How Can you Improve Your Communications?

This article is not how to produce content.  It is about how you can improve your communications, increase your reputation and presence, and become more effective in meetings.

An Introduction

I am at IT Architect at a large financial institution.  I worked at IBM for over 10 years and was an IBM consultant for around 8 years.  Over the years, I have learned some simple techniques that greatly improved the effectiveness of meetings and improved my communications.  The result is an improved reputation and name recognition.  It is easy to accomplish what I am going to tell you, but most people will not actually do these things.

Most People are Lazy

The vast majority of people are lazy.  What I am going to tell you is simple, and I have mentored people on these techniques, but most people will not execute these techniques.  As a result, it is pretty easy to exceed most people, with little effort.

Meetings

Most people complain about meetings.  So you see a lot of suggestions about having an agenda, having fewer meetings, writing a summary, etc.  My recommendations are different.

First, someone needs to lead the meeting.  The way to lead a meeting is to stand up and write on the whiteboard.  Everyone else is sitting and if everyone sits, no one is leading the meeting, and the conversations typically are a random series of discussions with no coherent flow.  If you stand up and write on a whiteboard, then you are the center of attention, and you can control the discussion.  Write down what people are saying.  Draw pictures with boxes, circles, and lines.  Write down pros and cons.  Write down decisions.  Write down action items.  Write down follow up items.  When you are done, take a picture of the whiteboard and now you have meeting notes.  If you need a formal document later, the whiteboard pictures serve as your source of notes, not your memory.

Second, if you have a topic where people do not seem to agree, take a vote.  What I mean by that is to poll everyone in the room and ask people what they think.  Write their answers on the whiteboard.  Make sure you ask everyone.  Why?  Because most meetings tend to be dominated by type A personalities or extroverts.  The introverts are often not heard.  So you need to ask them.  Ask them explicitly what they think.  It is not important that everyone agrees with a decision.  It is more important to hear all sides of an issue and arrive at a decision.  No decision or indecision is often worse than a bad decision because there is no forward progress and no experience.  If you find out later the group decision was wrong, you can always change direction with your newfound knowledge and experience.

Notice that standing up, taking notes on the whiteboard, and asking people their opinion all take energy.  It is much easier to just sit in your chair, half listen to the meeting, do work on your laptop during the meeting, and not communicate with people.  But once you start following my suggestions, the meetings become more effective, and people will be more engaged.  Plus, people start to think of you as a leader, not a participant, and this will improve your reputation over time.

Emails

I am really getting annoyed that people do not respond to emails from their colleagues.  I am not sure if this is due to the volume of emails or the twitter broadcast mentality.  But it seems to be getting worse.

If someone sends you an email asking you something, always answer them.  Preferably immediately and with content that clarifies your response.  Don’t send back one word replies.  People can not read your mind.  Clarify everything.  If you need time to write a better response, reply immediately with something like ‘I read your email and I will reply by tomorrow’.  This gives people a timeframe on when to expect a response.  Make sure you meet the commitments you give people.  Honesty and integrity are important characteristics of leaders.

When you write a reply email, give sufficient detail to clarify your answer.  Don’t just say no or yes.  State what you are saying no or yes to and why.  It takes time and energy to write a good reply, but often these replies are gold and can be used in the future.  So make sure they are saved so you can reference them in the future.

Again, most people are lazy and will not do this, so it is easy to exceed most people.

Presentations

The best thing you can do for your career and reputation is to give presentations.  Even if you are a shy introvert, develop and give presentations.  The more you do this, the better you get.  You will gain confidence over time.  You will also build a reputation.

The secret is to develop presentations on topics you know well.  And you should develop your own presentations.  The most difficult thing to do is present someone’s materials.  If you have to present materials developed by someone else, make sure you deviate from the script and introduce your thoughts.  It not only makes it easier to present, but introduces your personality to the presentation.  It is your personality that you are presenting, not just the material.

I use presentations as documentation.  You will refer to that documentation hundreds of times.  You will share it with many people.  It is well worth the effort.  Again, most people will not do this.  It takes energy and original thought.  But in reality it is like passive income – a little effort now with pay big dividends in the future.

Online Forums or Social Media

Most people are lurkers.  They will read online forums and other types of social media, but rarely contribute.  If you contribute, you are among a small minority.  That alone will gain you name recognition and a reputation.  Just make sure your contributions are honest, accurate, and well thought out and not insulting or demeaning.  You can destroy your reputation and career in minutes with some hasty negative comments.

So contribute positive thoughts and ideas to online media.  LinkedIn, yammer, forums, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.  It is more important to present your positive ideas and comments and avoid tearing people down.  Again, honesty, integrity, positivity, and useful content will gain you recognition.

Do not estimate the power of contributing useful content to online media.  Most people will not contribute.  So it is easy to exceed most people.  And the more you contribute, the easier it becomes.  Soon you will find it is not that much effort.

Your Original Thoughts

Have you noticed that there are a lot of tweets or posts to social media that are just links to other people’s content?  It is nice to share what you have found, but it is much better to produce original content.  Very few people will produce original content.  It takes time and energy.  It is much easier to retweet or post a link with no additional content.  Don’t be that person.  Create some original content.  Or at least add your original thoughts when you post links.

Your original thoughts and content are what will get you ahead and gain a positive reputation.  Here is an example.  Often I attend local meetups via https://www.meetup.com, and I usually take notes on my iPhone using Evernote.  The next day I will write up a summary and post it to my company’s yammer site.  I also add some commentary about the people or topics from the meetup.  Original thought.  Original content.  Lots of people at work tell me they like my postings and recognize my name just from those postings.  Most people just post links.  I try to post original content.

Summary

Since most people are lazy, it is very easy to beat most people.  So do the following:

• Be honest, be positive.  Don’t tear down people.
• Stand up in meetings and write on the whiteboard.
• Ask people what they think and write it down during meetings.
• Answer all emails promptly and with content that clarifies your response.
• Develop presentations on topics you know well and present those ideas to groups of people.
• Post original positive thoughts on social media and online forums.
• Produce original content.  Don’t just repeat someone else’s content.