The choice of communication tools in organizations is endless. However, knowledge and training on how effective communication looks like is scarce to non-existent. Korero aims to change that.
We rarely think about the efficiency of our communication. Email, chat, call; we just use the first that comes to mind. The choice of our tool has a large cost associated, both in time, energy, and future communication debt.
Synchronized communication is sub-optimal in an office environment. With remote and hybrid work being the new norm, it is inefficient and exhausting. This shift requires a reevaluation of how we interact.
For something as impactful as communication, one would assume employees receive training. But this is hardly the case. People have no idea what the impact is of their choice of communication tool or method. This gap in knowledge can lead to inefficiencies.
When given the choice, we usually gravitate towards synchronous communication. We go over and talk to a colleague, post a message in a group chat, or schedule a meeting or call. Synchronous communication feels natural and convenient as we get (near) immediate responses to our prompts. Unfortunately, it is very ineffective.
The alternative is asynchronous communication. We all use asynchronous communication daily in the form of email. However, while email is good for asynchronous communication, it is terrible to have an organized conversation. For meaningful conversations in a work environment, where we collaborate to solve a problem, asynchronous conversations are an indispensable tool.
Synchronous communication equals work interruptions. While they might seem small, their impact is larger than expected. It usually takes 15 minutes to get back into a deep work state once you have been interrupted. Also, interruptions add up as different people initiate synchronous communication at different times of the day.
When we communicate asynchronously we do not impose your schedule on others. We send out a message and allow the recipients to choose their own time to read the message and respond. With asynchronous communication we value everybody's autonomy over their own schedule.
Synchronous communication feels quick, it is however very time inefficient. This discrepancy stems from our unawareness of the impact our communication choices has on others. For example,
We never think of organization when communicating. We schedule a meeting with the agenda in an email. The meeting notes are then placed in some document that everybody has access to. Then somebody starts a discussion regarding some aspect in the notes in a chat room until it gets out of hand and somebody decides to "organize" the discussion by creating a "replay-all" email conversation. People get added and removed from the email thread because it is email and eventually the whole conversation gets buried in an overflowing inbox and is eventually forgotten. This scenario is so common, most of us have experienced it.
Needless to say, organization is key for effective communication. Asynchronous communication is the only communication that can be organized. Mind you, not all asynchronous communication is organized (email is not organized), however, with the right tool it can be. The same cannot be said about synchronous communication. Sync communication is never organized and any attempts at organizing (slack threads) is usually terrible. As such, the basis of any conversation should be asynchronous.
In a conversation, each participant contributes with two aspects of themselves: personality and skill. While we understand intellectually that confidence is not equal competence, we are naturally drawn to confidence and conflate quietness, shyness, and introversion with incompetence.
As such, louder and more confident people usually dominate meetings. This can hamper introverted and conflict avoiding personalities to be ignored. In written communication they can shine and have the time they need to formulate good arguments. They can contribute with their skill despite a less imposing personality.
Sometimes, discussion spark emotions. People start shouting and being disrespectful. Asynchronous communication is not immune to emotional outburst, the inherent delay between prompt and response, make it much easier to be less reactive. One can pause, breathe, and try to formulate a proper counter-argument. Thinking of arguments also engages a different part of the brain which lowers emotionality further. A respectful culture is still the basis of civil discourse but asynchronous communication makes it so much easier.
Properly organized asynchronous communication automatically becomes documentation. Everybody can always go back and read why a certain decision was taken or why a certain proposal was canceled. This avoids re-discussing the same issues over and over with a few month in between. When a new team member raises a proposal that was already dismissed, it is easy to just point them to the discussion that lead to the dismissal. On the flip-side, when circumstances do change, re-visiting an old discussion and adding new arguments is trivial and all the context is where it should be.
We usually don't think about the communication tool we choose. Asynchronous communication is not the end-all be-all. You should be aware of when to use what communication style or tool and combine them effectively. Asynchronous communication should however always be the basis or glue that holds a everything together, as it is the most organized and can automatically document the whole journey of a discussion.
Communicating effectively requires work. You need to organize your thoughts, synthesize your arguments, and weave it together into a concise story. The burden of that work belongs to the speaker or writer. Unfortunately, synchronous communication invites you to dump some of that burden on the listener or reader. For this reason, synchronous communication feels faster and easier while it is actually very ineffective and a drain on the team as a whole.
The burden of communicating effectively can feel heavy, it is however much more efficient and a gift to your co-workers. For example, scheduling a one hour meeting to dump unorganized thoughts on three co-workers and then collaboratively synthesize and analyze them might feel like a good use of time. It is however very inefficient and a mental drain on your team.
While asynchronous communication is conducive to owning your burden, you should make sure you don't load it onto others irrespective of the communication style. This means
We learn to communicate very early in life. However, we hardly ever learn what makes communication effective. This is especially true for written communication. We learn to translate our words to script without thinking what is different about written communication and how effective communication actually looks like.
When we communicate face-to-face, the words we speak only contribute 7% to the overall communication. 38% is vocal information and the remaining 55% is non-verbal body language. This means, when we write a message, over 90% of the information we usually transmit is lost. This has many consequences, such as the following:
Psychological safety is key to effective communication and a productive work environment. The reason for this is simple: people will only voice great ideas if they feel safe enough to also voice "stupid" ideas. This is because we don't know if an idea is great or not before we put it out in the world. More concretely, if people are afraid of being insulted for what they say, if they fear their career will be affected for voicing an opinion, or if they are afraid of being misunderstood (by people that are quick to be triggered or offended), innovation and productivity goes out the window.
The basis of psychological safety is a culture of respect. For communication, especially written communication where all non-verbal cues are lost, it goes further than just respect. Every person has to make an active effort to assume the best possible interpretation of any message. This takes empathy, a quality we should foster anyway.
We already mentioned how asynchronous communication enables good organization. We can improve this by using or enabling references. On a high level, this means we can reference other conversations or individual messages for context. Ideally with a backlink to enrich the referenced conversation.
On a per message level, we can also enable references by how we write our message. For example, when we write a message with three arguments we should create an enumerated list instead of three paragraphs. This allows a reply to directly reference a number in the list. If we need additional lists use letters or roman numerals to distinguish them. Avoid simple bullet points. They look nice but cannot be referenced.
The goal of many conversations is to reach a decision. Ideally, a good or the best decision possible. Unfortunately, you and your team members will likely disagree what the best decision is. To get to a good decision in a civil and productive way do the following: