One of the most interesting things we do in organizations is render topics and truth undiscussable. Through an intersection of power and our own complicity, we allow for a rearranging of the facts to align with someone else’s preferences. That can have consequences for us, for our careers, and for our ability to simply have a coherent and objective conversation. As prevalent as the elephants in the room might be, though, there are some relatively straightforward strategies to both name them, and invite them to leave.
Pick Up The Damn Phone
Email is without question our most popular—and most misused—means of communicating in the workplace. While success depends upon interacting well with the broad, complicated and all-too-intricate tapestry of humanity, we like to pretend that writing and text is as short-cut to doing so efficiently. Whereas every time we get it wrong and course correct (and that’s usually pretty often) we discover we’ve actually taken the long-and-by-no-means scenic route.
Information Wants To Be Clear: PowerPoint Isn’t Helping
I’ve been thinking a lot about how we communicate over the last few months, and all of the ways we do it badly, particularly in a business context. So I was intrigued—and bemused—when I came a across a blog post entitled Why I Write In PowerPoint.