Overcoming Miscommunication at Work

Features, The Jakarta Post, 27 May 2007
Dewi Susanti & Kayee Man

Have you ever felt frustrated with your coworkers or employees because they do things that are counterproductive to what you or your team are doing?

If you are not an especially patient and forgiving person, the chances are you would respond yes to this question. Even if you are an especially patient and forgiving person, we bet you have also encountered such frustrations.

Excuses could range from misunderstanding, miscommunication, misaligned goals and so on. Fair enough. But if this happens repeatedly, it feels easier just to drop everything and quit. In the long run, such situations can only affect the bottom line of any organization negatively.

This article will focus more specifically on the issue of miscommunication -- what causes the situation, and how to overcome it.


Assumptions and interpretations

Several weeks ago, in working with her team to achieve a goal, Dewi e-mailed to her coworkers what she expected from each one of them. Soon enough, she received e-mails from a colleague with some questions. Dewi clarified what she meant to the whole team and since she didn't receive any follow-up e-mails, assumed her message had gone through clearly.

A few days later, one team member asked to meet with Dewi. Lets call her Jo. Jo told Dewi that Sam, another team member, had misinterpreted Dewi's e-mail. Instead of asking questions to clarify, Sam went ahead and apparently overlooked the work that had been done by Jo. Like any normal person, Jo was livid. After sorting the problem out with Jo and Sam, Dewi reflected on what happened, in the hope of avoiding similar frustrations from flaring up in the future.

Dewi identified three factors at work that cause miscommunication: First, the communicator and his assumptions. Second, the receiver and her interpretations. Third, the interpersonal skills of both communicator and receiver.

What assumptions do communicators make? In our example, the communicator delivered a message to another person and an assumption was made that an absence of response meant a clear message was given and that the message was completely understood by the other person. Complications arise when communicators are in superior positions to receivers of the message. The receivers may not ask any questions for fear of asking wrong or stupid questions that may reflect badly on them.

The second factor relates to how receivers interpret messages from the communicator. Have you ever played the game Chinese whispers or watched the television show where a group of people stand in a row and relay a message from one end to the other by whispering? If you have, then you would know that by the time the message gets to the last person, the content of the message is distorted from its initial form and meaning. Often in games like this, the receivers of the message are not allowed to ask questions, which exacerbates the distortion of the message's content.

The third factor that causes miscommunication is the interpersonal skills of both the communicator and the receiver. These skills are our ability to understand other people and to look at things from other people's points of view.


Communication preferences

So how do we rid ourselves of these culprits of miscommunication?

One of the key factors is honing our interpersonal skills, both as a communicator and receiver of messages. When we want to communicate something, it helps to know whom we are communicating with and what their background is. This information can help us figure out what the intended receivers may or may not be interested in and how we can get through to them. When we are the receivers of the message, the same rules apply. The more we know about who is communicating with us and what their intention is, the more likely we can gauge what message they want to pass on to us.

From our example above, it should be clear that asking questions and clarifying meanings also prevent miscommunications from occurring. Receivers will not make the wrong interpretations and communicators will not assume receiver understanding. Making sure that everyone is "on the same page" is one of the very basic things we can do to ensure effective communication.

As part of our understanding of the people we are communicating with and to enhance the clarification process, it helps to know one's preferred means of communication.

From our observations, some people prefer meeting in person to communicate with others, some talking on the phone, others communicating through written means. Have you ever met people who seem to be constantly in meetings? Call them at any time of the day and they are mostly with other people, be it at meetings, at this or that restaurant or cafe.

There are those who prefer talking on the phone. You never see them without their cell phone and if for one reason or another their cell phone died, they get rather jittery.

Lastly, there are those who prefer communicating through e-mail. This group is happiest when they can be connected to the high-speed Internet. They are happy working away in front of a computer screen, and can sit for many hours without getting bored. They go to a great extent to avoid meetings or calls, much preferring to use text messages, e-mail or e-chatting. Those who prefer to meet in person are not likely to respond to communication sent via written means.

As an example, Kayee had been communicating with a university associate for over a month without any response. She made a phone call to the associate to confirm the death of the project. Lo and behold, it only took a phone call to breathe life back into it!

On the other hand, those who prefer to communicate through written means usually do not like meetings. If you are dealing with people who like to meet, communicating with them through text messages, e-mails, or chatting may not be the way to go -- especially if you have something urgent to discuss.

At the very least you should call them and ask whether or not they have read your messages. In meetings, rather than giving them soft copy, give them hard copy. Some people need to see people and things to get the message through. An understanding of others' preferred means of communication gives us clues as to how we can get through to others.

The last key to effective communication is empathetic reflection. After the initial passing on or receiving of messages, spend a little time to digest what message you think you have passed on to others, or what message you think others want to pass on to you.

If you have to communicate with a project group for a rather long period, it helps to have briefings throughout the duration of a project to improve communication within the team and to check in with team members that all are still moving in the same direction toward the same goal.

*****

To recap, communication can be improved, first by asking ourselves what kind of assumptions we are making and whether or not they are correct. Second, we need to question what kind of interpretations can be made from the message, and whether or not they are correct. Third, we should try to reverse our role and understand the message from others' standpoints. Knowing others' preferred means of communication will help. Fourth, it doesn't hurt to ask questions and clarify the messages, and to check in with one another to ensure we have indeed made the right assumptions and interpretations.

An Indonesian proverb sums it succinctly for us: Malu bertanya, sesat di jalan (if you are shy in asking questions, you will get lost on the way).

Being in Control of Your Thinking

The Jakarta Post, Features - 13 May 2007
Kayee Man & Dewi Susanti


Have you ever felt your life is spinning out of control? Kayee feels it all the time. A few years ago, she read an academic piece that suggested a balanced life is a myth. She has never agreed more. Dewi feels her life is out of control in other ways. At times, she has felt her life is being taken over by people she doesn't even know!

Many of us feel our lives are beyond our control one way or the other, so much so that sometimes we are not aware that we are living lives that in most parts are made of small choices that we can control. These small choices are conscious decisions that we have to make almost every single day of our adult lives. The decisions involve one thing that we can be in control of: our thinking. We're not talking about mind control but being in control of our thinking process.

Different circumstances call for different types of thinking. Other types are accessible to most of us, but the type of thinking that makes up creative thinking is most often identified as divergent and convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking is what we are doing when we try to look for many ideas to solve a problem. The notion that divergent thinking is a main creative ability was the result of many years of research spurred by the Presidential Address given by the eminent psychologist Guilford at the American Psychological Association back in 1950. He called for psychometric and factor-analytical approaches to distill the component abilities of the creative person. Thereafter, many associated divergent thinking with creative thinking, and often, the two terms were used synonymously. When one is generating ideas, one is thinking divergently.

Convergent thinking, on the other hand, is selecting and deciding in order to arrive at a conclusion. Critical thinking, which we do all the time, is part of convergent thinking. The role of convergent thinking was given emphasis over the past 30 to 40 years in the development of the Creative Problem-Solving model by various researchers.

When we need to think creatively, what kind of thinking do we need? Most people we have come across in training sessions have answered divergent thinking -- of course, if we need new ideas, we need to do generative or divergent thinking: true.

But what happens if we only think divergently -- if we only generate ideas? We will have a pool of ideas that's for sure, but a pool of raw and un-judged ideas. What will follow? At this point, you've probably guessed that convergent thinking is needed to sieve through the ideas in order to arrive at an idea that works and can be developed into an action plan for implementation.

Many people associate creativity with thinking only. We define creativity as generative (divergent) followed by evaluative (convergent) thinking resulting in an implementation plan and action. So the first secret to being in control of your thinking is to be able to differentiate between divergent and convergent thinking and having the ability to think both divergently and convergently.

Creative solutions need both divergent and convergent thinking. If you need to generate ideas, think divergently; if you already have the ideas and you need to select from them, think convergently. Being aware of the type of thinking you need to do will enable you to deliberately set yourself on the thinking path you need to travel on.

How can we tell when we are thinking divergently or convergently? The answer is that the two types of thinking look and feel different.

Divergent thinking looks like a bird's eye view of the world. Imagine you are in a hot-air balloon that is slowly rising above the earth, and you have with you a Polaroid camera. You are peering through the lens from afar, you travel higher and higher into the sky to expand the view of possibilities of what to shoot. With the whole world at your disposal, what do you want to capture with your camera?

After looking at the possibilities, you may decide to zoom in on a continent -- your first convergence. Once you've zoomed in, you decide to slowly bring your hot-air balloon down toward the continent and that you'll zoom further into a specific country -- your second convergence. Note now that you're able to see more detail as your view or choice of possibilities shrink.

As you are zooming in or converging, you are probably asking yourself questions: what kind of image do I want to capture? Do I want to explore culture or nature? Will zooming in on this place fulfill my purpose or desires? You are evaluating each option now leading yourself nearer and nearer to a decision.

All very well and good, but how does being able to differentiate and being aware of the types of thinking help us control our thinking?

Let's use the same example of images of the world to capture them through your polaroid lens. You start traveling high into the sky to explore possibilities. But before you have reached a reasonable height, a place catches your attention. The place caught your attention because it happened to be somewhere you know. You need to lower your balloon so you can start zooming into this place with your lens; what you see through your lens triggers your memories.

You are reminded of the last time you were there with some friends, a moving picture comes to your mind of you and your friends getting lost in the city and not having any money to return to the hostel; you were almost mobbed by some drunkards. As you are lost on this track of thought, you shiver and bring yourself back to the real world. You ask yourself, where are you? What are you doing? Then you remember that you were supposed to be exploring. Exploring ... that's right, exploring possibilities for interesting shots! Now where were you in your thinking?

Zooming in on the place you knew brought you on a thought detour. Having been brought back to where you were supposed to be, mentally, you start thinking of other alternatives of where to go for the shooting.

You raise your hot-air balloon again so you can zoom out until you are met with another place and are reminded of ... there you go again, you take another thought detour!

What was happening with your search for possibilities here? You started to zoom out or diverge on your possibilities but you didn't get very far because each time something caught your attention, you immediately zoomed in or converged and lost track of your divergent path.

Here we come to the second secret of creative thinking: diverge first before you converge. This makes logical sense, but in our habitual way of thinking, we rarely allow ourselves to truly diverge before converging.

If we learn to be aware of our own thinking, we can reset our thinking once we become aware that we not engaging in productive thought.

If we go back to our first snippet, of flying higher and higher up into the sky (divergent thinking -- zooming out) resulting in seeing many possibilities before we zoom in (convergent thinking), our divergent thinking is not interrupted because we have suspended our judgment momentarily. Our divergent thinking is not disrupted by thoughts of critical evaluation or convergent thinking.

Our second snippet of zooming out in our thoughts but zooming in immediately before we have built up a pool of possibilities illustrates how the process of thinking up ideas can be disrupted by unproductive thoughts.

Next time you need to think up new ideas, zoom right out before you start zooming in to hone in on your solution or answer.

Emile Chartier has said that having an idea is dangerous if it is the only idea you have. If we don't stay long enough on the path of divergent thinking, we will likely settle on the first idea that comes to mind. The first ideas that come to mind are often tried and tested -- we know them already, which is why we can recall them so quickly. In short, our idea will not be new.

On the other hand, if we stay on the path of divergent thinking for too long, we will not be able to take action, so we also need to learn to stop at some point in order to converge to a solution that works and can be implemented.

To sum up: learn to differentiate between divergent and convergent thinking. Next time you need a new idea, diverge first before you converge. Zoom right out in your thinking before you zoom in.

When you can handle your thinking just as you can zoom in or out at will like using a powerful camera lens instead of a polaroid camera, then you are in control of your thinking.