Escalating communications

One of the problems we face these days, especially in the workplace, is that we have many communication media at our disposal, with different bandwidths, and we don’t know how to use them properly.

The main problem is that we don’t know how to escalate communications.

Some media are bad for arguing, mainly because of the misuse we can make of the communication channel. Discussions can get inflamed, to the point of causing us physical (bodily) reactions.

For example, Twitter is not only a medium with very limited bandwidth (140 characters per message); on top of that, because of its semi-public nature, it can multiply the potential for misunderstandings.

Suppose @Beto and @Alicia start an argument on Twitter, and @Carlos only follows @Alicia. @Carlos gets half of the conversation. The communication between @Beto and @Alicia is fragile as it is; imagine what happens when @Carlos jumps into the argument attacking @Beto. Only chaos can follow, and people can get really angry (stomachache included).

This also happens in email communication, and it’s particularly serious in a work environment, where it happens all the time that misunderstandings arise from badly written emails or mistaken interpretations.

David Allen says so in an interview conducted by Bob Walsh:

“One of the problems that’s endemic with the younger generation people who have grown up with computers and with email they make the assumption that email is a fine medium for communicating anything and everything.”

“But one of the things we’ve learned is that if you try to communicate something that requires a broader bandwidth of communication, in other words I actually really need to see what you look like when I say something and how you respond to it.”

“For people that are trying to do strategic or sensitive or complex things through email and it’s the wrong pipe to be using, that’s very easy to blow a fuse. In terms of the stress, the misunderstandings, the conflict, the sort of lack of fulfillment or lack of getting a result that may occur because of it. But that may be more of a sidebar to what you’re talking about. That is, that’s a factor with anybody who assumes that email is the communication media of choice.”

I don’t use instant messaging (maybe I should do the same with Twitter). I stopped using it many years ago, after something similar happened to me, perhaps not as dramatic, to what Jeff Atwood describes:

“Because I abused instant messaging, because I wasn’t brave enough to address the serious limitations of instant messaging as a communication medium, I ultimately hurt myself. And other people. It’s all so.. unnecessary.”

“Please don’t make the same mistake I have. Understand the limitations of the communication medium you are using and know when to escalate to another, more appropriate one.”

That’s why I don’t promote the use of instant messaging at my workplace. I prefer the phone, and always the group discussing in front of a whiteboard. Ideas get across better.

Email works as a way of leaving a record, but everything gets cleared up with a call, a meeting.

What matters, and my point here is very simple: “know when to escalate communications”.