Leadership depends to a great extent on effective communication. The following comments on each of five types of communication will not make you a better communicator but will hopefully sensitize you to the need for improving your communication skills. From there it’s up to you. The five types of communication include:
- Oral
- Written
- Graphic and pictorial
- Listening
- Reading
- Oral Communication
Effective oral communication is not learned from reading: it takes practice, practice, and more practice. It requires understanding the fundamentals of good grammar. It involves developing a vocabulary that allows you to express your opinions, to state your position during a dialogue relative to reaching a decision, to phrase your questions clearly and concisely, and to make your wishes known on any number of matters.
As previously noted, all forms of communication depend on feedback. Feedback between people who are talking includes not only the content but also observation of physical responses. Since the majority of our communication is oral we need to be sensitive to those hidden messages. There is no one in any organization that does not engage in oral communication of some type on a daily basis. For those who report to you intelligent feedback sets the stage for reaching agreement on all issues related to the work effort. Regardless of the topic under discussion there are misinterpretations and misrepresentations that must be rationalized.
Written Communication
We learn to write by writing and not by reading about writing. Written communication takes on many different forms. It includes general correspondence, reports of different types, project proposals, procedures, record keeping, operating instructions, spreadsheet data, announcements, documentation, and presentations. While the technical community is often viewed as having poor writing skills, I have also found accountants and financial people to be lacking in writing skills. We can add to that list just about every profession at every level. Professional staff members frequently labor over even simple project reports. Unfortunately with the elimination of many secretarial positions, professionals no longer have anyone to correct their grammar or rewrite documents. There are no simple answers to resolving this issue. There are plenty of opportunities for learning how to write clearly and concisely but over my years of experience I have not found very many employees taking up the challenge.
The use of e-mail has only exacerbated the problem. I need not dwell on this issue, but e-mail is a major source of miscommunication. In the early days of telegraphy and telex, every word was counted because we paid by the word. Unfortunately the cost per word for e-mail is insignificant, so it’s easier to use more words than to develop concise statements. This does not suggest a case against e-mail, but since it is our major mode of communication we need to recognize the need to write with a modicum of correctness. The intent is not to go back to diagramming sentences but to learn just a few fundamentals of good written communication.
Graphic and Pictorial Communication
Graphics and pictures can often communicate ideas and concepts more effectively than the use of a lot of verbiage. However, graphics and pictures must be presented clearly just like any other form of communication. A presentation graphic that cannot be read from the back row of the room provides little if any benefit. Also, too many professionals in all disciplines assume that their audience is as well versed in their topic as they are. So graphics and pictures provide a means for communicating, but they must be explained when used outside the immediate group of professionals.
As a manager you will most likely be involved in making presentations above your managerial level, so make sure that you are communicating to your audience and not to yourself. That diagram or spreadsheet may have meaning to you but does it make sense for the audience? The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words cannot be disputed, but it must be the right picture.
Listening as Communication
Managers need to develop their listening skills. That involves hearing the message and not jumping to conclusions without a full understanding of the message. There are times when we get impatient when listening to the views of others, and perhaps with justification. It takes patience to listen to a boring presenter. It takes patience to listen to someone who is repeating what has already been presented. There are occasions when someone may have to be told to stop talking. The question has been answered and there’s no reason to continue the conversation, just cut it off politely. It takes patience to listen to that ill-prepared speaker. But we need to be careful and make sure we’re not missing that hidden kernel of truth that may be of significant value.
As managers we may not have control of such situations outside our immediate department’s activities. We should make sure that our people do not present similar problems when dealing outside our department. We should try and make it easy for others to hear our message. Good listening also involves good communicators. Can there be anything worse in a timesensitive meeting than to listen to someone who is focused on what appears to be irrelevant to the discussion or who lacks coherence because of a lack of preparation?
Reading as Communication
In my consulting practice and graduate-level university teaching I always question what professionals and managers are reading. I’m usually very disappointed with the responses. Most haven’t read a article related to managing in the last two years, even though they are taking advanced degrees in management. Some do not even keep up in their field of interest. They do not keep up with the daily news events related to their organization’s competitors. I hear such responses as, I don’t have time, I’ve heard it all before, and the information doesn’t help me do my job.
Reading is an important part of a manager’s responsibility. It is a stimulus for creative thought—the kind of thinking required to move the organization forward. We can learn from those news accounts about organizations and their activities. We learn what others have done and are doing. We learn how the actions of others can impact our own operations. Remember the Tylenol incident some years ago, when Johnson & Johnson removed Tylenol from the shelves because some individual tampered with the product, causing several deaths? There are lessons in this decision by Johnson & Johnson that can be transferred to any organization and across all levels of management—ethical behavior, organizational responsibility, and management’s response to a major crisis.
So with the amount of information being presented every day, how do managers learn to cope with this mass of data? Managers need to develop some speed-reading skills. They need to be able to sort out the wheat from the chaff. They need to quickly determine what is useful and how to discard the nonessential. The need for speed reading has become doubly important since the introduction of e-mail and electronic communication. Every day we are confronted with information we have not requested. While there is controversy over the benefits of speed reading, it does teach how to scan for relevant information.