THE LEVEL UP LETTER

Hi All!
Here is your weekly Level Up Letter. This week we’re taking a look at communication. Unfortunately, language is a poor substitute for what we’re actually thinking. But there are some guide rails you can use when communicating, especially inside an organization. We hope you find these helpful and feel free to forward along if your heart desires. 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THAT. RIGHT??

Remember playing telephone as a kid? You whisper something in someone’s ear and they repeat it down the line. At the end the last person, no matter what, says something completely different than what you initially said?

It goes to show that even when we think we’ve said something clear as day, how someone else interprets it can vary. And create a dramatic effect.

When we communicate, we’re only able to get across a small fraction of what we’re actually thinking. We might understand the problem or topic at such a high level that we assume everyone else has the same baseline. To exacerbate the problem, the people we’re communicating with will fill in their own interpretation and then communicate that further down the line. It looks something like this.

HOW DO WE CREATE CLARITY?

1. Define The Outcome
   What’s the purpose of what you’re trying to communicate? What do you want them to do with the information? You need to be crystal clear on what you want them to walk away with.

2. Cut The Fluff
   We use this example all the time. “1,000 Songs In Your Pocket” not “we’re building a revolutionary new piece of technology that will hold 1.7gig of music that you can download from the internet. It has buttons and a 3.5mm headphone jack.” - Keep it simple. Make it memorable.

3. Be A Broken Record
   We encourage using multiple channels for delivering communications. Have the conversation in person, have them repeat it, follow it up with an email, restate your desired outcome in slack etc etc etc. You want to drive the message home as many ways as you can.

4. Create Feedback Loops 
   Any time we’re communicating, especially something of importance, we need to double-check that what was said, was actually understood. We work with clients we implement feedback loops to ensure this. It’s written into OKRs, put into meeting agendas and addressed in 1×1s or team meetings. This provides a way to catch and correct miscommunications early and stops the game of telephone from getting out of hand.

NEED HELP CLEARING UP COMMUNICATION?

We’re masters of establishing clear communication inside organizations. Let us help you take all that information living in your head, and put it on the page so there’s no miscommunication anymore.