January 24, 2014 at 12:00Management tools: 4 principles of constructive communication or why do we live in a mode of exploit?
Have you ever heard accusations of unconstructiveness addressed to you? Maybe they themselves reproached someone? How do you understand that this particular discussion is not constructive, but is it constructive?
If you start thinking about this topic, then there is something to spend a couple of hours on. We will now try to facilitate this task. And in the framework of our series of articles on management tools (which went on vacation during the New Year holidays), we will analyze the principles of the construct proposed once by Andy Grove, one of the founders of Intel.
The principles are simple, but explain a lot of workers and not only work conflicts. And having dealt with them, you:
There will be no 2 by 2 matrices we like, but we will analyze a couple of schemes.
So let's go. The first principle is:
But in real life, things are a little more complicated. Therefore, here we should talk about two, probably the most common cases of violation of this principle.
There is exactly one problem with the past - it cannot be changed. Therefore, people often perceive questions of the past as an attack on them personally. Moreover, to the question “Why didn’t you do this yesterday”, a person begins to honestly answer why he didn’t do it yesterday. There are always many reasons for smart people: the neighboring department sent requests late, then another department could not make the assembly for a long time, then the director was distracted by an important task, etc.
In fact, the fact that the tests were not run is not good or bad in and of itself. This is a fact. For example, I also did not run tests yesterday. Moreover, I have not been chasing them for five years now. And while everyone is happy.
But judging by the intensity of emotions, this fact creates some kind of problem in the PRESENT. For example, a manager cannot send an assembly to a customer. Or cannot report the successful completion of work upstairs, etc. And this problem must be solved in the present.
And when it is resolved, here you can just look into the FUTURE: how can we make sure that such situations do not happen again. And here the analysis of the past will be appropriate: why didn’t they run the tests then? But at this point a person no longer perceives this attack on him as a personal one. When the current problem is resolved, the guilty are no longer sought. In general, we are now discussing the future.
That is, the correct discussion sequence:
What is really going on? The manager perfectly solves the problem - to set up the environment for a new employee. But after that he forgets to look into the future and think about how to make sure that such situations do not happen again.
Note that the remote agent itself has no problems in this situation. A newcomer came to him, he sent him with reason. And everything's good. And this is a guarantee that on his part the model will not change until the manager raises this issue.
Quite often, management and customers come to us with urgent requests for a feat. And the words “this is impossible” always contain the argument “guys, really needed”. After which, we usually take up this cart, do not sleep at night and perform a small miracle (sometimes together with the team). We exhale and hope to continue working calmly. And it doesn’t work.
Because what does this situation look like on the part of the management / customer? You come to the guys, ask them to do something. At first they resist, they say that it’s impossible, but after the argument “really necessary” they take and do, great fellows!
Or vice versa, management begins to suspect that when you say “impossible,” to say the least. dissemble. Means, further it is necessary to ship.
No real feat should remain “sold”. Any feat is an occasion for discussion with the customer of the feat (after the performance, when the customer is in a pleasant mood, he treats you well and is ready to listen to you): “How is everything normal? So, that's why I came. What happened is a miracle because ... How can we do this so that we can foresee everything and not let you down the next time? ”
Often, solving one problem creates the next, which we lose sight of. And this is also a common violation of the principle of timeliness.
Now, if someone after this conversation, goes to the office to the authorities to find out what and how to move - that is, there was a switch to the construct.
The principle of targeting suggests that the problem must be solved with those with whom it can be solved.
A violation of the principle of targeting very often includes public criticism of anyone. Any public criticism by most people is perceived as an attack on them personally. What should be done? That's right - smudge the source of criticism. Then all viewers with popcorn will immediately see who is right and who is not. And then the discussion heroes uncover the trophy poop and the dr-cancer begins!
One has only to start correspondence personally with a person, and even better to call him or come live to talk, as the degree of emotion drops to zero, and the problem is solved by itself.
People listen to personal criticism much, much better. And personal criticism allows you to maintain good constructive relationships in the long run.
For example, you are a staunch supporter of agile development methodologies. Accordingly, in your team morning meetings are held (they are also scrum rallies or standup rallies). And now your new colleague is always late for them. Why?
He can sincerely believe that this is complete nonsense. Because before that he worked for 10 years in other companies and other projects. And they quite successfully made projects without any ritual planning meetings.
“It degrades team spirit” is a great argument, but in what way? What is team spirit? This is when you enter a room, and there such a “strong team spirit” is in the air ?!
“What is this expressed in?” Is a strong question that allows one to understand whether there are facts in the argument or not. The facts are good because you can not argue with them. That is why they are convincing, which is why they allow a person to see and understand what the problem is.
The arguments “these are the best Agile policies”, “these are the rules of our company”, “Ken Schwaber bequeathed”, by the way, although they are facts, they are not much better. because they don’t show what exactly is wrong because of human behavior.
And such arguments as:
these are more specific facts, in the sense that they show what is wrong in this situation and why you decided to discuss this problem.
If during the discussion there is a feeling that a person is trying to prove that he is not to blame, then the DISSOCIATION technique works very well: “Wait, I'm not bumping into you, but the situation itself ...”
If in the comments you share your stories of how these principles were violated by your interlocutors, or by you personally, I will be grateful, and it will be useful to all readers, IMHO. If you have something to supplement or want to share your communication techniques - thank you in advance!
And in the next article we will talk about the 4-phase algorithm for solving problems proposed by the same Andy Grove. Because principles are good, that’s right, but they don’t give an answer to the question of where to start and how to lead a discussion of problems with people in steps. And the algorithm is just about that.
PS Previous articles in the series:
If you start thinking about this topic, then there is something to spend a couple of hours on. We will now try to facilitate this task. And in the framework of our series of articles on management tools (which went on vacation during the New Year holidays), we will analyze the principles of the construct proposed once by Andy Grove, one of the founders of Intel.
The principles are simple, but explain a lot of workers and not only work conflicts. And having dealt with them, you:
- Understand the reasons for the behavior of your colleagues, management and customers in some situations
- Bring a few simple tricks to your arsenal that will help you make work arrangements easier
- You can absolutely accurately explain to any colleague that he is unconstructive (and in what exactly), if he is truly unconstructive
There will be no 2 by 2 matrices we like, but we will analyze a couple of schemes.
So let's go. The first principle is:
1. Timeliness.
It would seem a no brainer that problems need to be solved when they need to be solved. After all, it is no accident when someone tells us: “Well. I saw a month ago that everything is likely to fall apart here, and really ... ”- I want to hammer a nail into the head of this observant person.But in real life, things are a little more complicated. Therefore, here we should talk about two, probably the most common cases of violation of this principle.
Error number 1. Attack to the past.
For example, a manager runs to his employee with a sacramental question: “WHY did you not run the tests yesterday? !!” What should the employee do at this moment? Get into a time machine, rush into the past, run tests there and return with already run tests?There is exactly one problem with the past - it cannot be changed. Therefore, people often perceive questions of the past as an attack on them personally. Moreover, to the question “Why didn’t you do this yesterday”, a person begins to honestly answer why he didn’t do it yesterday. There are always many reasons for smart people: the neighboring department sent requests late, then another department could not make the assembly for a long time, then the director was distracted by an important task, etc.
In fact, the fact that the tests were not run is not good or bad in and of itself. This is a fact. For example, I also did not run tests yesterday. Moreover, I have not been chasing them for five years now. And while everyone is happy.
But judging by the intensity of emotions, this fact creates some kind of problem in the PRESENT. For example, a manager cannot send an assembly to a customer. Or cannot report the successful completion of work upstairs, etc. And this problem must be solved in the present.
And when it is resolved, here you can just look into the FUTURE: how can we make sure that such situations do not happen again. And here the analysis of the past will be appropriate: why didn’t they run the tests then? But at this point a person no longer perceives this attack on him as a personal one. When the current problem is resolved, the guilty are no longer sought. In general, we are now discussing the future.
That is, the correct discussion sequence:
- We solve the problem in the present. Here we don’t remember the past.
- We are thinking about how to prevent (or react) a problem in the future. And at this stage:
- Analyze the past
An example from life. Our good friend, let's call her Tanya, told such an incident. Something broke off at the customer, and the customer scheduled a meeting the next morning. Where should Tanya (the project manager) and Sergey (the technical specialist who knows all the technical details about the system, including why it broke, what happened, how it was repaired, and what conclusions were drawn for the future) arrive. Further, a free retelling of the story of Tanya:
- I come to the customer. What to say is incomprehensible, because yesterday we did not have time to discuss it with Sergey. Well, I think that now Sergei will drive up anyway and everything will be under control. Just in case, I’m dialing it - the phone is out of network coverage. 10 minutes before the meeting, Sergei is not. I dialed it again - the phone does not work. I'm getting nervous. 3 minutes before the meeting - the same thing. I have a real panic. 1 minute - Sergey picks up the phone. I yell:
“Why don't you pick up the phone? !!!
- Yesterday I did not find a charge at home ...
- What do you want me to give you a charge for ?!
Oru and I understand that I am losing precious time when I could urgently find out from him when he will and what to say to the customer ...
Mistake # 2. They solved one problem, forgot the second.
Let's start with an example.An example from life. At our recent Moscow training, one manager shared his problem with a remote employee:
- You see. he is responsible for setting up the working environment. And so we hired a new employee. He calls our remote manager asking him to set something up, and he explains to him why this cannot be done for 4 hours. After that, the new employee comes up to me in frustrated feelings, and I set everything up for him in 5 minutes.
- What next?
- And then the situation repeats with a certain frequency.
What is really going on? The manager perfectly solves the problem - to set up the environment for a new employee. But after that he forgets to look into the future and think about how to make sure that such situations do not happen again.
Note that the remote agent itself has no problems in this situation. A newcomer came to him, he sent him with reason. And everything's good. And this is a guarantee that on his part the model will not change until the manager raises this issue.
An example from life. At one of the trainings at the stage of collecting expectations, we usually ask all participants what they expect from these two days and what questions they want to address. The turn comes to an engineer of about 30 with a very tired look:
- I would like to learn how to abandon projects.
-? .. Tell us more ...
- You see, now I am working on five projects at the same time. And it’s very hard for me. I would like, when the sixth project is brought to me, to somehow refuse it so dexterously so as not to take it for myself, and so that the management will not be offended either.
- And what happened when you were given the fifth draft?
- [after a pause] I worked on four ... It was very hard for me ... I told them that I wouldn’t pull it ... And they said it really needed ...
- Well, how did you pull it?
- He pulled ...
- Then the leadership knows how to give you the sixth draft ...
Quite often, management and customers come to us with urgent requests for a feat. And the words “this is impossible” always contain the argument “guys, really needed”. After which, we usually take up this cart, do not sleep at night and perform a small miracle (sometimes together with the team). We exhale and hope to continue working calmly. And it doesn’t work.
Because what does this situation look like on the part of the management / customer? You come to the guys, ask them to do something. At first they resist, they say that it’s impossible, but after the argument “really necessary” they take and do, great fellows!
Or vice versa, management begins to suspect that when you say “impossible,” to say the least. dissemble. Means, further it is necessary to ship.
No real feat should remain “sold”. Any feat is an occasion for discussion with the customer of the feat (after the performance, when the customer is in a pleasant mood, he treats you well and is ready to listen to you): “How is everything normal? So, that's why I came. What happened is a miracle because ... How can we do this so that we can foresee everything and not let you down the next time? ”
Often, solving one problem creates the next, which we lose sight of. And this is also a common violation of the principle of timeliness.
2. Targeting.
When two employees each other in the smoking room complain about the boss: “Damn, again moving to a new office. How long to? The third time in a year! .. Hesitated already ... ”- this is not quite constructive. Because if there is a problem with moving. then they’re unlikely to solve it among themselves at the smoking room.Now, if someone after this conversation, goes to the office to the authorities to find out what and how to move - that is, there was a switch to the construct.
The principle of targeting suggests that the problem must be solved with those with whom it can be solved.
A violation of the principle of targeting very often includes public criticism of anyone. Any public criticism by most people is perceived as an attack on them personally. What should be done? That's right - smudge the source of criticism. Then all viewers with popcorn will immediately see who is right and who is not. And then the discussion heroes uncover the trophy poop and the dr-cancer begins!
One has only to start correspondence personally with a person, and even better to call him or come live to talk, as the degree of emotion drops to zero, and the problem is solved by itself.
People listen to personal criticism much, much better. And personal criticism allows you to maintain good constructive relationships in the long run.
3. Facts and data.
Sometimes, people in good faith do not see the problem that you have come to discuss. Everyone has their own experience.For example, you are a staunch supporter of agile development methodologies. Accordingly, in your team morning meetings are held (they are also scrum rallies or standup rallies). And now your new colleague is always late for them. Why?
He can sincerely believe that this is complete nonsense. Because before that he worked for 10 years in other companies and other projects. And they quite successfully made projects without any ritual planning meetings.
“It degrades team spirit” is a great argument, but in what way? What is team spirit? This is when you enter a room, and there such a “strong team spirit” is in the air ?!
“What is this expressed in?” Is a strong question that allows one to understand whether there are facts in the argument or not. The facts are good because you can not argue with them. That is why they are convincing, which is why they allow a person to see and understand what the problem is.
The arguments “these are the best Agile policies”, “these are the rules of our company”, “Ken Schwaber bequeathed”, by the way, although they are facts, they are not much better. because they don’t show what exactly is wrong because of human behavior.
And such arguments as:
- “We cannot take your opinion into account, then we had to redo it more than once”
- “All the interesting tasks are sorted out before you come.”
- “You have only the routine”
- “On routine tasks I can’t evaluate your growth”
these are more specific facts, in the sense that they show what is wrong in this situation and why you decided to discuss this problem.
4. Intention to solve a problem, not a person.
In a constructive discussion, we are not looking for the guilty. Our task is to solve the situation.If during the discussion there is a feeling that a person is trying to prove that he is not to blame, then the DISSOCIATION technique works very well: “Wait, I'm not bumping into you, but the situation itself ...”
An example from life. I have two children - boys of 8 and 10 years old. The first phrase, when you come to them with constructive criticism, very often: "I am not to blame."
Over time, it has already become a habit to taxi out: “So I'm not talking about blame, I'm not at fault. Just as it is now ... ”and further, the options are“ let's go play football if the boots are wet ”,“ we’ll see a movie if we need to clean up now ”, etc. ...
From principles to practice ...
That is all four principles. Simple in theory, but constantly violated in practice. As a small exercise, you can recall some difficult conversation from your recent past when you were cursing with a person and think about what principles of the construct were violated there.If in the comments you share your stories of how these principles were violated by your interlocutors, or by you personally, I will be grateful, and it will be useful to all readers, IMHO. If you have something to supplement or want to share your communication techniques - thank you in advance!
And in the next article we will talk about the 4-phase algorithm for solving problems proposed by the same Andy Grove. Because principles are good, that’s right, but they don’t give an answer to the question of where to start and how to lead a discussion of problems with people in steps. And the algorithm is just about that.
PS Previous articles in the series: