Adaptive Communication

You need to be able to communicate with everyone involved in the project on their level. Perhaps your hands-on experience will equip you with the ability to talk details with designers or developers, but you need to be able to speak a different language when taking the same conversation to someone else, like a client or project owner for instance. Not just your use of jargon, you’ll also need to carefully consider your overall approach, your language, your tone.

Designers and developers especially might be quite territorial and defensive of their work and so any comments, feedback, or requests must be framed delicately so that you convey trust in their skills and abilities. If you say anything, even accidentally, that makes them feel belittled or reduced to the status of pixel pusher or code monkey then motivation is instantly crushed and the project will suffer. This takes practice and it pays off to be open about your approach to conversation, especially with people you haven’t worked with much before, by asking directly if what you’re saying seems totally reasonable and always asking if they have their own comments or suggestions.

While with designers you might want to use unspecific language, allowing their creativity to flourish, developers will want logical and straightforward speak. Similarly, while you can jest with the designers about certain “comic” typefaces, or with developers about the web browsers that always give them problems (you know the ones I’m talking about!), your clients, client managers, and bosses on the other hand are not interested in the implementation details, no matter how proud you are of them, and just want to hear about decisions, progress, results, and impact. Remember that no personality trait is negative in all circumstances, save say predilection to constant outrage, and as part of your role as the linchpin holding the team together you must be able to adapt to and bring together each individual.