Weeknotes — Brilliant colleague number 1
I have this colleague Sonya, who’s a comms professional, and just excellent at asking questions.
Maybe you know what I mean, that person in the team whose eyes you always want on that proposal or new project — the one who asks questions that make you think, which in turn gives your project that extra edge.
Today I had the pleasure of spending an hour interviewing this colleague to try and unearth the secret of how she does what she does so well.
Below is a recap of what I’ve learned.
There is a clear process with well defined steps
1 — First read through without taking notes. A bit like what you’re supposed to do when sitting an exam — read through the whole paper before getting stuck in. So just read through the doc and refrain from making detailed notes.
2 — Second read through, this time making notes in your own document. Some of the questions you might have at the beginning will be answered by yourself before you get to the end of the document. So rather than bothering others with your process in a shared document do this privately.
Edit as you go along, going back to the first questions that might have gotten answered as you worked your way through.
Key components for this section:
Point of view — rather than looking at what we as an organisation want to push, take the point of view of the end user while reading — put their hat on so to speak. If I was a funder what would I want to ask in an interview? If I received an invitation to this how would I respond? If I was a journalist how could I interrogate them?
Whole journey — try to take an end-to-end perspective rather than just the ‘little piece’ you’re asked to comment on — see the whole journey for the end user and think of everything else that goes on, what is their whole ecosystem like? A bit like an actor who needs a back story even if they are only studying to be able to say 3 lines in a play.
3 — Take a break and do something totally unrelated for at least 1–2 hours if you can. You could do a completely different work task, have dinner or have a shower and wash your hair — the latter, I was told, works particularly well. This will tend to generate more ideas and suggestions — ‘by looking away from the thing (and letting it percolate in the back of your head) you can see it more clearly’.
4 — Add any final inspirations to the document and then transpose it to the shared document you were asked to comment on, or just send a link to the doc you created for yourself.
Motivation
Sonya is a PR professional with 20 years in the private sector under her belt. This means when she takes on the perspective of the end user she does this from a PR management perspective.
How can we protect ourselves
- Organisationally from future criticism
- Personally saving myself from future work and stress. How can I make sure that I won’t be caught off guard needing to find answers to critical questions in the future?
- What do I need to know to be reassured and able to believe in what I’m promoting?
This motivation results in taking the perspective of an uber-critical end user and enables her to look round corners that none of us noticed even being there.
Being useful — alongside this the other very strong motivation was wanting to be useful to the team and wanting to be the best she can be.
When asked what would happen if she didn’t follow the above process she answered ‘I would feel panicky and the organisation would miss out’. It wouldn’t mean what was being worked on wouldn’t be good but it might not be as good as it could be.
Final reflections
As well as being good at asking questions, Sonya is also excellent at providing great suggestions.
The questions come from a place of ‘not wanting to be on the back foot when promoting it — and so trying to predict what difficult questions could come our way’. The suggestions come from an altogether different place. This is the fun and creative part: ‘we’ve anticipated the tough questions and ensured the groundwork is watertight — so now let’s add some sparkle; let’s do the fab stuff.’
So in summary the first two readings are all about giving the suspicious and cynical part of yourself free rein. Then taking a break to come up with further inspiration is where the unicorns come out to play to add sparkle.
I’d love to talk to Sonya again to find out more about her excellent suggestions as well, but that’s for another time.
