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One of the critical things about management (in my view) comes down to communication. If communication is open, honest and frequent, then mistakes or roadbumps

by amirmc 12y ago

One of the critical things about management (in my view) comes down to communication. If communication is open, honest and frequent, then mistakes or roadbumps become easier to deal with. If communication is lacking, vague or insincere then it begins to erode trust and people withdraw. Learning to communicate (inc. listening) is a valuable skill that is often neglected.

martinkl 12y ago
A tricky thing about communication is that sometimes it's really hard to convey why you believe something. You have some intuition that you should do A not B, but you can't put a finger on why. In order to resolve conflicts, you need to find a way of reasoning about intuition. So I agree that open and honest communication is super important. I just wanted to note that difficulties in communication may happen even with the best intentions.
- amirmc 12y ago
  I completely agree and I didn't mean to imply that communication difficulties only occur due to bad intentions. My point is more that lack of communication can directly lead to negative effects. Even when there are open/honest comms, there's still the additional effort needed to understand what's being said (which I think is what you're referring to). To reach that level, you must first have been able to listen. Not every decision can be made using hard facts but it should be possible to explore the drivers behind viewpoints - assuming of course, that you trust the people you're discussing with. Taken to an extreme, it's almost like a form of counselling.
slgeorge 12y ago
I believe you're talking about communication from management to employees. It's a common frustration that 'management' is not "open and honest". Funnily enough most managers will agree that "open and honest" communications are critical. The challenge is commonly in the implementation which is difficult - and that it's not actually as much of a "universal truth" as you might expect. Mostly, when people complain about communication it's because there are challenges and they feel that those are not being addressed properly. In my experience the 'implementation' issue is that people experience situations very differently - that's why people feel that no-one is listening - it's literally because the two sides don't manage to explore/find a common ground so then can't really work to solutions. For an obvious extreme, consider how the Founder of something like Google experiences their company, versus a newly-minted developer. As a manager you'll probably spend a life-time trying to learn the nuances of understanding how other people are experiencing situations. Management has many aspects, some if it is to "make the group productive", but some of it is to "make the organisation successful". Those two are not always the same, and there can be conflict. What's good for the company and what's good for the individual employee are not always the same. Imagine if your start-up is about to run out of money, and is pitching for a big deal: as a 'manager' would you be comfortable telling everyone that if we don't win this job then we won't be making payroll in two months? On the one hand, people will say that they want to know, on the other you may watch everyone immediately send out their CV's ... the risk/benefit is not always straightforward.

by amirmc 12y ago

martinkl 12y ago

A tricky thing about communication is that sometimes it's really hard to convey why you believe something. You have some intuition that you should do A not B, but you can't put a finger on why. In order to resolve conflicts, you need to find a way of reasoning about intuition. So I agree that open and honest communication is super important. I just wanted to note that difficulties in communication may happen even with the best intentions.

amirmc 12y ago
I completely agree and I didn't mean to imply that communication difficulties only occur due to bad intentions. My point is more that lack of communication can directly lead to negative effects. Even when there are open/honest comms, there's still the additional effort needed to understand what's being said (which I think is what you're referring to). To reach that level, you must first have been able to listen. Not every decision can be made using hard facts but it should be possible to explore the drivers behind viewpoints - assuming of course, that you trust the people you're discussing with. Taken to an extreme, it's almost like a form of counselling.

slgeorge 12y ago

I believe you're talking about communication from management to employees. It's a common frustration that 'management' is not "open and honest". Funnily enough most managers will agree that "open and honest" communications are critical. The challenge is commonly in the implementation which is difficult - and that it's not actually as much of a "universal truth" as you might expect. Mostly, when people complain about communication it's because there are challenges and they feel that those are not being addressed properly. In my experience the 'implementation' issue is that people experience situations very differently - that's why people feel that no-one is listening - it's literally because the two sides don't manage to explore/find a common ground so then can't really work to solutions. For an obvious extreme, consider how the Founder of something like Google experiences their company, versus a newly-minted developer. As a manager you'll probably spend a life-time trying to learn the nuances of understanding how other people are experiencing situations. Management has many aspects, some if it is to "make the group productive", but some of it is to "make the organisation successful". Those two are not always the same, and there can be conflict. What's good for the company and what's good for the individual employee are not always the same. Imagine if your start-up is about to run out of money, and is pitching for a big deal: as a 'manager' would you be comfortable telling everyone that if we don't win this job then we won't be making payroll in two months? On the one hand, people will say that they want to know, on the other you may watch everyone immediately send out their CV's ... the risk/benefit is not always straightforward.