Communication, do we really mean what we say?

How the science is eclipsed by the art of communication...

We all love to communicate, it’s a part of who we are as human beings and is more deeply inset into our success as a species then we would think. Why? The answer is simple… we take it for granted. After all, who really thinks about one of our greatest evolutionary gifts in detail as we advance through childhood and onto adulthood launching a career or multiple careers? The art of communication is developed as we go and only a few think about the science that describes the process of communication, which we engage in, on a daily basis.

BusinessDictionary.com describes communication as “Two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information, news, ideas and feelings but also create and share meaning.” The process can be set out as follows:

Sender encodes transmission>>>Sender transmits message>>>Receiver receives message>>>Receiver decodes transmission.

This is true for all types of messages over all types of mediums such as a face-to-face conversation, a phone conversation, an email, a letter, a text, a social media post, a media article, etc. In the definition of communication, its good to note that there are two main types of communication that are in every message we send. They are verbal communication and non-verbal communication. Verbal communication is described as “The sharing of information between individuals by using speech.” Non-verbal communication is described as “Behavior and elements of speech aside from the words themselves that transmit meaning.”

In non verbal communication, tone, posture, pitch, hand gestures, use of capitals/bolds/italics/colours/pictures (in written communication mediums) is all relevant to how the receiver receives, decodes and understands the entire message, both verbal and non verbal in content/meaning. When we look at it this way, we can see how even a blog article on communication has a two way communicative characteristic by the way the article is written in content and meaning to how the reader decodes the article. Do all readers get the same meaning and content? I hope so…. but the wider the audience the more impacting subtle inferences of non verbal communication are in the receiver’s decoding of content and meaning. So folks, I guess I need to get this one right then!

Figure d) Communication Styles Chart

As you can see, whilst we are all unique, we do fall into some situational categories when it comes to what style to adopt in our approach to people both in the workplace and in life. The need for mutual understanding is critical in all meaningful communication and thus I submit it should be a key metric in measuring effective communication. If absent, then meaning is also forgone in the message and a message without meaning is not an effective message at all. 

In my professional experience to date, I have experienced issues with communication, knowing when to speak up, hold my silence, etc. There is so much more learnt by experience thus I think it is fair to say that emotion is embedded in all communication driving ‘our communicative art’ over time. In a sustainable world, our ability to recognise emotion for its ever present value and vice is an inherent part of our success and/or failure given the subtle yet impacting influences it has on our ability to communicate and perform on a daily basis.

Figure e) Emotional Communication Wheel

I would offer the following pointers on communication to further the cause of effective communication for all.

Small talk matters. Small talk in in the work place is like walking on hot coals for some. Be that as it may, small talk has proven to be key to group successes big and small, so the next time someone asks you about your weekend, take two minutes at the water cooler to talk to them about theirs and what’s going on in the office. Its small but can aggregate positively to the overall level of group cohesion and performance/success potential within the group.

Watch your body language. Non-verbal communication is a bigger deliverer of meaning then the verbal content of any conversation. Body language showing emotions like anger, joy, sadness, happiness, which contradict your message’s content, inhibits the impact of the content and creates confusion for the receiver whom is having trouble decoding meaning from your message. Unify your message; encode your body language to be consistent with your content, which increases the efficacy of your message with the receiver. As a side, if your situation becomes confrontational and your counter party is aggressive, ensure your body language doesn’t naturally become aggressive in response… always respond to aggression with assertion!

Contextualise what you don’t understand. It is only human that you receive a message you don’t understand at some point. When you do, try to not make assumptions about the sender’s motives and meaning. If you don’t understand, ask the sender for clarification as to message context and what was meant by any content that you don’t understand. Albert Einstein once said, “If you cannot explain it simply, then you don’t understand well enough”. He is right, so don’t be afraid to reach out for clarification and contextualise the message ensuring mutual understanding is reached which after-all is the goal of the message.

Communicate collaboratively even in conflict. Too many people think conflict is an exercise leading to a ‘win-lose’ outcome. The fact is that this is an outdated and to be frank inward view of conflict which needs to be updated for companies and employees alike to suffer less as a result of it. A company will have a company culture and set of business practices for conflict but what has being proven in studies and experience going back over decades is that the more collaboratively you communicate in conflict, the better the chances of a successful outcome. Try to lean on a ‘win-win’ approach and communicate collaboratively based on interest based negotiation principles where you seek the goals and objectives of the other side, and explore ways to make it happen whilst not compromising your goals and objectives. The compromise comes on points of contention that arise in the process with mutually agreed outcomes on a ‘win-win basis’.

Never dilute a strong point with a weak follow up. Did you ever make a great point and wish you had just stopped talking at that point? I know I have done so and thus always try to focus on how I am going to communicate in terms of approach and content. What works for me is flagging these points in my head before I enter the conversation/negotiation. This allows me to keep them as content milestone markers in my communication, thus the conversation stays relatively on track and the milestone marker points deliver the essence of what I would have needed to say.

A stitch in time saves nine! Communication is about balance, when to act and when to not. The absence of communicative action is an act of communication in itself. Too often in organisational settings, the impulse to evaluate a possibly contentious situation using inward facing rationale leads to one accommodating the individual whom may be loud, brash and aggressive in their position on a point which you know is wrong but accommodate it anyway. This presents an opportunity cost dilemma that may come back to haunt the organisation in times to come. If you feel you need to speak up, then speak up based on the facts, communicate clearly and keep emotive responsiveness under control especially if the brash colleague decides to challenge your points which is often done as a defensive measure. Try to ensure the opportunity cost of assertion in a timely manner does not exceed the opportunity cost of accommodation for the company over time.

We all wish we had more time to take things back and redo them if we could, but the arrow of time does not afford us such luxuries, thus leaving us with the tools and measure of our experience by which to navigate one of the most critical and long serving aspects of human existence which is communication. A sustainable world relies on it… a bright future depends on it…

Source Links/Credits:

Definitions;

a) Communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/communication.html#ixzz35OholWZR

b) Verbal Communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/verbal-communication.html#ixzz35OjkRW7l

c) Non verbal communication

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/non-verbal-communication.html#ixzz35OkPSzmz

d) Communication Styles Chart

http://thecommunicationprocess.com/communication-styles/

e) Emotional Communication Wheel

http://www.problem-solving-techniques.com/Types-of-Communication.html

#Communication, #Sustainable Capitalism, #Sustainable, #Organisational, #HR, #People, #Company Culture, #Development

Process Management, it’s time to be great!

Lean Six Sigma, when is it time for change?

Anybody who has worked in manufacturing or in the back-office will know some process; action or event could have being done better! Whether it’s small or large in our company, we rarely see timely change happen as a result of our idea creating value in higher productivity, lower costs or both! Sustainable Capitalism has evolved out of two main elements, the need for an ethical working conscience and the need for productivity driven value creation that aids innovation and growth in a socially aware manner. This in effect makes monetisation a consequential priority for if we develop products for market in a socially aware manner and deliver productivity solutions through top tier process management; our ability to make money is practically guaranteed.

So why does the idea of shortest path travelled to monetisation which can include process circumvention hold such allure for senior executives in planning sessions and indeed on a day to day basis? In my view, I think the following three elements are key in driving this short-term view especially in western business culture.   

• 1.     The quarterly culture especially in “plc.” registered companies tends to put priority emphasis on shareholder value and cash positions in the deliverance of results. These priorities sit on the throne of perceived value alongside profitability even if it’s at the expense of one or all of them into the longer term.
• 2.     The “treadmill effect” has being noted by some analysts as being a driver of irrational decision making in operational strategy where market demands fed by management’s exceeding of prior quarterly expectations demand the improbable which management set out to deliver at the expense of future longer term sustainability 
• 3.     The “strategic planning cycle” in western business culture is rarely beyond 5 years and most senior executives are incentivised solely on their performance within this short to medium term period. The incentive to think beyond this for senior executives is for the most part not in place creating a short term planning culture, which only includes executive considerations that don’t exceed the cycle period.

There are more elements, but in my view, the above three are the most impacting and illustrate how understandable it is for many managers to not embrace sustainable capitalism’s need for longer-term productivity when priorities lie elsewhere. That said, there are competing schools of thought where value creation through efficiency and cost effective process management add value and years to a company’s lifecycle which has made companies like Toyota and IBM the evolving success stories they are today. The ideas are a fascinating evolution from the Kaizen continuous improvement methodologies originating in Japan approximately a hundred years to Toyota’s improved Kaizen system of materials handling to Six Sigma; then to Lean Six Sigma.

You would rightly say at this point “wow, great story but what has it got to do with my company and real life?”… Good question! Toyota, IBM and all the pioneers of six sigma have come up with the same statement as we invariably have in the course of our careers, which is “what can we achieve through making our processes better that would delight our customers, whilst increasing productivity and reducing costs?” The backdrop to this question has nearly always being high costs, low quality outputs and cumbersome processes driven by an organic evolution of process. The temporary nature of this shorter term focus has allowed in my view process inefficiencies to aggregate over time into company wide threats, which in turn has given rise to responses like Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma with its company wide solutions.  

Lean Six Sigma has a structured and logical approach for both physical processes (Six Sigma) and services (Lean), which see an evolution of thinking in process improvement through some highly effective tools like the “DMAIC” process. 

·      Define the process as it is

·      Measure the process in quantitative terms using metrics to capture the value creation elements of the process

·      Analyse the causes of the problem inhibiting process productivity and/or high associated costs

·      Improve the process design to address the identified issues restricting value creation within the process

·      Control the process through revised metrics including lead and lag controls within the process structure which will measure the improved state of the process ergo ensuring value creation from process improvement.

Lean process management focuses on the amount of value creating steps it takes to complete a process, which has had a huge impact on customer facing services in particular where one process can replace many and a customer’s actions within the process are reduced to a bare minimum. Lean is based on the assumption that waste in business is toxic to its sustainability and thus should be eliminated based on the following process:

1. Application*. Define the process focusing on where the value is for the customer.
2. Identify Value Stream*. Define the steps within the process that add value and those which do not. Adding value can be direct or indirect in relation to the customer.
3.  Make It Flow*. Ensure the process has a continuous movement with appropriate controls such as lead and lag to create and measure value creation in the process flow.
4. Let Customer Pull*. Ensure you don’t over supply to your customer demand. Customer demand should be a trigger for production and service provision.
5. Pursue Perfection*. Under the high bar of continuous improvement, there is no limit to process value creation and no ceiling of perfection.

With lean, the key is continuous flow of processes integrated in a demand driven process structure that allows the shortest effective process time line between process start and completion points increasing productivity and reducing costs as all non value creating steps are exited from the revised process.

With Lean Six Sigma, the combining of both methodologies in a company wide structure enhances the integration of effective internal process structures that increases productivity, decreases costs, increases output quality and resulting customer satisfaction. It also allows a company access to flexible control tools and information that empowers management and employees to pursue sustainable capitalism in a productive, cost effective and socially aware manner.

When we look at Lean Six Sigma, the concepts of high process quality leading to high outputs are braced in its scoring as follows:

• ·      2 Sigma = 308,537 (69.15% productivity yield) faults per million
• ·      3 Sigma = 66,807 (93.32% productivity yield) faults per million
• ·      4 Sigma = 6,210 (99.38% productivity yield) faults per million           
• ·      5 Sigma = 233 (99.98% productivity yield) faults per million
• ·      6 Sigma = 3.4 (99.99% productivity yield) faults per million 

Its not hard to see the qualitative aspects of Six Sigma’s scoring system and how qualitative process design based on the value creation aspects of the process is so important for a companies success and sustainability over time.

As a practitioner of lean process management for over a decade, I feel that the birth of Lean Six Sigma is the next platform of process greatness bringing greater value to many facets of a company’s operation. That said, it is still a platform and from my own experience in process management, I would advise the following to anybody engineering, re-engineering or developing a process platform using Lean Six Sigma or any logical form of process management. 

• ·      Contextualise your process design ideas into your operating environment, established business practices, the company culture, 3^rd party business partner relationships and their internal culture(s) to understand what works, what doesn’t and how it all interacts with each other.
• ·      Never forget your customer. The internal customers (other business units/colleagues) can become higher priorities when conducting an internal process review. It is therefore easy to forget the external customer who pays your invoices and funds your ability to conduct what very same review. Lean process management is about leaning into the customer and understanding how their needs and wants impact your process and vice versa.
• ·      Process effectiveness requires understanding of what the desired outcome of the process actually is, where waste occurs and addressing the ineffective steps by withdrawing them in favour of what is effective to the desired outcome of the process. Above all, the process has to be contextually inset into the overall process structure and be flexible enough to handle the commercial needs of the organisation where outlier cases can be processed reasonably in a controlled manner through an established and integrated process structure.

We all strive to eliminate waste from our company and drive a better process environment. I submit that the time is now as we enter an upward economic trajectory to reposition our companies to a more sustainable footing using tools like Lean Six Sigma to evaluate ourselves internally, make the changes to business practice, attitude and approach, which in turn allows us to drive forward with confidence in our ourselves, our colleagues and our future. We can then see process greatness enable flexibility along with longevity in our partnerships with employees, business partners, customers and wider society for many years to come.

*Sourced from Trinity University, TX, USA.
-Sourced Six Sigma Pics: Six Sigma.au et Al.

Business Ethics… is it a beachfront eroded by time?

Why Today’s Direction may give rise to Tomorrow’s Dereliction??...

We all love our “hard chargers”, the guys and gals whom cannot seem to fail at anything they do leaving us to wonder, “how do they do it?” Most of us charge ahead in life with an unmistakable sense of ethics and morality but what about the guys and gals we look up to, the ones whom cannot seem to fail… do they hold dear the same values and ethics that we embrace? They maybe kindred spirits of ethical conduct in part, full or not at all???…  A perplexing statement you would agree… which leads us to explore what impact it all may have on us if any at all?  Also, if it does, how to we recognise it and what we can do about it?

‘Business Ethics’ is defined by Investopedia as “The study of proper business policies and practices.” ‘Ethics’ is defined simply by Business Dictionary.com as “the basic concepts and fundamental principles of decent human conduct.” It appears that the concept of proper business practice infused with common decency is nothing new to write about which stands to reason given society’s longevity and apparent ability to change with the times.

However, are darker forces with designs that leave no room for common decency eroding the “beachfront” of ethical behaviour of late? I would say mankind has always struggled with this. As individuals, we should know who really lies to our left and to our right in the workplace. Also, do we associate with a company that satisfies our personal “ethical policy” with “proper business policies and practices” which creates a sustainable future for both the business and the employee?

We have many questions that leave no room for grand assumptions given our need to be happy in life, which is not a right, but an opportunity in the making. People in my observation tend to have intent driving their motives, which drives their decision-making process and over time, it defines who they are as people aswell as professionals. In my view this singular process aggregates into a powerful force impacting business ethics and influencing the ethics of others whom might not embrace certain aspects in better or worse conditions. In appraising your situation, I would focus on the following elements, which I believe to be relevant to good business ethics and a sustainable future.

• ·      Know your “inner self”. Don’t be afraid to self reflect on who you are, your values, your ethical beliefs, your sense of morality noting boundaries and limitations. Also, what are your needs and wants are in life and what kind of work is suited to your personality, your passion and your sense of purpose?
• ·      Contextualise your employment.  Don’t be afraid to investigate your company culture and understand what it actually is versus what it may appear to be initially. Also, a business culture phenomenon known as the giver taker culture should also be understood. Are you a team player giver type or an individualistic taker type? A point to note is the effect ‘takers’ have on ‘givers’. This should be understood before assessing where you would fit into the work environment and its corresponding impact on your life.
• ·      Feel your passion for your job.  If you don’t derive satisfaction from what you do, then you will never to it as well as you could! This denies both employee and employer of potential and thus incurring opportunity cost. Role match is all about the power of employee potential! A business will increase its longevity chances and an employee will increase his or her chances of being happy if passion is felt for his/her work. This is one aspect of sustainable capitalism that applies to all walks of life, not just in business and not just for the lucky few.
• ·      Know the landscape. Business ethics are about doing the job right, but what if the operating environment is making good business ethics ‘restrictive’ or impossible. Big decisions that save the day don’t always get made and the results can inadvertently strangle industries as much as companies. Unethical behaviour and the lack of effective regulation in financial markets gave rise in 2007/08 to a globally impacting shock wave, which hit multiple industries and societies at large. The serious lack of ethics in some quarters had a huge impact on the financial services industry with lower levels of high-level talent entering the industry afterwards and serious questions remain over regulatory approaches to try and make sure it does not happen again.  In the energy industry, oil rig and refinery disasters have raised serious regulatory and safety issues, which are not for the faint of heart.  What if good business ethics drove the big decision in the right direction at the right time? Where would we be today?
• ·      If it doesn’t feel right at all, don’t do it. There is nothing worse then being promised the sun, moon and stars and then be asked to do something that you are not comfortable with. You may have a charismatic leader pushing you into it but don’t be fooled, its your ethics, not his/hers that‘s in question if you don’t put the brakes on. In such cases, seek clarification, slow down the process of request to acceptance to allow you to map out the consequences of such a request. If it’s reconcilable with your core values and beliefs, then I would proceed cautiously, if not, then I would decline. “A stitch in time saves nine” and seeing into the consequences of our actions can save us untold misery into the future even if it comes at a price in the present.
• ·      What do others think of your company and its business ethics? When the opportunity arises, I advise folks to build their digital brands, which gives an individual good navigational skill in social media. It’s a great vehicle to see how others perceive your company’s business ethics. Glassdoor is a dedicated site to employee reviews of their employers and one worth visiting even as a current employee to see how others view your company’s good practice and policy conduct. There are many other resources to investigate your companies current ethical standing which I advise all to use including mass media news sites and social media sites like LinkedIn, Google plus, Twitter, Facebook and U-Tube. I would also look up company earnings reports and hear about plans for the future as presented to potential investors. Does it chime to what you know about the company and what kind of picture does all your research present to you?
• ·      Once is never enough. Repeating this exercise at least once every two years is advised to account for the one certainty in life, which is change. It excuses no one from its grasp and leaves nothing else ‘fixed in the sand’.

The net result of your research is the positioning of the company on business ethics to your personal ethics, values and beliefs. Is it closer or further way then it was the last time you researched it? Do you see the latest result laying out a future path that will make you happy, content, sad our outright miserable? Can you adjust making any negative effects temporary? Do you want to adjust? Companies are like people, if the ethics are good, the person is good… if they are bad or just incompatible, the only real solution is for you to change, or they/it to change. Practicality has to determine your next steps, which should be carefully considered.

When you know, then you are then in a position to think “beachfront” at your current company or a new company where your company’s business ethics are good enough to have an operating space where you can work with the sun shining warmly in your face and fair winds guiding you forward through your career in life.