This time around, I am sharing my column with my son, Brian Boucherle, who has 10 years of security industry experience and works as an account executive for inside sales at PSA.
Paul’s Perspective:
Communication is identified by Harvard University as the number-one career skill, regardless of your job, role, rank or responsibilities. Why is that?
Time management comes to mind. Miscommunication creates doubt, ambiguity, misinterpretation, poor customer service, missed sales opportunities, missed project margins, missed deadlines and delivers poor results.
Do you doubt this assertion? Ever had a teammate, boss or customer drop the ball on a request? Did you have to pick up the slack, follow up or make excuses to a customer? All those tasks ate up your time and reprioritized your day.
Time is money. Waste not, want not!
What follows are some thoughts on how to use communication for effective time management:
- Recognize what information the person you are communicating with needs from you to do what you are asking.
- How will they “hear and process” your communication? Different generations communicate and process information differently.
- Are they capable and have the authority to deliver on your communication? If you don’t know, don’t hold your breath for results.
- Be concise and specific in the words you choose to convey both importance and urgency. Too much blah, blah, blah will turn down the volume of your communication. Your intent gets lost in the word salad.
- Finally, and most importantly, did you receive a firm, clear commitment? If you misinterpret a nod of the head or no pushback, never assume you have a commitment. What else should you do?
You must actively listen. Active listening means being focused, reading body language, analyzing voice tone, never multitasking and recognizing if listeners hesitate in their responses.
If someone hesitates, that typically means they misunderstand, have a conflict or simply think there is a better way to accomplish the essence of your goal. Millennials often do!
Brian’s Perspective:
When you think about how much the world has changed over the past decade, the advent of social media flipped the existing table over on how we receive and process information.
While emails and texts sped up communication between people, the onslaught of fast-paced and constant stimulation made the context of conversations more difficult. You can see examples of this in political/social discourse, but it can make its way into the professional world as well.
Can you recall times when you tried to convey a message or request that was not received by the recipient in the way you intended? I can say I have — and I’ve been the one who misunderstood the request too!
The security industry has put in time and effort to bring in talent from the Millennial generation, which I am a part of, but now there is a new group making its way into the workforce.
The men and women of Gen-Z come with a new set of challenges and advantages that may not be fully tapped into. Communication style is one that should not be overlooked. Millennials share some common traits with Gen-Z, but not considering the differences could cause a whole lot of miscommunication and waste time!
Here are some of my thoughts on things to consider with our two generations, with an action item for each:
- Millennials and Gen-Z prefer a digital request or command versus a quick meeting or a phone call. Short, sweet, to the point, and void of any direct eye contact. Some avenues for this could be a short Microsoft Teams message or an email not much longer than one paragraph.
- A common value shared with both generations is a focus on finding something purpose-driven in your work ethic. We may feel less inclined to be enthusiastic about something without seeing how it tangibly benefits the company. Explaining how certain tasks and actions help our clients can be a nice dopamine boost!
- Diversity is a value we share and it can be challenging to incorporate that into your organization. Having open and fair discussions on company culture can fulfill that value and give us a sense of noticeable impact versus being a cog in the machine.
We’re looking forward to sharing more in Part 2!
