Unless You Work In A Closet...

Posted by Tom Bellinson

Most of us at MSIS have a technical background.  Our technical skills tend to have primacy, but unless you work in a closet, working with other people will make or break your success.  I have a degree in Communication Arts.  I have always been fascinated with communications.  As a field technician, I was very good at troubleshooting problems and setting up new technology that I hadn’t seen before.  Despite my competency, I regularly ran afoul of my clients.  This happened, not because I did something wrong, but because I didn’t communicate effectively.  I once almost lost my job after completing one of the smoothest, most successful network installations I’ve ever done.

I was implementing a network that had been specified by an independent consultant hired by my client.  The consultant had made some bad choices.  Despite the inherent incompatibilities, I was able to get everything to work.  One of the poor choices was a tape drive that did not have sufficient capacity or performance for the size of the network storage.  When the owner of the business found out, he was furious -- with me!  Why me?  I didn’t specify that drive.  It didn’t matter.  And, my boss agreed that it didn’t matter.  I had a responsibility to our client to notify him if I didn’t think something was right.  It was a learning experience.

More importantly, it awakened me to the relative importance of communication in delivering technical services.  It was at that point that I began to dedicate myself to becoming a better communicator.  I had learned a lot about communication skills in college, but I hadn’t really applied what I knew.  That changed.  I started paying a lot more attention to the clients’ perceptions.

I started listening to taped learning programs (yes, it was that long ago).  I went to seminars.  I read books.  I switched to corporate sales from my technical role.  I got to practice my communication skills.  A lot.  I got better at it.  I’m still not great, but I try to improve.  I like to tell stories so I tend to talk too much.  I have to remind myself to listen more and talk less.  This is almost always good advice for many except the most introverted of us.  Learning about “active listening” can be extremely helpful.

Over the years, in the course of observing and learning about good communication habits, I have learned a lot of little things that add up to being a good communicator.  What’s interesting is that we are constantly communicating with ourselves.  We all have a little voice in our head.  If that communication isn’t right, chances are pretty good that the communications we have with others will be of similar (or worse) quality.

Recently, I started reading yet another book on communications called Four Seconds by Peter Bregman.  I read the sample part of the book and it looked promising, so I sprung for a copy.  At first, I was disappointed.  It seems that I know a lot of the ideas in the book.  At some point it dawned on me, I have spent a good part of a lifetime accumulating the wisdom in this book from a multitude of sources.  If you’re interested in improving your communications, I highly recommend this book.  

None of the ideas in any book will do you much good if you don’t put them into practice in your daily life.  This book offers many bite-sized ideas that you can try out individually.  I can guarantee that if you implement all of them, you will be a great communicator.  Investing in communications skills will not only advance your career, but it will also advance your personal life as well.  Communication issues are the biggest cause of stress in our relationships.  Stress reduces our happiness and can even have physical manifestations if we let it get too far out of hand.  If you’re stressed out right now, think about the source and I’ll bet you that behind it is a strained relationship that could be fixed with better communication.