THE LIMITATIONS/ DRAWBACKS OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE

Work-life balance is the state of equilibrium where a person equally prioritizes the demands of one’s career and the demands of one’s personal life. Why is it so hard to maintain a balance? A survey of thousands of working adults found these to be the most common answers:

Work-life balance is less about dividing the hours in our day evenly between work and personal life and, instead, is more about having the flexibility to get things done in our professional life while still having time and energy to enjoy our personal life. There may be some days where we work longer hours so that we have time later in the week to enjoy other activities.

So far, it always seemed that finding a good balance between our daily work and the time we spend with family, friends or just ourselves is what we all should strive to achieve. Some arguments against and in favour of the work live balance theory may be:

When the focus is on business development, employers inevitably lose focus on where to draw the line regarding these practices. Let us look at what could happen when flexible working is not monitored well.

A) . . . -> Development of a complacent attitude

It is important to build a rapport with our employees by understanding their personal issues and granting them a leeway to work around them. However, it’s equally important for employers to know where to draw a line. When there’s freedom to work at individual schedules suiting employee needs, there’s room to take advantage, by not being productive, for example. Similarly, the many short breaks employees are allowed to take may turn into long ones, and the easy grants to take unplanned leaves will result in their absence from the desk too often.

If we are not building a system of measurement to monitor some of these benefits, it may result in the employees developing a complacent attitude towards the job. Consequently, this leads to lower productivity, lack of ownership and accountability.

B) . . . -> Lack of communication and innovation

One of the most common challenges faced by employers who have a team working remotely is communication. While the reasons are genuine most of the time, the employee can make a habit of such issues. For instance, an employee working from home might be situated in a ‘bad phone network’ zone – thus, reaching out to them becomes challenging. This results in confusion and possible delays in completing the assignments. Similarly, there may be poor internet connection or electricity problems – common problems of today which makes the remote working option very inefficient.

C) . . . -> Distractions and missed collaborations

Often, employees promise that they will manage work from home and stick to deadlines but are unable to do so due to genuine reasons. Be it due to having a pet or having constant distractions with a large family in the house, such employees are bound to be interruptions that won’t let them concentrate on their work.

An employee who enjoys scheduled flexibility can work perfectly well in his or her comfort zone if the project is being handled individually. But in the case of a group project, where one team member’s task depends on another’s, there’s bound to be a setback. As leaders we need to give these aspects a thought and understand that while it’s important for us to help employees work better, it’s also equally essential that we ensure the work-life balance is equally balanced. It’s always better to work smart than to work hard.

One way to think about work-life balance is with a concept known as The Four Burners Theory. Imagine our life is represented by a stove with four burners on it. Each burner symbolises one major quadrant of our life. The first burner represents family, the second burner is our friends, the third burner is health and the fourth burner is our work.

Which two would we choose? It’s a really difficult choice. If we decide that family and work are the most important — then we need to sacrifice our friends and health. If we decide family and friends are the most important — then we need to sacrifice our career and health.

Is there a way to side-step it. Can we succeed and keep all four burners running? Perhaps we could merge two burners. What if we grouped family and friends into one category? Or maybe we could combine health and work. We hear sitting all day is unhealthy. What if we got a standing desk? Believing that you will be healthy because you bought a standing desk is like believing you are a rebel because you ignored the fasten seatbelt sign on an airplane.

Overall, life is all about trade-offs. If we want to outperform in our work and in our marriage, then friends and health may have to suffer. If we want to be healthy and succeed as a parent, then we might be forced to let loose our career ambitions. We are free to divide our time equally among all four burners, but we have to accept that we will never reach our full potential in any given area.

What is the best way to handle these work-life balance problems? Here are three ways of thinking about The Four Burners Theory.

Option 1: Outsource Burners . . . ->

We outsource small aspects of our lives all the time. We buy fast food so we don’t have to cook. We go to the dry cleaners to save time on laundry. We visit the car repair shop so we don’t have to fix our own automobile. Outsourcing small portions of our life allows to save time and spend it elsewhere. Can we apply the same idea to one quadrant of our life and free up time to focus on the other three burners?

Work is the best example. For many people, work is the hottest burner on the stove. It is where they spend the most time and it is the last burner to get turned off. In theory, entrepreneurs and business owners can outsource the work burner. They do it by hiring employees.

Parenting is another example. Working parents are often forced to “outsource” the family burner by dropping their children off at day-care or hiring a babysitter. Calling this outsourcing might seem unfair, but—like the work example above—parents are paying someone else to keep the burner running while they use their time elsewhere.

The advantage of outsourcing is that we can keep the burner running without spending our time on it. Unfortunately, removing ourselves from the equation is also a disadvantage. Most entrepreneurs, artists, and creators would feel bored and without a sense of purpose if they had nothing to work on each day. Every parent would rather spend time with their children than drop them off at day-care. Outsourcing keeps the burner running, but is it running in a meaningful way?

Option 2: Embrace Limitations. . . ->

One of the most frustrating parts of The Four Burners Theory is that it shines a light on our untapped potential. It can be easy to think, “If only I had more time, I could make more money or get in shape or spend more time at home.”

One way to manage this problem is to shift our focus from wishing we had more time to maximizing the time we have. In other words, we embrace our limitations. The question to ask ourselves is, “Assuming a particular set of limitations, how can I be as effective as possible?” Some examples may be:

This line of questioning pulls the focus toward something positive (getting the most out of what we have available) rather than something negative (worrying about never having enough time). Furthermore, well-designed limitations can actually improve performance and help stop procrastinating on goals.

Embracing limitations means accepting that we are operating at less than our full potential. Yes, there are plenty of ways to “work smarter, not harder” but it is difficult to avoid the fact that where we spend our time matters. If we invested more time into health or relationships or career, we would likely see improved results in that area.

Option 3: The Seasons of Life . . . -> A third way to manage the four burners is by breaking our life into seasons. What if, instead of searching for perfect work-life balance at all times, we divide our life into seasons that focused on a particular area? The importance of our burners may change throughout life. For instance:

We don’t have to give up on our dreams forever, but life rarely allows to keep all four burners going at once. Maybe we need to let go of something for this season. We can do it all in a lifetime, but not at the same time. Furthermore, there is often a multiplier effect that occurs when we dedicate ourselves fully to a given area. In many cases, we can achieve more by going all-in on a given task for a few years than by giving it a lukewarm effort for fifty years. Maybe it is best to strive for seasons of imbalance and rotate through them as needed.

The Four Burners Theory reveals a truth everyone must deal with: nobody likes being told they can’t have it all, but everyone has limitations on their time and energy. Every choice has a cost.

Some people may even disagree with the fact that to be successful (however we define that) we need to turn off one burner and to be really successful, we must turn off two. Perhaps instead of turning the burners off we can turn them down a little and adopt the seasons of life approach. This seems like a more balanced approach than turning off at least one quadrant completely. For instance, the people of Denmark are consistently ranked amongst the happiest people in the world. They work shorter weeks, explore the outdoors and spend quality time with friends and family.

A good work-life balance has numerous positive effects, including less stress, a lower risk of burnout and a greater sense of well-being. Employers that offer options as telecommuting or flexible work schedules can help employees have a better work-life balance, and can save on costs, experience fewer cases of absenteeism, and enjoy a more loyal and productive workforce. Below are some reflective questions to get started within organisations:

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

INFLUENCING BEHAVIORS: WHY FACTS DON’T ALTER MINDS

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”- Leo Tolstoy.

Why don’t facts change our minds? And why would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea anyway? How do such behaviors serve us?

The Logic of False Beliefs

Humans need a reasonably accurate view of the world in order to survive. If our model of reality is wildly different from the actual world, then we struggle to take effective actions each day. However, truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter to the human mind. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong.

“Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence.”- James Clear – Atomic Habits

Understanding the truth of a situation is important, but so is remaining part of a tribe. While these two desires often work well together, they occasionally come into conflict. In many circumstances; social connection is actually more helpful to our daily life than understanding the truth of a particular fact or idea. People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.

We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.If a brain anticipates that it will be rewarded for adopting a particular belief, it’s perfectly happy to do so, and doesn’t much care where the reward comes from. False beliefs can be useful in a social sense even if they are not useful in a factual sense. For lack of a better phrase, we might call this approach “factually false, but socially accurate.”  When we have to choose between the two, people often select friends and family over facts.

This insight not only explains why we might hold our tongue at a dinner party or look the other way when our parents say something offensive, but also reveals a better way to change the minds of others.

Facts Don’t Change Our Minds. Friendship Does.

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. We can’t expect someone to change their mind if we take away their community too. We have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into our tribe, to bring them into our circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

The British philosopher Alain de Botton suggests that we simply share meals with those who disagree with us. Sitting down at a table with a group of strangers has the incomparable and odd benefit of making it a little more difficult to hate them with impunity. Prejudice and ethnic strife feed off abstraction. However, the proximity required by a meal – something about handing dishes around, unfurling napkins at the same moment, even asking a stranger to pass the salt – disrupts our ability to cling to the belief that the outsiders who wear unusual clothes and speak in distinctive accents deserve to be sent home or assaulted. Perhaps it is not difference, but distance that breeds tribalism and hostility. As proximity increases, so does understanding. Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does.

The Spectrum of Beliefs

The people who are most likely to change our minds are the ones we agree with on 98 percent of topics. If someone we know, like, and trust believes a radical idea, we are more likely to give it merit, weight, or consideration. But if someone wildly different than us proposes the same radical idea, well, it’s easy to dismiss them as a crackpot.

One way to visualize this distinction is by mapping beliefs on a spectrum. If we divide this spectrum into 10 units and we find ourselves at Position 7, then there is little sense in trying to convince someone at Position 1. The gap is too wide. When we are at Position 7, our time is better spent connecting with people who are at Positions 6 and 8, gradually pulling them in our direction.

The most heated arguments often occur between people on opposite ends of the spectrum, but the most frequent learning occurs from people who are nearby. The closer we are to someone, the more likely it becomes that the one or two beliefs we don’t share will bleed over into our own mind and shape our thinking. The further away an idea is from our current position, the more likely we are to reject it outright.When it comes to changing people’s minds, it is very difficult to jump from one side to another. We can’t jump down the spectrum – we have to slide down it.

Any idea that is sufficiently different from our current worldview will feel threatening. And the best place to ponder a threatening idea is in a non-threatening environment. As a result, books are often a better vehicle for transforming beliefs than conversations or debates. In conversation; people have to carefully consider their status and appearance. They want to save face and avoid looking stupid. When confronted with an uncomfortable set of facts, the tendency is often to double down on their current position rather than publicly admit to being wrong. Books resolve this tension. With a book, the conversation takes place inside someone’s head and without the risk of being judged by others. It’s easier to be open-minded when you aren’t feeling defensive.

Arguments are like a full-frontal attack on a person’s identity. Reading a book (or a text/email/letter) is like slipping the seed of an idea into a person’s brain and letting it grow on their own terms. There is enough wrestling going on in someone’s head when they are overcoming a pre-existing belief. They don’t need to wrestle with you too.

Why False Ideas Persist

There is another reason bad ideas continue to live on, which is that people continue to talk about them. Silence is death for any idea. An idea that is never spoken or written down dies with the person who conceived it. Ideas can only be remembered when they are repeated. They can only be believed when they are repeated.

People also repeat bad ideas when they complain about them. Before we can criticize an idea, we have to reference that idea. We end up repeating the ideas we are hoping people will forget—but, of course, people cannot forget them because we keep talking about them. The more we repeat a bad idea, the more likely people are to believe it.

Each time we attack a bad idea, we are feeding the very monster we are trying to destroy. Our time is better spent championing good ideas than tearing down bad ones. The best thing that can happen to a bad idea is that it is forgotten. The best thing that can happen to a good idea is that it is shared.

What Is The Goal?

There are instances when it is useful to point out an error or criticize a bad idea. But we have to ask ourselves, “What is the goal?” Presumably, we want to criticize bad ideas because we think the world would be better off if fewer people believed them. In other words, we think the world would improve if people changed their minds on a few important topics.If the goal is to actually change minds, then, criticizing the other side may not be the best approach.

Most people argue to win, not to learn. People often act like soldiers rather than scouts. Soldiers are on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Victory is the operative emotion. Scouts, meanwhile, are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is the driving force. If we want people to adopt our beliefs, we need to act more like a scout and less like a soldier. Are we willing to not win in order to keep the conversation going?

Be Kind First, Be Right Later

“Always remember that to argue, and win, is to break down the reality of the person you are arguing against. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.”- Haruki Murakami

When we are in the moment, we can easily forget that the goal is to connect with the other side, collaborate with them, befriend them, and integrate them into our tribe. We are so caught up in winning that we forget about connecting. It is easy to spend our energy labelling people rather than working with them.The word “kind” originated from the word “kin.” When you are kind to someone it means you are treating them like family. Develop a friendship. Share a meal. Be Kind.

**Source Credits: 1)  Language, Cognition, and Human Nature: Selected Articles by Steven Pinker.   2) Religion for Atheists by Alain de Botton.  3) “Why you think you’re right — even if you’re wrong” by Julia Galef.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

PERSONALITY TRANSFORMATIONS: MYTHS ON ALTERING PERSONALITY TYPES

We tend to think that we are who we are and there is not much we can do about that. But the fact is, we choose our personality and who we are. Our personality is shaped by the choices we make over time. One of the most frequent questions in personal development probably is “Can I change my personality type?” According to most personality type theories, the person’s type is inborn and does not change. However, people can develop traits and habits that differ or even directly contradict the description of their type.

An example may help us understand better. Suppose lights in the room suddenly go off and we are in complete darkness. We may be able to navigate our way to the door, but which of our senses will come into play? Touch? Hearing? Smell? It would be anything but vision, our preferred sense. As soon as the lights come back on, we will switch back to using vision again as it makes it much easier to navigate around the room.

The way our personality works is quite identical. The environment we are in shapes our personality in a certain way, forcing us to develop traits and habits that might be foreign to our type. For instance, if we are naturally casual and spontaneous, but our work schedule is very structured and our manager is obsessive about schedules, our preferences are likely to change. However, we will probably switch back as soon as we leave that job. The same rule applies to other traits as well.

Here it is important to consider that sociability is often confused with extraversion, just like shyness is confused with introversion – this is a common oversight when it comes to deliberating personality types. While extraverted people naturally find it easier to talk to other people (they gain energy when they do this), there are many shy or solitary people among them. Conversely, introverted types lose energy when they communicate with others, but you would be able to find many eloquent individuals in that group.

Does personality stay the same from birth for the rest of your life, or can it be changed? For decades personality was considered as unmalleable as concrete – who we were at age 15 is who we would be at age 75. But within the last 20 or so years, as cognitive and behavioural sciences have evolved, we have come to see personality as at least marginally changeable, and possibly much more so. While certain personality elements remain stable over time, others change in distinct ways.  In other words, personality is both relatively stable and changeable, and the degree of change is specific to each person. As to what influences personality stability or malleability, both genetics and environmental factors play lead roles.

The relatively new wrinkle in this understanding is epigenetic influence, in which genes for certain factors may be “switched on” by environmental influences. What this means is that when it comes to personality change, we should not compare ourselves to others.  Our especially likable and gregarious friend in middle school is still probably going to be more likable and gregarious than most people we know in mid-life. What matters is how much we have changed – and that is very much a person-specific evaluation.

Personality tests can be part of the problem. They are like a frame in a movie—just a part of the story of our life. They tell us where we are and, in that way, they are very valuable. Personality tests are self-reported. Our view of ourselves is constantly changing based on our current focus, context, and emotions. 

Another aspect to consider is that anyone who has ever done something great with their life has had to transform themselves from who they are to who they became. They had to act accordingly beyond their current personality and circumstances to eventually do what they did and become who they became.

In this aspect, some fallacies (untruths) that limit our growth and potential are:

Fallacy #1: Personality Can Be Categorized into “Types”.

This states that the way we react to life is just “who we are,” and we should accept it, and not try to change it, and we could not if we tried. Even if those traits are limitations, there is nothing we can do about it.

There are no personality types that lock us into a way of being. These labels we take on tend to excuse us from taking personal responsibility for the behavioral outcomes we experience. We can shape our personalities to serve our goals. Our personality should come from our goals. Our goals should not come from our personality.

Fallacy #2: Personality Is Innate and Fixed

Our personalities change over time. Who do we want to be in the future is more important than who you are now, and should actually inform who we are now. Our intended future self can direct our current identity and personality far more than our former self can. We can use our future self as the filter for developing our personality in the present. Our future self can be evolved and different from our current self. Successful people start with a vision of their future self and use it as the filter for everything they do.

Fallacy #3: Personality Comes from Our Past

The idea that we are defined by our past or that the past is the best predictor of our future is true, but not because we cannot change. We simply have not for another reason.

Four reasons that keep people stuck in their past may be:

Past events can inform and change our present and future because we are learning from them. If not, we short-change our future. How we describe, interpret, and identify with our past has far more to do with where we are, here and now, than it has to do with our actual past.

Fallacy #4: Personality Must Be Discovered

Our personality, like our passion, is created by us and not discovered. It is designed. It is a by-product of the decisions we make. What we fail to understand sometimes is that inspiration follows action, not the other way around. Unless and until we take action, our confidence and imagination will remain low. We need to decide what we want and begin moving forward. With progress—even minuscule progress—our clarity and confidence will increase, opening the door for greater flexibility and change.

Fallacy #5: Personality Is Our True and “Authentic” Self

Our “authentic self” is a moving target, especially if we are of the kind to explore possibilities and are growing. To define ourselves with a fixed, authentic self is self-limiting and rigid. It lacks imagination and a growth mindset. Our authentic self is what we most believe in and who we aspire to be. Moreover, our authentic self is going to change. Being authentic is about being honest, and being honest is about facing the truth, not justifying our limitations.

The Gap and the Gain

When we are in the gap, we cannot enjoy or comprehend the benefits in our life. All we are focused on is why something was not how we thought it should have been. For instance, we might live in a great house. But if we are in the gap, then all we might see is what is wrong with our house. We may have an amazing partner but only see what we believe to be wrong or missing in them.

As we get older, we tend not to put ourselves into new contexts, so our personality becomes predictable. We get into our comfort zones. We see consistency in everyday life because of the power of the situation. Putting ourselves in new environments, around new people, and taking on new roles is one of the quickest ways to change our personality, for better or worse.

To conclude, our basic personality type cannot change – however, we can change the aspects of your personality that we are unhappy with. By doing this we will strengthen our shadow traits and become a more well-rounded individual, even though our dominant traits will still remain the same. Such a change could be triggered by either the environment we are in or our own will – to each his own.

**Source Credits: Parts adapted from The Book:- Personality Isn’t Permanent By Benjamin Hardy

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

BEHAVIOURAL LESSONS FROM THE WORK-FROM-HOME ERA

It is safe to assume that an overwhelming majority of the population has now participated in a videoconference. People who may not have even known how to start one six months ago now use them daily—and it is all beginning to feel normal. The technologies that we have all come to rely on have so seamlessly infiltrated our lives that it is easy to overlook their impact. But when we consider the repercussions of remote working, we will see that these platforms have taught us more than just how to use them. They have made us better leaders, collaborators, employees, and employers. Here are some lessons we did not realize we learned from the tools we use to work from home.

Lesson 01- Transparency is not so frightening after all: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Many of us who came of age in the business world between the 1980s and the 2010s have an innate fear of letting a client see anything before it is “ready.” As businesses, we are entrusted to lead projects that constitute millions of dollars in revenue, which has led to the belief that if work is shared with a client before it’s “perfect,” then that trust will be lost. However, after five months of remote work during the most unpredictable time in most of our lives, it’s clear that nothing is perfect and the notion that we need to pretend it is has no place in our minds. Being open and vulnerable in business isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Lesson 02- Our significance is no longer tied to our location: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Good talent is expensive. You get what you pay for, and the best talent in the world is either totally undiscovered or very successful (hence the high cost). Employers did not know what they could not see, so if you were not directly in front of them, they had no idea you existed. The global pandemic has completely changed that.

With budgets being slashed, offices closed, companies shuttering, and the gig economy being revitalized, we have all been forced to realize that remote work works. The past notions of “oh, they work in a metro/ tier 1 city, so they must be good” are gone, and as people across the country were able to refine their work-from-home setups and became familiar, even comfortable, with Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, etc., the playing field was levelled. The migration of talent and remote work reckoning will afford talented creators and businesspeople from across the globe more opportunities and shake businesses clean of the attitude that someone is less valuable if they are not in a big city. After all, in today’s world, if you have tech tools, Wi-Fi, and talent, you can get the job done.

Lesson 03- Our collaboration skills might want improvement: . . . .. . . . . . .  

Between zoom, slack, chat, messenger, texting, and a good old-fashioned conference call or two, there are endless channels for socially distanced conversations to take place. But collaboration is something entirely different, and it is important to remember that talking is not co-thinking, and co-thinking is what gets things done. Energy, attitude, and personality cannot be ‘remoted’ through even the best fiber optic lines. (**quoted – Jerry Sinefield).

Every video call platform has managed to make it more obvious than ever how often team members speak over one another. It is an honest mistake, but even the slightest lag has taught many of us to wait our turn, take a second, and make sure we are not infringing on someone’s time to speak. This small change many have unconsciously implemented has made all the things that feed innovative thinking that much better.

The truth is that as humans, we adapt. Sometimes it happens so quietly that we don’t even notice. So, the next time we notice ourselves waiting our turn to speak, being more vulnerable with a client or co-worker, or not second-guessing our value, we can say a silent “thank you” to all of our work-from-home technology for helping us make positive changes from our couch.

Behaviours That Bring More Focus

Focus seems to be the key. It’s hard to imagine achieving anything of value without given it due attention. And whether it’s in relation to family life, work or study, more focus enables more effective setting and achievement of goals. But while most of us can appreciate the benefits of focus, the path to becoming more focused is often elusive. This is especially the case in our modern world: where gadgets, social media and around-the-clock coverage of world events (and non-events) often serve to distract us.

One solution could be to simply avoid the same things highly focused people avoid. Study after study of highly focused (and not-so-focused) people has given us a good idea of the do’s and don’ts of maintaining attention and getting the job done. Here are some behaviours of focused people:

They do not focus their attention on being focused: . . . . . .. . It might seem counterintuitive, but recent research suggests the best way to gain and keep focus is not to try. In other words, maintaining focus could best be undertaken as a defensive sport. Allowing even 200 milliseconds of mental distraction (around 1/5th of second, i.e., the blink of the eye) can disturb our focus for up to 40 minutes. Getting distracted depletes both our physical energy and our brain power. For example, it uses up vital thinking resources and pushes us more quickly towards mental overload—a state wherein we are less able to make decisions. By contrast, placing effort on getting rid of random distractions regains our focus and preserves our scarce, mental reserves.

They reframe dull work to be interesting: . . . . . . . . . We are only focused when we’re interested in the topic. It is no surprise that if the task at hand is incredibly boring, we lose focus quickly. Nonetheless, seldom in life do we get to work things that are always interesting and engaging. For that reason, highly focused people reframe whatever work or tasks they have, to make them more “interesting”. For example, signing a bunch of documents might be reframed as a chance to reflect on the beauty (or ugliness) of your signature. Reading an exceptionally long and poorly structured client brief might allow thoughts of copyediting.

They never begin something without clear, realistic goals. :. . . . . . . . Goal setting is an entire sub-field of management behavioural science. One of its many insights is that setting clear goals increases productivity. However, the mechanism by which goals appear to boost productivity relates to focus: clear goals give a person an object of focus and helps them mark progress. And that leads to something else. The goal-setting literature says our objectives should be challenging; however, they should also be realistic. Goals that are set too high or too low undermines focus and, as a result, productivity.

They chase those goals with flexibility and agility: . . . . . . . .. At the same time, highly focused people do some things that seem counterintuitive. For example, they set goals but do not set rigid ways of achieving them. As a result, high focused people leave themselves open to exploiting opportunities that arise along the way. These opportunities might make their existing goals easer to reach or change them altogether. When people set out with a rigid plan of action towards achieving goals, they are mostly asking “how” and not “why”. Yet. while seemingly harmless, this subtle distinction reduces focus dramatically. For example, as we become bogged down in the details of pursuing a specific action plan, subconsciously, we get lured off-topic by distractions. Part of that might stem from frustrations in not responding to what is happening then and there. By contrast, asking “why” opens the doorway to accepting alternative approaches and revising what we are doing based upon new data. By doing all that, it helps us maintain focus out of maintained interest and engagement.

They use diversions strategically: . . . . . .. .. Diversions are not always bad. While it’s important to distinguish random distractions from those related to our undertakings, there’s even an important place for random distractions in maintaining focus. Brief, strategically timed distractions—often at various intervals while doing our work—helps us “bounce back” into focus. For example, highly focused people might walk outside to observe the hustle and bustle of city streets or go for a walk in nature or even have an irrelevant conversation as a bounce back strategy. The only caveat is if the distraction involves electronic devices—which, for other reasons—can operate on our brains through visual channels and detract from focus.

They prioritize the mind-soul-body connection:. . . . . . . .. Highly focused people understand that their physical, emotional, and even spiritual condition can influence their abilities to maintain attention. Sufficient sleep is important for maintaining focus, even though many believe “all-nighters” or crunching for deadlines are effective ways to work and focus. Highly saturated foods lead to poor focus, and even a slight amount of dehydration kills our attention and leaves our brains foggy.

Having aggressive emotions (such as produced by an argument or by reading a politically-explosive news article) can affect our abilities to reason for some moments after the event—apart from depleting our mental reserves as they arise. The many ancient practices of meditation and prayer offer different ways of gathering focus.

They never befriend their electronic gadgets:. . . . . . . .. Science shows that our devices distract our attention and deplete our focus substantially. That might seem obvious, when considering email or chats, but even the mere presence of a mobile phone near us, impairs our ability to focus. Studies have shown that our grey matter is pivotal in enabling us to switch tasks and regain focus, as well as process information, build memories and other vital functions. Not only is multi-tasking across electronic media distracting, it could progressively impair our abilities to focus over the longer term by affecting our grey matter.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS: IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENT

A Short Story- Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine:

In 1952, polio killed more children than any other communicable disease. Nearly 58,000 people were infected. The situation was on the verge of becoming an epidemic and the country desperately needed a vaccine.

In a small laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh, a young researcher named Jonas Salk was working tirelessly to find a cure. (Years later, author Dennis Denenberg would write, “Salk worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, for years.”). Despite all his effort, Salk was stuck. His quest for a polio vaccine was meeting a dead end at every turn. Eventually, he decided that he needed a break. Salk left the laboratory and retreated to the quiet hills of central Italy where he stayed at a 13th-century Franciscan monastery known as the Basilica of San Francesco d’Assisi.

The basilica could not have been more different than the lab. The architecture was a beautiful combination of Romanesque and Gothic styles. White-washed brick covered the expansive exterior and dozens of semi-circular arches surrounded the plazas between buildings. Inside the church, the walls were covered with stunning fresco paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries and natural light poured in from tall windows. It was in this space that Jonas Salk would have the breakthrough discovery that led to the polio vaccine. Years later, he would say…

Today, the discovery that Salk made in that Italian monastery has impacted millions. Polio has been eradicated from nearly every nation in the world. Did inspiration just happen to strike Jonas Salk while he was at the monastery? Or was he right in assuming that the environment impacted his thinking? And perhaps more importantly, what does science say about the connection between our environment and our thoughts and actions? And how can we use this information to live better lives?

The Link Between Brains and Buildings

Researchers have discovered a variety of ways that the buildings we live, work, and play in drive our behavior and our actions. The way we react and respond is often tied to the environment that we find ourselves in. For example, it has long been known that schools with more natural light provide a better learning environment for students and test scores often go up as a result. (Natural light and natural air are known to stimulate productivity in the workplace as well.)

Additionally, buildings with natural elements built into them help reduce stress and calm us down (think of trees inside a mall or a garden in a lobby). Spaces with high ceilings and large rooms promote more expansive and creative thinking.

So what does this link between design and behaviour mean for us? Change Your Environment, Change Your Behaviour. Researchers have shown that any habit you have — good or bad — is often associated with some type of trigger or cue. Recent studies (like this one) have shown that these cues often come from your environment. This is important because most of us live in the same home, go to the same office, and eat in the same rooms day after day. And that means you are constantly surrounded by the same environmental triggers and cues.

If our behavior is often shaped by our environment and we keep working, playing, and living in the same environment, then it’s no wonder that it can be difficult to build new habits. Studies show that it is easier to change our behavior and build new habits when we change our environment.

We are more reliant on environmental triggers than we’d like to think. In one study conducted on “habits vs. intentions,” researchers found that students who transferred to another university were the most likely to change their daily habits. Those habits were easier to change than the control group because they weren’t exposed to familiar external cues.

The mirrors research on the stimulus control theory, or the effect of a stimulus on behaviour shows that techniques involving stimulus control have even been successfully used to help people with insomnia. In short, those who had trouble falling asleep were told to only go to their room and lie in their bed when they were tired. If they couldn’t fall asleep, they were told to get up and change rooms.

Strange advice, but over time, researchers found that by associating the bed with ‘It’s time to go to sleep’ and not with other activities (reading a book, just lying there, etc.), participants were eventually able to quickly fall asleep due to the repeated process: it became almost automatic to fall asleep in their bed because a successful trigger had been created. Perhaps we are more like Pavlov’s dogs than first imagined, it is interesting to see how small cues can greatly impact our behaviour.

If we are struggling to think creatively, then going to a wide open space or moving to a room with more natural light and fresh air might help us solve the problem. (Like it seemingly did for Jonas Salk). Meanwhile, if we need to focus and complete a task, research shows that it’s more beneficial to work in a smaller, more confined room with a lower ceiling (without making ourselves feel claustrophobic, of course).

And perhaps most important, simply moving to a new physical space — whether it’s a different room or halfway around the world — will change the cues that we encounter and thus our thoughts and behaviors. Quite literally, a new environment leads to new ideas.

Putting This Into Practice

In the future, we hope that architects and designers will use the connection between design and behavior to build hospitals where patients heal faster, schools where children learn better, and homes where people live happier. That said, we can start making changes right now. We do not have to be a victim of our environment. We can also be the architect of it. Here is one simple 2-step prescription for altering our environment so that we can stick with good habits and break bad habits:

Our environment can also be tweaked to make certain tasks more difficult or easier to do. Here are some examples…

These are just a few examples, but the point is that shifting our behaviour is much easier when we shift to the right environment. Stanford professor BJ Fogg refers to this approach as “designing for laziness.” In other words, change your environment so that your default or “lazy” decision is a better one.

By designing our environment to encourage the good behaviours and prevent the bad behaviours, we make it far more likely that we’ll stick to long-term change. Our actions today are often a response to the environmental cues that surround us. If we want to change our behaviour, then we have to change those cues.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

ZEN CONCEPT: SHOSHIN – THE BEGINNER’S MIND- A SELF INTROSPECTIVE VIEW

During my time, I have played a variety of sports and games in my life. In that time, I had many different coaches (both professional and seniors) and I began to notice repeating patterns among them.

Coaches tend to come up through a certain system. New coaches will often land their first job as an assistant coach with their alma mater or a team they played with previously. Or the coach is a senior who has been on top of the game for a while. After a few years, the coach will tend to replicate the same drills, follow similar practice schedules, and even yell at their players in a similar fashion as the coaches (or seniors) they learned from. People tend to emulate their mentors.

This phenomenon—our tendencies to repeat the behaviour we are exposed to—extend to nearly everything we learn in life. Our political or religious beliefs are mostly the result of the system we were raised in. Although we may not agree on every issue, our parents political attitudes tend to shape our political attitudes. The way we approach our day-to-day work and life is largely a result of the system we were trained in and the mentors we had along the way. At some point, we all learned to think from someone else. That’s how knowledge is passed down.

Here’s the hard question: Who is to say that the way we originally learned something is the best way? What if we simply learned one way of doing a thing, not the way of doing things?

Consider my sports coaches. Did they actually consider all of the different ways of coaching a team? Or did they simply mimic the methods they had been exposed to? The same could be said of nearly any area in life. Who is to say that the way we originally learned a skill is the best way? Most people think they are experts in a field, but they are really just experts in a particular style.

In this way, we become a slave to our old beliefs without even realizing it. We adopt a philosophy or strategy based on what we have been exposed to without knowing if it’s the optimal way to do things.

There is a concept in Zen Buddhism known as shoshin, which means “beginner’s mind.” Shoshin refers to the idea of letting go of our preconceptions and having an attitude of openness when studying a subject. (**Source: Shoshin – The Beginner’s Mind)

When we are a true beginner, our mind is empty and open. We’re willing to learn and consider all pieces of information, like a child discovering something for the first time. As we develop knowledge and expertise, however, our mind naturally becomes more closed.We tend to think, “I already know how to do this” and we become less open to new information.

There is a danger that comes with expertise. We tend to block the information that disagrees with what we learned previously and yield to the information that confirms our current approach. We think we are learning, but in reality we are steamrolling through information and conversations, waiting until we hear something that matches up with our current philosophy or previous experience, and cherry-picking information to justify our current behaviors and beliefs. Most people don’t want new information, they want validating information.

Another way of understanding this. After reading many books on a certain topic, we know it so well that we can’t just skim through similar books. Most of the information will be repetitive, so we need to read line-by-line to discover the one insight we haven’t heard before.

The problem is that when we are an expert we actually need to pay more attention, not less. Why? Because when we are already familiar with 98 percent of the information on a topic, we need to listen very carefully to pick up on the remaining 2 percent. As adults our prior knowledge blocks us from seeing things anew.

How to Rediscover Your Beginner’s Mind
Here are a few practical ways to rediscover your beginner’s mind and embrace the concept of shoshin.

Let go of the need to add value: . . . . Many people, especially high achievers, have an overwhelming need to provide value to the people around them. On the surface, this sounds like a great thing. But in practice, it can handicap our success because we never have a conversation where we just shut up and listen. If we’re constantly adding value (“You should try this…” or “Let me share something that worked well for me…”) then we kill the ownership that other people feel about their ideas. At the same time, it’s impossible for us to listen to someone else when we’re talking. So, step one is to let go of the need to always contribute. Step back every now and then and just observe and listen.

Let go of the need to win every argument: . . . . . . “Others do not need to lose for me to win.” This is a philosophy that fits well with the idea of shoshin. If we are having a conversation and someone makes a statement that we disagree with, try releasing the urge to correct them. They do not need to lose the argument for us to win. Letting go of the need to prove a point opens up the possibility for us to learn something new. Approach it from a place of curiosity: Isn’t that interesting. They look at this in a totally different way. Even if we are right and they are wrong, it doesn’t matter. We can walk away satisfied even if we do not have the last word in every conversation.

Tell me more about that: . . . . . . . One strategy is to ask someone to, “Tell me more about that.” It doesn’t matter what the topic is, we are simply trying to figure out how things work and open our mind to hearing about the world through someone else’s perspective.

Assume that we are an idiot: . . . . . . . . . In his fantastic book, Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Taleb writes, “I try to remind my group each week that we are all idiots and know nothing, but we have the good fortune of knowing it.” The flaws discussed in this article are simply a product of being human. We all have to learn information from someone and somewhere, so we all have a mentor or a system that guides our thoughts. The key is to realize this influence.We are all idiots, but if you have the privilege of knowing that, then you can start to let go of your preconceptions and approach life with a beginner’s mind.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

THE LAYERS OF ISOLATED WORKGROUPS

COVID-19 has forced companies the world over to enact — or create — remote working protocols. The likes of Box, Amazon, Airbnb, Facebook, Google and Microsoft have all told their employees some variation of “work from home”. But so too are more traditional organisations across fields such as real estate, accounting and local government. Zoom team-selfies, are slowly polluting Twitter and LinkedIn feeds.

But like most things worth doing, there are different levels of proficiency and sophistication to scale. Many newly-remote workers seem to conflate simply downloading Zoom, Slack, and having access to email with having this remote working thing sorted out.

But having a ball and a bat does not make you a Cricketer.

A Case – Automattic Company.

When it comes to swimming in the deep end of the remote working pool, few companies are doing it better than Automattic — the company behind WordPress, which powers 35% of all websites on the internet. Automattic has about 1,200 employees scattered across more than 75 countries, speaking 93 languages. It boasts a company valuation of US$3 billion and has made several significant acquisitions such as that of WooCommerce and blogging platform, Tumblr. The company does not have an office, with its employees collaborating almost exclusively online.

Automattic’s founder, Matt Mullenweg (hence the “double t” in the company’s name) recently appeared on a popular podcast to talk on what he calls the five levels of distributed teams (he prefers ‘distributed’ to ‘remote’ because the latter implies that there is still a central place of work). Encouragingly Mullenweg’s sentiments echo the fact that the tools are only as good as how you use them. In fact, abuse of tools can actually make us less productive.

The Five Levels of Distributed Teams

Level 1: Non-Deliberate Action

Nothing deliberate has been done by the company to support remote work, but employees can still keep the ball rolling somewhat if they are at home for a day. They have access to their smartphone, and email. Perhaps they dial in to a few meetings. But they will put off most things until they’re back in the office and will be a shadow of their office-bound selves.

Level 1 is where the overwhelming majority of organisations were prior to the COVID19 outbreak.

Level 2: Recreating the Office Online

This is where most organisations now reside — especially traditional ones. It is where your employees have access to videoconferencing software (eg. Zoom), instant messaging software (eg. Slack) and email, but instead of redesigning work to take advantage of the new medium, teams ultimately end up recreating online, how they work in the office.

This extends to many of the bad habits that permeate the modern office and suppress the ability of knowledge workers to actually think, with..:-

1. . . . . 10-person video-calls when two people would suffice.
2. . . . . 60+ interruptions a day — now via Slack and phone calls.
3. . . . . the sporadic checking of and responding to email more than 70 times a day throughout the day.
4. . . . . hyper-responsiveness that is expected of all employees, leaving them wired to desktop.

Mullenweg equates lack of redesigning work around the medium. A similar example was with the radio drama of the 1930s, which was essentially the acting out of plays over the airwaves. Adapting the content to the radio medium was not fully considered or appreciated at the time. At Level 2, people are still expected to be online from 9 to 5, and in some cases to be subject to what essentially amounts to spyware, with employers installing screen-logging software on their employee machines to ensure compliance.

Level 3: Adapting to the medium

At level 3, organizations start to adapt to and take advantage of the medium. Mullenweg points to shared documents (such as a Google Doc), that is visible to all and updated in real-time during a discussion, so that there is a shared understanding of what is discussed and decided, eliminating the risk of lost in translation errors and time wasted thereafter.

It’s at this stage that companies start to invest in better equipment for their employees as well, such as lighting for video-calls and background noise-canceling microphones. Effective written communication becomes critical the more companies embrace remote work. With an aversion to ‘jumping on calls’ at a whim, and a preference for asynchronous communication (more on that later), most of Automattic’s communications is text-based, and so accurate and timely articulation becomes key. In fact, Mullenweg says that most of the company’s hiring is performed via text as opposed to candidate phone or vide calls.

When it comes to meetings:

1. Only hold a meeting if it is absolutely necessary and the same outcomes cannot be reached via a quick ad-hoc conversation, phone call, email, text or instant message.
2. Set the meeting to 15 minutes by default, and only make it longer if absolutely necessary (the shorter the meeting, the more succinct you will have to be, and the less time there will be for pointless small talk and rambling).
3. Set a specific agenda and desired outcome going into the meeting.
4. Invite only ‘must have’ people (unless this is a big Type-1 decision, two people should usually do it with three on the rare occasion).
5. Agree on next steps, allocate responsible person(s) and set due dates (this is especially important to avoid boomerang meetings).
6. Never, ever, use a meeting simply to communicate information — that’s what email or IM is for. Many are indeed learning that all those meetings could have in fact been emails.

Level 4: Asynchronous Communication

‘I’ll get to it when it suits me.’ This is the nature of asynchronous communication. The reality is that most things do not require an immediate response. For most things, a one-way email or instant message should do the job, with the recipient responding when it suits them. If something really is urgent, then the mode of communication should reflect that. Pick up the phone, or tap that person on the shoulder, but only if it is truly urgent.

Aside from the obvious and massive benefit of giving knowledge workers time to think, create and get into the flow state (a psychological state whereby we are up to five times more productive according to McKinsey), but asynchronous communication predisposes people to making better decisions. If you want to cut emotion out of the equation, increase your response time. Giving people time to think between question and response, rather than fall victim to blurting out the first thing that comes to mind in a meeting or when tapped on the shoulders, delivers a compound benefit to the organization over time.

In order to avoid tennis games and duplication of effort, ensure that asynchronous messages:

1. provide sufficient background detail, where necessary provide clear action item(s) and outcome(s) required.
2. provide a due date
3. provide a path of recourse if the recipient is unable to meet your requirements.

For example:

“Hey Sunil. Attached is the incorporation document for our new spin-off company. Please sign the document where requested and send it back to me by 4 pm this Friday. If you have any concerns, give me a call on 555 1983.”

Globally distributed teams, who work asynchronously, and master ‘passing the baton’, can get three times more done than a local team relying on everybody to be in an office between 9am and 5pm.

Awaken the Night Owls

Science suggests that our preferred sleeping patterns — our chronotypes — are programmed at birth. People are either night owls or early birds. Several studies have found that about 30 to 40 per cent of the population are night owls, which means that the modern 9-to-5 workday is sabotaging the creative and intellectual efforts of almost half the workforce. Studies show that while early risers are more alert in the morning, night owls show stronger focus and longer attention spans 10 hours after waking than their early-bird compatriots.

Level 5: ‘Nirvana’

This is where your distributed team works better than any in-person team ever could. Mullenweg equates this level with having more emphasis on ‘environment design’, insofar as the organization’s culture, and the physical environment people work in is concerned.

The disadvantages:

Three big disadvantages or concerns that face newly remote teams, and how to counter them, can be found below:

1. Team bonding and building
   1. Instead of telling their employees to be at the office 11 months a year, and have 4 weeks off, the script gets flipped. Employees have 11 months of remote work a year and have to make time to travel for up to 4 weeks a year for team bonding and building events.
      1. To counter this, organizations can make use of custom-built apps which keep track of who has met who, and then assign seats, say at a dinner party, so that people sit with people they’ve not yet met before.
2. Osmotic and office communication
   1. With everybody working online, you miss out on watering hole conversations, overhearing other people say something that you can help with, or just having a general awareness of your team’s activities by virtue of being within earshot of discussions.
      1. To counter this, some organizations use an internal blog, and a place where an incredible amount of conversation and activity is chronicled and captured.
3. Security
   1. Mullenweg points to endpoint security —computer networks that are remotely bridged to client devices — and used for BYOD such as laptops and smartphones.
   1. The alternative — being inside the office wall, as Mullenweg says —essentially becomes a single point of failure, and compromises depth in defense.
   1. What we should be doing instead is rather than over-emphasizing just access control, we need to be protecting against malicious behaviors. With over 70% of IT hacks using social engineering to get inside, he has a point.

***Concept Courtesy – http://www.automattic.com

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIERS TO COMMUNICATION

Think back to a time when we learned a new skill quickly. Now, consider what was going on in our life at that time. Were we in good physical, mental, and emotional health? Was life just going our way? Our mood, attitude, and motivation can affect how easily we can pick up a new skill- for example., learning a new language:

Definition: Psychological Barriers

The psychological barrier of communication is the influence of psychological state of the communicators (sender and receiver) which creates an obstacle for effective communication.

Causes of Psychological Barriers

Lack of Attention:

When a person’s mind is distracted or preoccupied with other things, the person is not able to form proper messages, listen to what others tell him/her, interpret the message as required and give proper feedback. The communication will face problems and becomes ineffective. Examples:

1. A person in tragedy, for instance, does not want to listen to other people giving advice.
2. A person might be preoccupied by the problems of his/her professional life or personal life, which affects both.

Poor Retention:

Retention of information is the capacity of the memory of the brain to store information. The Brain does not store all the information it comes across, but only the ones it deems useful for future. So, half the information is lost in the retention process.

Similarly, brain also loses information that is old and not taken as useful with time. Extracting the information is also a process in the formation of message. Here, the brain tries to remember the required information, the fragments of which have already been lost.

For example, you were told about a friend coming to meet you before a month and had been given the person’s name, address, phone number, etc. Now, you have to communicate the information to somebody else. At the time, you only remember the name and address and forget the phone number. The truth can change or distort due to poor retention which acts as barrier to communication.

Distrust and Defensiveness:

Communication is successful when the communicators trust each other. Lack of trust makes them derive negative meaning of the message and they ignore the message. When a person tries to force his/her own ideas and opinions, then receiver does not listen. If the receiver does not agree to the message provided or thinks of it as a threat, he/she will not listen to it. Similarly, when the message is not transferred across to the receiver, the communication fails. For example, I don’t trust a friend, I will only give the details, of what is happening in my personal life which I think are harmless.

Perception, Viewpoint, Attitudes and Opinions:

Perception is the mindset using which people judge, understand and interpret everything. Each person has his/he own perception of reality which is shaped from mental and sensory experiences.

Likewise, viewpoint is also a mindset to look at the world. Sender might have a particular viewpoint that is not shared by the receiver. The sender does not explain the viewpoint but takes the viewpoint as granted. The message is not understood by the receiver as must have been understood, creating a barrier to effective communication.

Attitude is the established way in which we think and feel about things and ideas which also creates a psychological communication barrier. For example, a person takes females to be weak which is the person’s perception. He/she tells that to someone who does not think so. This causes a misunderstanding between the two. Everything they communicate after that becomes unsuccessful that the view of the person is already set.

Emotions:

Anyone who isn’t in a good mood is likely to talk less or talk negatively. A preoccupied mind is not good at communicating. For example, when a person is angry, he/she might say things they regret later. Even when listening to someone else speak, an angry person might easily misinterpret the message.

Various other emotions like fear, nervousness, confusion, mistrust and jealousy affect communication process. For example, a person having extreme moods of happiness will laugh at anything at all said to him/her. The same person when sad will cry or get angry at insignificant situations.

Closed Mind and Filtering:

Man is selfish by nature and put his own needs and problems above all else. This sometimes leads people to filter information that someone is trying to convey to them. This might be due to mistrust, competition, jealousy, or the view that the message is insignificant.

For example, a senior in a company does not want the junior to do better at work, the person filters the information and does not provide crucial information that could help the junior. The junior therefore will not be able to complete the work properly and progress in ranks. Similarly, when a person is close minded, the person will have fixed opinions on many things which the person believes resolutely. The person will interpret any information in a negative way.

For example, a sexist person does not accept the suggestions of a female colleague in a meeting that affects the communication flow in the meeting. It is difficult to argue with such close minded people and give proper information.

Premature Evaluation:

Some people are always in a hurry by habit. These kinds of people most likely make quick judgments and jump into conclusions. They do not consider all aspects of the information such as social, cultural, economic, etc., and often end up taking quick and wrong decisions.

It is important to hear the whole message to make proper judgments because they are not changed easily after they are once made.

For example, a person who is in a hurry and is talking on the phone does not listen to half the message and makes the decision which is wrong in the situation.

Psychological barriers affect communication more as information is formed in the brain and is sent by people with various psychological condition which differs from one moment to another. Information is as effective as the people involved make it. Similarly, the psychological condition of the receiver also has as much importance as the sender’s. Communication is ineffective if psychological aspects of communication acts as a barrier to communication.

Effective Communication is King in a Crisis:

Communication is a crucial aspect of our lives whether that be personal or professional and although it is common to believe that communication is simply the exchange of words, it is much more than that.

A speaker’s words only account for a fraction of the information being transmitted, 7% to be precise. Your non-verbal cues such as your facial expressions, tone of voice and body language have much more of an influence on how the message will be received.

Often in interactions, when verbal and nonverbal massages fail to align, it can decrease clarity, rapport and most importantly trust. As such, the importance of effective communication skills must not be overlooked. 

In the world of business, communication is regarded as an essential skill; one that can always be improved and one that is pivotal to the success of organisational process. Increased productivity, reduced conflict and greater job satisfaction are just a few of the positive outcomes associated with effective communication in the workplace. Yet it continues to remain a key challenge for many businesses and a lack of communication within and across teams can result in poor customer experience. 

As challenging as it may be, it is essential that effective internal and external communication be the norm within your organisation. This goes beyond putting processes in place, it should be part of the organisation’s DNA. The right people should be communicated to at the right time to ensure customers are being helped efficiently and to present a united front. 

Of all the key stakeholders we communicate with, in our daily working practices, there is little denying that the customer is king. How we communicate with our customers directly impacts upon the quality of the customer experience, which in turn influences satisfaction and the likelihood of repeat business. But how exactly can we enhance the quality of our customer communication processes?

Here are the seven C’s, which is a great tool to ensure effective business communication:

Clear
Ensure there is clarity in the message you are delivering so that it can be interpreted the way you intended it to be.  You must have a clear understanding about the purpose and goal of the message and what you hope to accomplish in the exchange.

Complete
The message must hold all the information and facts needed by the audience in order for them to make an informed decision or take action. Incomplete messages can significantly breakdown communication and open the doors for misinterpretation.

Concise
Brief, succinct messages that are to the point are crucial as it shows your clarity of thought. Minimise irrelevant information and unnecessary details to avoid misunderstanding, instead focus on the key points you want to highlight.

Credible
This implies being transparent in communication and including supporting facts from credible sources to support your message, as it will strengthen the message and build confidence.

Considerate
Showing compassion and politeness in verbal exchanges creates for a respectful dialogue, one where both viewpoints are considered. Demonstrate that you are not just hearing but listening to what is being said. Simply showing empathy and attempting to understand the receiver’s needs can go a long way in building that lasting relationship.

Correct
The information you communicate should be free from error including language and grammatical mistakes, this essentially supports the credibility of the information being delivered and makes you appear knowledgeable and professional.

Confidence
To get your message across effectively you need to exude confidence. This means displaying positive body language, breaking down complex concepts in a simple and engaging way and responding proactively to unexpected situations. Consider things such as eye contact, hand gestures and your stance. For example, a relaxed, open stance, and a friendly tone can make a big difference in others seeing you as approachable.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa