Be aware of your time wasters

One of the queries most of us have internally is “how to utilize the time effectively “and simultaneously work on as pulled by external distractions and factors without much conscious about the time spending pattern. However, a few productive people are good at managing time and accomplish most in the given time.
 
The first step towards to utilize the time effectively is to understand your habit pattern and the time loss associated with it. Once you are aware of your losses, you are convinced to take corrective action.
 
Without awareness, any time management tools and apps are not going to be useful.
 
One of the simple and powerful ways to be aware of time spending patterns is to track and record your activity for every hour minimum for a week. When you analyze the data, you will get a pattern of your work spending in the category like traveling to the office, spending time in the meeting, communication with the team, social media, and so on. Also, you will get a new insight into time-wasters or the activities which are not helping your personal and professional growth.
 
When I did this exercise recently, I got an insight into my habits, which are time wasters and the lifestyle which consumes most of my time without adding value to my growth.
 
I believe that this awareness is the first step towards effective time management. Suggest you do the analysis for a week and be aware of your time wasters if you want to utilize the time effectively.

Improving communication in the workplace-Summary

As we have been discussing for the last 20 weeks about improving communication in the workplace from an individual or personal effort perspective, now let us pause on this topic by summarising the key learnings.

Key learnings:
 

• Effective communication is all about meeting the purpose of your intent with others. It is not about language proficiency.
• As people are from different backgrounds in the workplace, each needs different levels of the communication process, and it is an individual 's responsibility to develop the skill rather than pointing others for poor communication results.
• People will listen to you only when your communication contains ALL  the below elements.

• Expertise in the subject or creditability proof 
• Connecting emotionally with the person
• Logically connecting with facts

• You can connect emotionally with others by consistently displaying. 

Respect to others and feeling good with you
Listening  and undivided attention to others
Prompting others and fulfilling the need of “what is in it for me “
Your friendly  posture, tone, facial expression
Knowing the difference between criticism and feedback
Being approachable to others
 

• In the workplace, we can not avoid conflict due to differences in the thought processes of each person. The only way to manage the conflict is through appropriate usage of assertiveness, proactive communication, and sometimes to ignore the battle for the interest of higher purpose.

• Going forward, to manage the new generation, Influencing skill is mostly expected expertise in the workplace rather than the conventional way of commanding and directing. Influencing skills can be learned and developed with awareness and practice.

Developing communication skills is a lifetime learning process, and you need to invest in it to progress in the career path!
 

Being approachable

Improving communication in the workplace

Being approachable

 
One of the factors to improve the effectiveness of communication is creating a favorable environment for conversation. The atmosphere is not the physical environment at an organizational level, but on the emotional aspects at a personal level. That psychological, environmental factor is “Being approachable.”
 
What is meant by being approachable?

Being approachable means how others are feeling when they want to reach out and communicate with you. The feeling could be memorable, friendly in nature, inspiring, relaxed, or fearful, disappointment, demotivated once they reach out to you.

Approachability is not confined only by physical proximity but at an emotional level. In most of the workplace, this is a concern, particularly in the relationship between superior and juniors and between colleagues.
 
It does not mean that you need to give less priority to your job and to offer yourself for others when others want to reach out to you. Even if you are busy with your work, you can demonstrate your approachability with a polite, assertive, and permissible way of communication.
 
For example, you might have observed and heard the following scenario in your workplace, especially with your senior members when you approach them, or you demonstrate to your colleagues or subordinates.
 
1. Not effectively listening with face to face, instead of doing something and listening to you
2. "Don’t tell me stories. Come to the point straight."
3. "Don’t tell me the problem, I want only solutions" (the person comes to you for solutions approach)
4. Not returning the phone calls and messages
5. Not responding to mail communication
 
Those are the behaviors that create a perception that the person is not easily approachable. All those behaviors distant you from others even though they are nearby physically.
 
When there is a barrier to “approachability,” eventually, the quality of communication suffers either by not sharing full information or not getting information on time.
 
Just be aware of behaviors that make you not being approachable .!

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."

Book on "Developing an Influencing Skills."

As we discussed last week on developing Influencing skills at the workplace , given below one of the best books on the same which i read some years back.

The Author gives the techniques of persuasion by explaining the science behind each technique.

I recommend reading the book if you would like to enhance your perspectives on managing the people with your influencing skills.

Link is given below

https://amzn.to/2pEF7RM

Developing Influencing skill

Improving communication in the workplace

Developing Influencing skill 

 
One of the effective way to improve overall communication and harmony in the workplace is by influencing others to get things done. 
 
What is influencing?
 
Influencing is the power to change or direct someone without directly forcing them to do. It is more of impacting others positively with your personality and communication process.

For example,

When you are proposing or initiating an improvement idea in your organization, and when you express it to others,  it is accepted and implemented by others. People may or may not be reporting to you, yet they are convinced to proceed based on your communication methods, respect, and trust. They make it happen as if they are not forced to do it, but it happens on their willingness. That is influencing.

The communication method could be explaining the purpose, listening , respecting the views and convincing.

Why do influencing skills need to be learned?

When you grow up on the career ladder, your success depends on how you are getting things done across functions apart from your domain or functions. Commanding will not help beyond some level and only influencing help.

Also, young generations come up smarter than you, and they like to work with influencing personality than the controller.
 
Factors that help to become an influencer in the workplace
 
Expertise in your chosen  domain
Respect and listening
Being assertive than aggressive or passive
Gaining trust and respect through your character and competency
Provoke others with questions and change the perception
Purposeful communication
Focusing more on the solution than problem or  arguments

 The point is when you learn to influence others to get things done, you also enjoy the work and the people are also enjoying to work with you. Hence, worth to invest in developing the influencing skill!
 

Managing conflict with assertive communication

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflict with assertive communication
 

When conflict occurs in the workplace, you have a choice to manage thorough either passive or aggressive, and both have pros and cons. The third choice to manage conflict is assertive communication, which has only advantages.

This communication quality helps to improve the harmony and growth of the individual. However, it calls for managing your emotions during the conflict and a high level of patience and maturity. If one puts effort into learning this skill in life, I can say that it is the most precious asset one can have.
 
Assertive communication:

Assertive communication is all about how you are expressing your views by maintaining respect, showing empathy, or understanding other’s opinions from their perspective and also be firm in your views. In the end, both have to feel good and sense of achieving the purpose.

One instance I had witnessed some time back in one of the product development organization. The team put a lot of effort into developing a product and ready for launch in a few months down the line. The product manager was showing the proto to the managing director of the organization and explaining the features. The managing director suggested some modifications to improve the aesthetic.The team knew that the suggestion was good, but making any modification at the moment would delay the product launch. Since the advice came from the head of the organization, they could not resist.

The product manager had two choices in front of him; either he could passively accept the suggestion as direction, change the product, and delay the timeline. Another option he had was to refuse and argue aggressively. But he responded well by using assertive communication as follows

“I agree with your suggestion as this may improve product value further, and  I suggest to take it as a future product line extension and the implications to be worked out. Any change at this moment will delay the product launch timeline, cost. I think we should move forward now.”
 
The above assertive expression consists of respecting other’s opinions and acknowledging, not rubbing the ego with an argument, indicating the consequences and at the same time being firm on the stand considering the big picture of the organizational growth. That results in closure of the conflict and never resurfaced after that.
 
The point is most of the conflict happens either due to ignorance of information, a perspective difference of individual and the one who manages the conversation with an assertive way emerges as a leader. This calls for conscious development on self on assertive communication!

Aggressively expressing to manage conflict.

Improving communication in the workplace


 

Aggressively expressing to manage conflict.

 
Last week, I mentioned about 3 types of expressing or communicating when conflict arises in workplaces and discussed the pros and cons of “passive expression.” Let us understand the second type of expression, “Aggressively communicating.”
 
Aggressively expressing or communicating:

When the difference of opinion or conflict arises between two people or team, one person takes the upper hand and forces others to accept his/ her views and move on. That is aggressive communication.

Whether aggressive communication is right or wrong?

Only the context defines it.

Generally, it is being told aggressiveness is not the right way of communication. But in the workplace perspective, some point of time, the decision has to be taken at the right time, and timing is critical. The person who is in an authority position in the conversation or in context has to settle down others through his forcing communication only. When the person takes an aggressive approach for a higher purpose, then it is right than beating the bush without making any decision.

In some organizations I have witnessed, people are kind to each other in all matters, and no decision or conclusion being taken by anyone as they perceive aggressiveness is against harmony.
 
When is aggressiveness perceived as rude or bad?

Naturally, when you want to force others to accept your views, your body language posture changes from compassion to commanding position, and your tone rises to a high pitch, and you lose your emotional balance. When you lose your emotions, you use to divert into other dimensions like getting into personal, taking past references, talking irrelevant things. During that moment, you are seen as an “angry, low temperament person", and the intention of your expression is lost.
 
There is a thin line between aggressive and assertively expressing your views and can be learned through awareness and let us discuss expression assertively in next week!

Managing conflict with the communication process

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflict with the communication process
 

As discussed, the conflict can never be avoided in the workplace due to different viewpoints, only it can be managed to get the things done and to maintain a cordial relationship.

Whatever may be the conflict, how we approach with right communication process makes a difference, and this is more of a state of mind and also be a skill that needs to be learned.
 
Before getting into the different communication processes, we need to have clarity about which conflict we would like to face. Some of the conflicts are not worth to deal with, and it is better to let it go.

The practical approaches in dealing with conflict as follows and each one has their merit depends on the conflict nature/person involved and the situation

1. Passively expressing
2. Aggressively expressing
3. Assertively expressing

Let us understand the insights in each of the communication process

Passively  expressing:
 
When conflict happens between two people, one person takes a passive approach by allowing another person to satisfy their concerns while neglecting themselves. In this process, internally, the person is suffering.
Sometimes this approach is beneficial when the other person is being “power centered” and not in a position to listen to your views.
And also, this approach is useful when you do not want to pay attention to the conflict or if the conflict is not worth to take forward.

For example, if the conflict is to have scheduled review meetings in the morning or afternoon between you and your boss. There is no point in having a debate or justifying your views to keep either morning or evening. In either case, you are going to be the “essential person” in the review meeting. Also, by arguing for this case, you are wasting your energy, and it is better to be passive.
 
Depending on the importance of the issue, you need to weigh relationships vs tasks and then decide to ignore or live with the flow. But you need to be conscious about your inner peace when the conflict happens and the way you deal with it through passive expression.
 
Let us discuss other communication processes next week!

Managing conflict with elevated thinking

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing conflicts with elevated thinking

When conflict happens between two people in the workplace, most of us use  the following methods to resolve the conflict 

1. Forcing others to accept your views with your positional power
2. Passively accepting other views without expressing your standpoint
3. Ignoring and moving on
4. Compromising -settling down in between which way both are not happy
5. Collaborating to find the intention behind others view and finding the solution which is mutually agreeing on happily.

Each method has its implication on the relationship and the quality of work.

One of the ways effective leaders adopt to deal with conflict is “working on elevation.”

For example, when the conflict happens, between the function, say from finance and marketing on delivering the goods against payment only. The conflict resolution could be going along with the opinion of finance or marketing. The effective leader solves the conflict by bringing the customer or organizational wellness into the perspective to resolve the conflict among the functions.

Similarly, in most of the workplace, the conflict between two people would be “who supposed to do what“and the conflict gets into personal friction among the individual. Even though this can be claimed as an organizational development issue, the conflict can be avoided if either one of them thinks from the third angle of the customer or organization’s perspective.

When you think or look at higher needs, the low-level conflict can be resolved. This is one of the leadership qualities in dealing with conflicts.

Let us discuss the communication process in dealing with conflicts by next week!  

Managing Conflict

Improving communication in the workplace

Managing Conflict

As we have discussed improving communication in the workplace in a normal circumstance, another testing point for improving communication effectiveness is during the conflict. Managing conflict by balancing relationships, and the result is art, and some people are good at it.

What is meant by conflict in the workplace?

Conflict is a difference in thought process, interest, opinions about something among the individuals or team

For example,
In one of the client organizations, the senior member wants to increase top-line growth, whereas the new generation executive intends to focus on maximizing profitability than sales growth. That is a conflict of interest among individuals.

Maintenance functional team members asking for releasing machines for maintenance purposes, and the production team refuses to release to meet the delivery targets. That is a conflict of interest among the group.

If you really observe the day to day interactions of every individual and team, there could be a series of differences in interest, values, thoughts, and opinions.

Why does conflict happen in the workplace?

When different people come together for a common goal, the visible difference in thought process arises due to the difference in background, exposure, functional priorities or agendas, or lack of awareness about the task or outcome.

Whatever the intentions of your thought process, there are some people out there to come out with alternative thought processes and opinions. Conflict cannot be avoided, and we need to learn different strategies to manage the conflict.

Sometimes disagreement arises due to positional status or desire to fulfill the ego of an individual.

What will happen when conflict is not managed well?

When we are not managing the conflict, there could be a possibility of

1. Damaging the relationship
2. Developing stress internally
3. Prolonging the decision and affecting the task or goal
4. Creating an environment not conducive of harmony

Let us discuss the methods of managing conflicts, communication methods in next week!

Book review: The Art of Effective communication

Recently I came across this book, and I thought this book is relevant for the discussion on effective communication in the workplace.

Even the author is not familiarly known, the contents are depth, and the relevant topics are covered for making the communication effective.

If you are interested in getting more perspective on improving your communication and influencing skill, recommend it to read, and the kindle version link is given below

https://amzn.to/2o9xjqI

Responding to Feedback

Improving communication in the workplace

As we discussed the minute difference between criticism and feedback on improving communication effectiveness in a professional environment, there are other aspects of improving feedback effectiveness.

As a sender, even though you are keen on giving feedback than criticism, the fulfillment comes only when the receiver takes the feedback also in the right perspective.

How one responds to feedback determines the quality of communication between the two.

For example, your boss or colleague is pointing out some gap in your behavior or performance, you may choose any one of the below responses, and that response determines the quality of communication between you and others.

Taking too personally :

 Feeling guilty and becoming sad about the feedback. The consequence may be that your self-esteem may go down, and you may be cribbing about the feedback. No Improvements on the corrective action or forward-thinking and in turn, no progress in performance.

Defending the feedback giver:

Defending your position with justification to the feedback giver. Likely, you may win the argument as well, but you may lose the sight of the truth of feedback. No improvements in the corrective action or forward-thinking and in turn, no progress in performance.

Analyzing the feedback with a rational approach:

Listening and seeking further clarity from the feedback giver. Getting into introspecting. In this process, your mind tends to analyze the fact and accept the need for corrective action for growth.

The point is the choice of response to feedback determines the quality of communication and progress.
Just be aware of your response to feedback in case if you are receiver!

Criticism Vs. Feedback

Improving communication in the workplace

Criticism Vs. Feedback

As discussed the definition and the reason for criticism in a professional environment, let us understand the alternative for criticism.

What is happening during criticism?

When we criticize others even intending to correct others, the receiver immediately does not recognize it as a process correction than the comments target him/ her as personal. Once he/ she feels personal, he/she start defending their action by reciprocating into arguments or going onto inferior complex or developing personal vengeance with others.

However, in professional life, how can we proceed without judging or correcting others when they make a mistake? As a leader, we cannot be blindfolded with other’s behavior. There is an alternative to criticism, that is FEEDBACK.

Criticism vs. Feedback

There is a  minute difference between criticism and feedback.

Criticism is more about judgment or conclusion, more about targeting the person or harsh in the expression, inclined more on the past.

Whereas Feedback is more about evaluating the process, more about targeting the process and firm in expression and also provide solutions to correct the behavior and future-oriented

For example,

When  your team member makes a mistake in preparing presentations with more grammatical and typo error, as a leader, you have two choices to respond

If you are criticizing, the typical expression would be "You always make a mistake in the presentation. you do not know the basic texting process."

If you are giving feedback, the typical expression would be " I find more mistakes in your presentation and i suggest that you can use the “ spell check” option before you send it to others. Learn about it".

Both statements are pointing out the mistakes to correct the person, but there is a difference in expression, value addition to another person.

Criticism - a barrier for effective communication

Improving communication in the workplace

Criticism - a barrier for effective communication

One of the barriers to effective communication is “ criticism.” The moment we get into criticism mode, either the sender or receiver stop the communication flow.
 
What is meant by criticism?
 
Criticism is our judgement about someone or somebody’s activities and expressing more aggressively.

For example,

In one organization, senior design manager found a mistake of his subordinate's design work, called the person and shouted as follows, “you are useless designer, you do not know the design fundamentals, you are simply wasting my time” ... that is criticism ( Actually the manager only recruited junior designer !!)

In another organization, the business head rolled out a new initiative to his team and said, “ you people are never going to take it to forward as I know you failed in the past in similar initiatives.“ That is criticism.

 In both examples, the words are harsh, mainly hitting the person and not giving any improvement direction. That is the characteristics of criticism.

Why are we criticizing others?

We are making a judgement on others may be with good intention only like
 

1. We want others to improve
2. We like/care them to grow 
3. We may not like the way things are  being done
4. Our inherent nature of finding PERFECTION in everything or only seeing a black dot in entire white space.

Either we are criticizing others knowingly or unknowingly, but in reality, our words and expression hurt others. Criticism is affecting others by lowering the self-image or confidence in their process.

Let us discuss the following next week.

What is happening to the sender and receiver during criticism?
What is the alternative to criticism as our intention is still to make others improve?
The difference between criticism and feedback?
The more delicate aspect of giving feedback

Setting the Context for effective communication

Improving communication in the workplace

Setting the Context for effective communication.

 
One of the common pitfalls for ineffective communication is lack of clarity on the context or background. Assumptions play a significant role in distorting the intention of communication. As a leader, we need to spend more time on setting the context clearly when we communicate any critical instructions or task to others.
 
For example,
some years back, my manager asked me to prepare a plant layout design to accommodate some more facilities. I also got into data collection and micro designing of alternative options. One week later, he called me and asked me to show the proposal, and I replied that still, I was collecting the data. He got annoyed with my response. Then, he clarified that he wanted first the quick conceptual layout for feasibility purpose to get the approval from management, whereas I was working on the detailed, micro-level plan which supposed to be done once conceptually approved. We lost time.

Here the learning is “mismatch of assumptions” by both. Effective communication should be the manager must have communicated the purpose behind his request for layout options, in what phases he wanted to go for and timeline specific. That is the context setting.
 
When we are not setting the context clearly, people will assume based on their level of knowledge and background, and the communication intent may get lost. We may argue that the receiver also should clarify the assumptions, but in reality, the giver knows more, and he/ she has to set the context.
 
Hence, if you want to improve the effectiveness of communication, the context has to be articulated clearly without giving room for assumptions. Setting the context as part of the conversation becomes a habit once you consciously practice.  

Giving undivided attention

Improving communication in the workplace

Giving undivided attention
Having discussed the importance of making other people feel good in your presence and impact of body language on active listening, let us consider other factors on emotional aspects of communication like giving undivided attention during conversation.
 
 Undivided attention:
 
Either you speak to someone, or somebody talk to you, how much care you are giving to the conversation without any other distraction is all about undivided attention.

You might have come across a situation when you are conveying something to your colleagues or someone, and they might be looking at their mobile, laptop or looking around someone or waving hands to someone than listening to your message. That is the example of divided attention. When you undergo a similar experience, either you may lose energy or the other person receives half information. In either way, the effectiveness is lost.
 
Undivided attention can be demonstrated through your eye contact with the other person or prompting the other person or nodding your head when you listen to another person. Even though it looks like good manners, it is difficult for all to follow. Hence this is art or skill to be mastered with awareness and practice.
 
This skill is required, especially when you interact 1-1 basis with others.
 
I have given below the video link indicating the importance of undivided attention during 1-1 conversation. ( as found in youtube source)
 
https://youtu.be/psdlZ4ee3qE
 
Giving undivided attention is a conscious effort and can be developed with awareness and practice.
 

Awareness of body language

Improving communication in the workplace

Awareness of body language and state of mind

As discussed last week on the importance of making others feels good in your presence to improve communication, let us consider the importance of body language on the quality of communication.

Whether in face to face or telephonic conversation, before the actual discussion, we are communicating through our posture, quality of tone, eye contact, and facial expression. That is body language. Body language is something others are seeing from you. Your body language is the outcome of your state of mind at any point in time.

If you are happy, energetic, and with enthusiasm, your posture, tone quality, and facial expression would be pleasing to others. Alternatively, when you are angry, fear, sadness, anxiety, your posture, tone, and facial expression would be terrible to others. That sets the quality of communication.

State of mind and body language are interrelated and good news is that you can change your state of mind by changing your body language and vice versa.

For example, when you feel dull, you use to sit with bending posture and your voice may be low. When you stand up, stretch and take a long breath, you feel relaxed and your voice, the expression will be positive.

The point is that you can change your state of mind by changing your posture and vice versa, and this needs to be aware when you are communicating with others as a conscious effort.

Other aspects of effective communication let us discuss next week!