Keep Your Message Clear

Communication breakdowns are at the heart of so many conflicts and foul-ups. They can occur at every stage of a communication from sender to recipient and back again. From wrong assumptions to wrong information that shapes a message to misunderstandings and misinterpretations when you "get"—or maybe don't "get"—it, the possibilities for mix-ups are endless. How can you increase the chances of getting a clear message across? How can you know if that clear message has been received?

That's the problem Trina faced when she was assigned an eager but not always on-task employee—Steven—to manage on her project team. His job was to gather the research findings about the company's marketing efforts in different cities, analyze them, turn them into charts and presentations, and send them to the clients. Others on the team were involved in doing interviews or collecting survey data and turning the results in to Steven. Part of Trina's job was to give Steven guidelines on the priorities for different projects, so he could meet company timelines. However, after she gave Steven instructions, usually by e-mail, phone, or in a personal meeting, he frequently got the instructions wrong. Sometimes he changed her instructions to set up the research analysis or reports in different ways, because he thought these were better, though Trina did not. Sometimes he spent what Trina considered an excessive amount of time trying out different ways to set up the data, saying he was looking for greater efficiencies, when Trina felt he was simply wasting time.

Trina also objected to Steven's seeming arrogance in claiming he had certain research skills, when Trina had her doubts that he did. Compounding the problem, he often became defensive when she pointed out a mistake, so she felt she had to be especially diplomatic to protect his feelings. While she felt mistakes were an ordinary part of learning to improve, Steven reacted to any suggestion he had made a mistake with a wall of resistance, as if admitting any mistake would challenge the air of invincible expertise he tried to maintain. For instance, once when she told him she hadn't received a copy of several reports he sent to the client, he bristled: "But I did send them. You always get a copy; it's in the program." So Trina backed down as she commonly did, quietly telling him to print another copy for her or send it again.

Yet as much as she wished she could fire Steven, Trina felt she couldn't, because he had a fairly secure lock on the job, much like a civil service "no-termination without cause" position. So Trina thought her only option was trying to get him to perform better without raising his defenses. But how?

What Should Trina Do?

Here are some possibilities. In Trina's place, what would you have done or do now and why? What do you think the outcomes of these different options would be?

• Find a way to get Steven fired. Why spend the extra time trying to make things clear to him, if it's hard for him to understand?

• Give Steven a clear set of written instructions, but tell him his job is on the line if he doesn't finally get it right. Even if it may be difficult to fire him, the warning alone might scare him into paying more attention, so he will do the work right.

• Have a team meeting for everyone to discuss what Steven is doing wrong, so he really gets the message. By using the group meeting, you won't be alone in having problems with his work, as the difficulties will now concern everyone on the team.

• Take some private time to explain the problem to Steven, find out from him what he suggests to solve it, and use those insights to help you make future projects and priorities clear to him using multiple channels of information.

• Other?

My advice to Trina was twofold. First, maybe Steven didn't fully understand her instructions the first time she told him what to do. Thus, she might try communicating with him through multiple channels and at different times, so he would be more likely to get the message, yet not think she was repeating it exactly, which might seem like an insult. For instance, if she gave the original instruction in an e-mail or phone conversation, she might repeat it again at a face-to-face meeting and follow up with a memo that would go to him and others working on the project, outlining what everyone was supposed to do. Or if she sent out a memo with instructions, she might follow up with a phone call or face-to-face meeting to see if he got the memo and fully understood it. Such follow-up involved more work for her, but it would provide more assurance that Steven would get her instructions right.

Second, given Steven's defensiveness, it might help to reassure him to meet with him personally to find out what he felt he needed to do to better give the client what he wanted. To provide him with more motivation, it might help to have Steven meet with her and the client or have a three-way phone conversation with her and the client, so he felt like he was doing the work for the client, not just for her.

And that's what Trina did. First, she set up a meeting with Steven and gently described some of the problems, such as the unmet deadlines and unreceived reports. She concluded by asking: "So what can I do to help you? What kind of barriers are standing in the way that I can help to get out of the way?"

Steven appreciated the questions. He felt Trina was treating him as an equal colleague rather than giving him orders, and he responded in kind. "Well, sometimes I do forget what I'm supposed to be doing, when I get things to do assigned to me at different times. And I'm not always sure what's most important for me to do first, so I might leave those things to the side if I don't think they're that important and then forget." Finally, he addressed Trina's concerns about his changing report formats and content. "Maybe it would help, too, if I knew why you or the client wanted something laid out in a certain way. Then, I wouldn't try to make any changes. I was just trying to do what I thought was better."

The meeting helped to clear the air as well as overcome an underlying source of the problem—Steven's unconscious resistance to being told what to do by Trina, because he resented her authority. But now that she had explained the needs of the project and presented herself as more of a facilitator than his boss, he felt more comfortable and less threatened.

Trina also devoted more time to writing up clearly what she wanted, too, after the meeting. She wrote more detailed memos in which she laid out more clearly, in step-by-step fashion, what should be done, and to illustrate, included examples of formatting and styles to use, so it was absolutely clear what should be done and in what order. She additionally took time to introduce the memo through alternate means—by e-mail, phone, or through a one-on-one or group meeting. A few days later, she further followed up with Steven to see that he fully understood, agreed with, and could do the tasks assigned to him in time for the next deadline. From time to time, Trina followed up, not to nag, but to see if Steven needed any additional help with the required tasks.

Likewise, if you are working with someone who is not following instructions or getting things wrong, try different strategies to see how you can make what you want done more clear and precise—and do so in a way that won't make someone defensive. Rather than blame, think about how you can help the person get things right. Recognize, too, that some people are more responsive to getting information in different ways. That's why finding different ways to repeat the message can help reinforce it in a nonthreatening way, so the other person doesn't feel offended or patronized. Even adding humorous cartoons or quotes to a message might be a way to add variation and a light touch to help the message go down more easily. In other words, if you combine some: Clarity + Concern + Clarity + Compassion + Clarity, that might help you get your message across in a way that makes the other person more receptive and willing to listen, understand, and respond.

Conclusions

• If something isn't clear one way, try using one or more otherchannels of communication to reinforce what you want to say.

• Don't just say it; find ways to write it and show it, too.

• Combine a little concern and compassion with clarity to helpthe clarity go down—just as you might add sugar to medicine or give someone a sugar-coated pill to make it easier to swallow.

• Don't just try to make it clear yourself. Try to get the other person to shine some light, as well, to clear the way.