Creating effective communication channels

We constantly face a challenge on two fronts: what channel to use to communicate and how to manage our inputs. The problem is with so many options and other things on our mind, it’s difficult to decide in the moment.

Many people end up blaming the “tool”. Emails are slow, meetings are a waste of time, and IM chats are too distracting.

Confounding this problem further is that if one focuses on the solutions, it’s unsolvable due to the complexity.

Channels

Top to bottom: most effective and expensive, to least.

1/ Group in-person meeting

2/ Face to Face 1:1

3/ Phone call

4/ IM chat (e.g. Slack)

5/ Email

Time frame

Top to bottom: most important to least.

1/ Long term

2/ Short term

3/ Immediate

Purpose

Top to bottom: hardest to achieve and most important, to easiest and least important.

1/ Build relationships and culture

2/ Move forward together

3/ Get answers to specific questions (unblock)

4/ Share information (arguably, something that isn’t direct communication)

5/ Social

Environment

1/ Remote

2/ Local

How to improve in all this

The main problem is that our decision making in this area suffers the same issues as we do with click bait and instant gratification elsewhere. In the moment, with so much going on, we go for what is easy, convenient, and instantly satisfying.

Yet, we regret it. It turns out, that’s not what actually works for us.

The solution is we need to set a vision for what we want to accomplish with each of our shared channels and then opt-in by choice, ahead of that instant. Make conscious choices together or as the champion/leader, knowing the pros/cons of each, and make sure everyone buy’s in — because you can’t micromanage it.