{"id":6631,"date":"2011-06-15T01:19:15","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T08:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=6631"},"modified":"2011-05-27T09:48:52","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T16:48:52","slug":"how-does-one-carefully-maintain-the-balance-between-effective-communication-and-time-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=6631","title":{"rendered":"How does one carefully maintain the balance between effective communication and time management?"},"content":{"rendered":"
I recently received the below question:<\/span><\/div>\n
How does one carefully maintain the balance between effective communication and time management? (should everything be done via email, text & Skype?)<\/span><\/div>\n
The rule of thumb is that the\u00a0answer to most questions starting with “should everything be” is\u00a0 “NO”.<\/span><\/div>\n
It’s the same with this question.<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
Effective communication IS <\/strong>time management.\u00a0 It isn’t a trade-off, such as this question seems to imply. \u00a0 Consider how much time you waste through misinterpretation, vague directions, mistakes and hurt feelings when you are not communicating clearly?<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
There’s much more to this than meets the eye, but here are five of six tips to effective communication AND time management:<\/span><\/div>\n

\n<\/span><\/div>\n
1) Create a Communication Plan for your project or team.\u00a0 In it, you will describe how you plan to communicate:\u00a0 your status, how\/when to conduct one-on-one meetings, the frequency, the method of distributing the agenda, where you will be keeping the minutes or notes, etc.\u00a0 There is no right or wrong way to communicate with your team.\u00a0 But you need to actually “communicate” how you plan to communicate and what they can expect from your and visa-versa.<\/span><\/div>\n
2)\u00a0 One of the better ways <\/span>to effectively communication with others is to understand their preferred method of communicating.\u00a0 Communication styles and learning styles can be directly associated, because learning is a form of understanding what the other person is trying to convey (communication).\u00a0 And just like people have different learning styles, we have different communication styles.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
There are also two pieces to communicating with someone<\/span><\/div>\n
    \n
  • Getting their attention and interest on the goal\/purpose of the discussion.\u00a0 Once you have their interest, then you can…. <\/span><\/li>\n
  • Actually convey the data or information that you want to convey.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
    3)\u00a0 There are several ways to capture someone’s attention.\u00a0 Some are more comfortable with the phone.\u00a0 Some are more comfortable via email or Skype.\u00a0 So, understanding your stakeholders “attention”\u00a0preferences is a good start.\u00a0 Just because someone prefers a phone call, doesn’t necessarily mean he understands the conversation best on the phone.\u00a0 It just means that the phone call is the best way to capture his attention.\u00a0 From that phone call, you can setup a subsequent meeting that really does allow the person to digest and understand the full topic.<\/span><\/div>\n
    There may be several ways to capture their attention.\u00a0 Some are:
    \n<\/span><\/div>\n
    a) phone<\/span><\/div>\n
    b) email, text<\/span><\/div>\n
    c) Chat, Skype<\/span><\/div>\n
    d) notes, cards,<\/span><\/div>\n
    e) face-to-face <\/span><\/div>\n
    Effective communication also considers the receiver’s learning methods:<\/span><\/div>\n
    a) are they visual <\/span><\/div>\n
    b)\u00a0 are they auditory learners<\/span><\/div>\n
    c) read\/write learners<\/span><\/div>\n
    d) kinesthetic learners or tactile learners\u00a0 (hands-on)<\/span><\/div>\n
    A formal presentation for a larger audience should have aspects of all of the above for maximum audience absorption.\u00a0 If you are playing to an audience of one — understanding how they best learn and playing to that strength is sufficient.<\/span><\/div>\n

    \n<\/span><\/div>\n
    4)\u00a0 The goal of good communication isn’t “tell them what you want to tell them”. \u00a0 It is actually successfully accomplishing the goal or reason for telling them something.\u00a0\u00a0 For example,\u00a0 if the goal is just to convey certain information or instructions, then after you Introduce the topic, then tell them what you want to tell them, you need to validate that they got the message.\u00a0 Including Active Listening skills is a critical piece to communication.\u00a0 Asking them to paraphrase what you said in their own words — or having them paraphase what it means to them in their role — helps assure that they understood what you were trying to convey.\u00a0 If they paraphrase incorrectly, then you can have an interactive and iterative dialogue to better clarify.<\/span><\/div>\n
    5) If this is a two-way conversation (not just you communicating status or direction), it’s a good idea to have them discuss their issues first.\u00a0 This way, you can listen for any common goals, common threads, their terminology, etc.\u00a0 Then you use active listening skills to paraphrase what you think you have heard from them.\u00a0\u00a0 Once they feel that you understood what they are saying — then they will be in a more receptive mindset to listen to what you have to say.<\/span><\/div>\n
    As you speak, continue to refer back to the common threads and common goals.\u00a0 Use the same language, terms and verbage that they used. This will reduce confusion and aide agreement.<\/span><\/div>\n

    \n<\/span><\/div>\n
    6) In this global and time-flex market, you need to understand your team’s time zones and considerations.\u00a0 If people are family oriented and are working from home, 3:00pm when the children are being picked up from school isn’t the greatest time to call them.\u00a0\u00a0 If it’s midnight in their time zone, it’s probably not the best time to setup a staff meeting.\u00a0 Manager’s shouldn’t make meeting that are only convenient to the manager’s schedule or time zones (if they have global and remote employees).\u00a0 Having a well laid-out Communication plan for your team is essential.<\/span><\/div>\n

    \n<\/span><\/div>\n
    There’s lots to this issue.\u00a0 Hope this gets you started.\u00a0\u00a0 I have several articles on communication, interrupting, meeting management, etc.\u00a0 Let me know if you would like copies.<\/span><\/div>\n

    \n<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The rule of thumb is that the answer to most questions starting with “should everything be” is “NO”.
    \nIt’s the same with this question.
    \nEffective communication IS time management. It isn’t a trade-off, such as this question seems to imply. Consider how much time you waste through misinterpretation, vague directions, mistakes and hurt feelings when you are not communicating clearly?
    \nThere’s much more to this than meets the eye, but here are five of six tips to effective communication AND time management?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1508,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,1,847,848,849,851],"tags":[39,33,64,1370,17],"class_list":["post-6631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","category-miscellaneous","category-self-leadership","category-1-1-leadership","category-team-leadership","category-global-leadership-leadership","tag-best-practices","tag-common-sense","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-lessons-learned"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1508"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6631\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}