Module 5: The Adaptable Communicator
Responding to context
In this introduction, we start thinking about the workplace and how you are already developing skills towards being an adaptable communicator. However, whether you are communicating in a personal or professional context, building up these skills is essential to forging healthy, functional, long-lasting relationships. As you explore this module, you will see it is as much about listening as it is about speaking when it comes to communication.
Effective Communication: The Why
Effective communication is important not just for you as an individual and your personal development but also an essential tool to master to achieve balance in your relationships. Most of all this is about becoming a confident, considerate, creative and critical communicator who can articulate exactly what you need and what you want to say.
In this module, we are going to focus in on three areas: what it means to be an adaptable communicator in the workplace, how to listen and apologise, and developing literacy in multiple contexts. Which of the sub-topics do you think are relevant?How does how I communicate matter?
Individually, consider what you think it means to communicate well in the workplace.
Now watch this video and find the 5 key areas that are discussed as essential to working in professional settings.
Jigsaw reading: Now watch the video again and make detailed notes for each section. You can do this individually or take a section each in a group. You can use the timings below to help you or alternatively use the transcript below to analyse.
Verbal Communication (2:25 )
Communication in a team structure (3:16)
Decision-making and problem solving (4:22)
Planning, organizing and prioritizing (6:28)
Persuasion (7:33)
Transcript
Verbal communication
The first communication skill employers are looking for is the ability to communicate verbally with people inside and outside the organization. One challenge in many workplaces is there are different audiences that require different communication strategies, like we need to be clear and forthcoming with coworkers and we need to be able to talk to clients in a way that's both truthful and doesn't make our company look bad. With each audience, we must be able to speak clearly and listen carefully in ways that are appropriate for that relationship, but that's easier said than done.
Many people are shy about speaking directly to people but we can improve our ability to communicate effectively without becoming some wildly outgoing person.We can ask friends to help us practice. We can take on volunteer or club roles that involve speaking in front of a group.The goal isn't to change our personality but instead to develop our ability to speak effectively so this skill is ready when we need it in the workplace.
Communication in a team structure.
The second communication skill employers are seeking most is the ability to communicate in a team structure. We all probably got a taste of this in school when working on a dreaded group project, which are dreaded in part because communicating with peers can be hard, and in some ways the workplace is like a constant group project. Sure, an employee can choose to focus on their own role and ignore how colleagues do or don't do their work but managers are going to be far more impressed by an employee who can do their own work and communicate in a way that helps their whole team work better.
For instance, Jean notices that delays in an app development project are constantly happening because his teammate Rudy doesn't check his emails very often and doesn't get Jean's requests to debug new code. Jean isn't technically responsible for Rudy and could just keep sending emails but Jean knows that Rudy always responds to direct messages right away, with emojis even. So Jean asks Rudy if he'd prefer to change the process and get debugging requests via Slack instead of via email. Rudy agrees and the team gets their work done faster all thanks to effective communication.
Decision-making and problem-solving
In fact, the ability to communicate in a team structure ties into the next skill employers find valuable, which is communicating to make decisions and solve problems. Actually making decisions and solving problems are their own skillsets but they depend on communication.
We need to ask for the information and resources that will help us solve the problem. Then we have to share a solution in a way that gets others on board. Let's see how this might play out in a team setting. Layla is the residents director in charge of a team of resident assistance at a university dormitory.
The RAs make a lot of their decisions together and because there are many personalities on the team, Layla must communicate clearly to make sure all the RAs learn what they need to do in order to keep residents safe and maintain a supportive, respectful community. And when you know, a recent viable video trend has made it popular to cut open a down pillow and throw it out a window, then take a reaction video as the people below are showered with feathers. While mostly harmless, this trend has created a lot of additional cleanup for the janitorial staff.
Some RAs want to prohibit students from making these pillow videos but two RAs who are passionate about free speech believe that a blanket ban on pillow videos is too severe, especially if they'll have to enforce consequences for those who make a pillow video. One RA in Layla's team suggests that instead of banning the videos, they ban the feather litter.
This basically says that the problem is the mess and that leaving the mess will get a resident in trouble. While Layla also has her own reservations about coming down hard on a trend that's likely to go away soon, she likes the idea. She uses her own communication skills to present to her team a more substantial littering and mess rule that says, if residents create extra work for the janitorial staff, they can get in trouble. Layla makes the case that this rule helps them fulfil their goals of maintaining a supportive, respectful community.
This rule will be a pretty effective deterrent against dorm messiness, feathers or otherwise, but it won't seem like harsh condemnation either. A real win-win. Now in many careers, viral video trends aren't likely to create issues that demand decision making. Even so, we can see how Layla listened to her team's concerns and suggestions. Then came up with and persuasively presented a solution that met important goals like ensuring that the dorm is a respectful environment.
Planning, organizing and prioritizing
And this reflects that Layla has another important workplace skill, the ability to plan, organize, and prioritize work.
Layla didn't scramble to call an emergency meeting when she heard that feathers were showering unsuspecting passersby. She regularly holds meetings that are a safe space for discussion and have a set structure that allows Ras to discuss their concerns. This not only gets important work done, it also shows Layla's RAs the value of having a plan, being organized, and focusing on priorities. Layla modeled the effective practices of holding regular meetings, conducting those meetings in an orderly fashion, listening carefully, providing feedback, and staying on task to make sure they resolve issues.
But whether you're planning, organizing, and prioritizing for a team or just yourself this is a skill that develops with practice. So start small. Maybe that's creating a personal workflow to brainstorm, plan, write, and edit press releases in a timely manner. Or it could be a process for requesting office supplies so the office manager doesn't spend half his week figuring out what people need. Basically, organization and predictable processes save time and help people get things done.
Persuasion
Finally, the ability to persuade others is prized by employers, and we've already mentioned it a few times throughout the other four skills. Of course, people who work in sales need to be good at communicating the appealing features of their product, but in many jobs, we'll be doing this kind of persuasion, even if we aren't directly involved in sales. In many cases, it's about seeing how our workplace's solutions, products, or services fit a client's needs and being alert for opportunities to persuade. Like maybe we just finished up a graphic design project with a new client.
If our client mentions needing new promotional posters too, our employer would love it if we could bring additional work to our company by continuing the conversation. Sure, referring a client to another service our company offers isn't technically in our job description but being persuasive in ways that benefit our employers, colleagues, and clients makes us valuable to them.
What were your original ideas for effective communication and what new suggestions have you incorporated from the video?
- 'We need to be clear and forthcoming with coworkers and we need to be able to talk to clients in a way that's both truthful and doesn't make our company look bad'
- '... managers are going to be far more impressed by an employee who can do their own work and communicate in a way that helps their whole team work better'
- 'making decisions and solving problems are their own skillsets but they depend on communication'
- 'whether you're planning, organizing, and prioritizing for a team or just yourself this is a skill that develops with practice'
Skill development
Look at the bullet points above: consider the steps towards developing that skill already. You can think about your personal, school and professional contexts you live and work in. If you get stuck, discuss with a partner or someone else you trust who knows you well. Often we cannot see things ourselves and an outside perspective can really help.
Pick one small step or challenge for each bullet point in the Develop stage that will help you build towards that goal further.
Remember, we are lifelong learners. We are always works-in-progress working towards our goals so opening ourselves up to being adaptable can really help.