So I’ve started off with a wanky title, the kind of headline you see on LinkedIn. So this needs to be a good read. So no pressure.
I turned 40 last October, I know, I don’t look it. The lowest age someone has guessed is 32 so I will take that.
As part of turning 40, I have spent a lot of time looking back at my career to gauge how well I’ve done, am doing, where I can improve and so on. And the biggest outcome for me is how important I value good communication whether it be from me or someone else. Let’s face it, if there is no communication, things are going to fail miserably before they even start right?
Communication is so important in life and at work. Being a father means I have to communicate a lot to ensure they stay safe and learn. It also ensures they communicate with me when they don’t know something and sometimes vice versa. I feel like I can ask them anything and they will tell me. We talk a lot and there is trust there which ensures the household is happy, we all know what is going on in the world and we just get on with it and should something need communicating, it just happens. It’s not awkward or one sided.
In the workplace, it’s kind of the same thing. There are things you need to know and probably things you don’t really need to know so it’s important that the things you need to know about you are told and the things you don’t kept away until maybe the time is appropriate to tell you if needed.
Good communication breeds good communication. It shouldn’t feel like you have to go looking for answers all the time as pretty much all you need to know is right there or easy to get.
Now with the kids, there are 3 of us, but with a team, it can be a lot more with people split into teams, departments, cities, countries and sometimes planets (old boss, very odd). This makes communication harder right?
It might offer different challenges but no, not really. In the digital age, we have many ways of telling people things, sharing info so whether you are sat next to someone or they are 200 miles away, the message can still be passed on and we can ask questions.
I think the biggest challenge teams face and I’ve seen this for years now is the split in teams (Dev, PMs, Account Managers, QA, Design that kind of thing) and the communication across teams. I’ve seen it where some people in a business (person A) never speak to another set of people (person C) purely down to the way communication is passed on via a Person B. Surely it makes more sense for Person A to talk to C or B&C. I’ve seen people work together for years and probably speak about 10 words in that time simply because of how it was setup yet they worked on the same projects.
Is that a bad thing? I don’t know really. If the work gets done, does it really matter who talks to who.
Personally, I think it’s important everyone talks to each other. I’m terrible at times for communication. I put things off, I stew on things and think it over too much rather than ask. Days of stress instead of just getting the answer or solving a problem.
Life’s too fucking short really.
It’s important to ask people their opinions on things, it’s important they feel they can offer their opinion. Ask them how they are, be open, it’s not a game, share information quick, don’t let it go stale. Talk, talk, talk!
Communication really is everything.
Whilst going through my posts, I found that I posted about the C word a few years back.