interested in the opinions of others, and
the
performance value of getting useful feedback.
We're going to be looking at
feedback primarily with the last reason in mind. But do not underestimate the
power of the other two reasons. Feedback -- communication, mutual evaluation,
keeping score -- is powerful stuff. Good, continuous feedback is like gasoline
to a team ready to roll. The shrewd team leader keeps it pumping, for all the
right reasons.
We live and work in an
information-driven society. We measure everything, and we look at key
measurements (monthly unemployment figures, Consumer Price Index, our kids'
report cards, our spouse's Visa card statements) to see how we're doing and
where we stand.
Teams, too, need to know how
they're doing. It is a kind of hunger, a voracious appetite to measure what
they are doing every which way:
feedback
from one another
feedback
from team leaders
feedback
from "customers"
feedback
from the organization they are part of
feedback
in the form of numbers
and
feedback in the form of words
feedback
that is scheduled, formal, and official
feedback
that just happens
feedback
of the long-term, big picture
feedback
on the here-and-now, itty-bitty picture
Feedback should be continuous, so
that every team member has a living thread of information about "How'm I
doin'?" that he or she can use to tailor a workstyle that contributes to
top team effectiveness.
Surprises. If you give a team member good, honest feedback and he
or she is taken aback, something is wrong. Chances are the team waited too long
before clueing in the errant team member. That's why continuous feedback beats
periodic evaluations -- mistakes don't have time to become habits. If you put
off corrective feedback too long, the person in question will resent you for
it. "Why didn't somebody tell me?" Semi-annual evaluations are for
the birds. By the time people find out where they are coming up short, it is
too late. And it feels just like Judgment at Nuremburg.
Soft-pedaling. The most important feedback we can give is often
negative. But it is unpleasant. We daresay it is even more unpleasant to give
negative criticism than it is to receive it -- and that's saying something. The
worst, worst, worst thing you can do is ignore it or minimize it. For want of a
nail, the war was lost, as Poor Richard was wont to say. Replace the nail now,
before a small problem grows into something humongous.
Good news/bad news. No one takes criticism well, so we have to give
it with great care. This means walking a line between compliments that don't
ring true and honest, helpful support. People can tell when you are
"dressing up a dressing-down." When you have something good to say,
focus on the good. When the news is not so good, be direct about that, too.
It's pleasant if you can convincingly shore up an errant team member a word or
two of friendly support. But it is hard to be convincing about such things, and
there is the danger of miscommunicating the correction. The best thing is to
say what you need to say. In the end it is the most respectful way to handle
the problem.
We have been discussing feedback
as a top-down phenomenon. Team leaders monitor their teams and provide regular
feedback and evaluation. Bosses and supervisors from outside the team provide
it.
Here's the question: Can a
self-directed team self-monitor?
Good question. Without all team
members having the designated role of feedback-giving, feedback becomes an ad
hoc, undocumented, informal process. Not bad, but not great. Somehow a team
must find a way to flush true communication into its system. Chances are that
there is a lot of vague feedback already occurring, and that it is useful:
"By the way, Georgia, I liked the drawings you came up with
in the report."
"Rewrite this for me, will you, Dave -- you're so much better
at that than me."
"Ravi, I'm having problems importing the file format you're
using. Can we agree on a different standard?"
Even informal groups can create
formal structures. A free-floating team can institute official carping
sessions, where they can air out problems they are having with one another.
Make it friendly, so the gripes don't overwhelm other kinds of feedback. And
make it problem-solving oriented, so people leave feeling positive.
A leaderless team can have a
process by which every member has another member to serve as a sounding board,
with the idea that they meet once every week or so, over lunch, and discuss
problems, worries, and performance questions. The two take turns mentoring one
another. There should be a compact that the dyad be more than a back-patting
session -- maybe the team can draw up a series of hard questions to go over
each time, so that the pairing accomplishes something.
And have doughnuts available.
People like doughnuts.
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