I attended communication training and all I could come up with was this crappy title
… or Communication and Conflict skills in tech leadership
Co-written by Matt McKenzie.
Matt and I attended an Everest Academy training session facilitated by Andrew Murphy from Tech Leaders Launchpad. The topic was Tech Leadership Skills: Communication & Conflict.
My suspicion is that anyone reading this, whether involved in tech or not, could instantly come up with a myriad of communication issues they have encountered during their career — or in their personal life for that matter. This was definitely true of the workshop attendees, and communication is often one of the biggest factors contributing to the success of a project (and in some painful instances, its utter failure).
Why communicate better? More voices, improved solutions. Less tension with happier teams. Better outcomes leading to thrilled customers. The alternative is detrimental to both the project outcomes and to everyone’s wellbeing.
Communication basics
We started the workshop with communication basics: what is it and why is it so complex? One area we focused on was the exponential growth of communication channels as teams grow — just adding an extra 1 or 2 people into the mix ratchets up the complexity of smooth communication dramatically, as you can see in the below image taken from this article which contains similar wisdoms about the communication issues that can arise in large teams.
Another concept that resonated was the locus of control and how understanding where you and your conversational partner’s locus of control is can be really helpful. Have you ever tried to explain a concept to someone and you can see that they are not understanding? Depending on your locus of control, your internal reaction may be “How can this person be so stupid? I’m explaining it perfectly so why don’t they get it?” all the way through to “I must not be explaining this well at all because what I am saying is not getting through to them. I wonder how I can do better?”. This article contains more info.
The use of jargon
Be mindful about your use of jargon and technical language, including acronyms, particularly the dreaded TLAs (three letter acronyms). Specialised nomenclature has its place in any technical workplace — it serves as an efficiency among experts. We do however need to consider context and audience, and ensure clarity in our communication to avoid the pitfalls of differences in understanding.
Benefits vs features
Adjusting your mindset to focus on benefits rather than features can be a positive step towards better communication — a car salesperson may speak about the car’s horsepower (a feature) but won’t capture the attention of their interested party unless they highlight the car’s ability to quickly pass slower cars on the freeway (a benefit).
Understanding that the listener is not necessarily interested in the feature or chosen technology in and of itself, but instead wants to understand the outcome or benefit of this feature is key.
Tailoring your communication
Be mindful of your target audience. Where audiences are diverse and interests are nuanced, understanding preferences, interests, and pain-points is paramount. Bringing together the concepts above, if you can identify the motivators of the people you are communicating with and focus on the benefits for them, all the while ensuring the use of technical jargon is appropriate, you’re more likely to cut through.
It can be very tempting to use an “all hands” style meeting to communicate something, but recognising that your audience may have differing motivators and communicating individually to key advocates and detractors of an idea will also pay dividends.
Conflict in communication
Once we had a decent grasp on communication, we delved into managing conflict. Conflict can be powerful in communication if it is healthy conflict, as it can lead to better outcomes. But it is important to be able to recognise the difference between healthy and unhealthy conflict, and to understand that others’ perceptions of healthy and unhealthy may not match with your own.
Courage emerged as a recurring theme throughout the seminar. Many of us identified as being conflict-averse. What we learnt was that although communication is not always easy, the situation is far more likely to improve if the conflict is addressed via healthy communication.
A great case study — offered up by a participant — brought this concept to life: a conflict between delivery speed and code quality within a tech team. Effective communication and courageous decision-making were pivotal in navigating the tension between meeting deadlines and upholding quality standards.
A handy hint is to ensure discussion is centred on ideas rather than people. In unhealthy conflict, often the discussion has become about the people. To navigate back to healthy conflict, focus on ideas. In our conflict example, questions like “how can we ensure that the overall delivery speed is not impacted by a larger number of bugs that take time to resolve?” (ideas) rather than pointed statements like “it feels like your team doesn’t even care if they introduce bugs as long as they can cross off a story!” (people) will aid in resolving the conflict with the best outcomes for all.
Acronyms are always useful, right? Here’s the one Andrew recommended for managing a conflict situation — PAUSE:
Prepare to change unhealthy conflict into healthy conflict
Actively listen to them discuss the conflict
Understand their point of view
Share your view of what happened, without blame
End with alignment and action
Conclusion
The Communication & Conflict session served as a poignant reminder of the indispensable role communication plays in the tech industry. We left the session invigorated and ready to embrace communication as a learnable skill. If we remember to tailor messages for diverse audiences, navigate jargon with clarity, and ensure we don’t let conflict fester, we can drive projects forward with confidence and conviction. And you can too!
