Communication Hacks 4 [Lucy Freedman]

Editor's Note: Lucy Freedman is scheduled to present at the February 20, 2014 meeting of the Engineering Leadership Special Interest Group of the Silicon Valley Forum.  Think of this post (and her three previous posts on Communication Hacks) as a preview of her presentation next February.  Lucy is President of Syntax Communication Modeling Corporation, co-author of Smart Work: The SYNTAX Guide to Influence and developer of the Syntax Influence Course Syntaxcommunication.com

Much as we may love what we are working on, our effectiveness depends on how well we communicate about it. 

This is the fourth in a series about ten “syntax errors” and hacks that will fix them. The errors are based on the understanding that human communication has a syntax, or structure, which determines the quality of the outcomes. SYNTAX is a system that can be used to debug interpersonal communication. 

Each short blurb in this series includes something specific you can do to cut through the chaos whenever you encounter that particular Syntax Error. 

Ten Syntax Errors

Error No. 4: Paying Attention to Yourself When You Need to Notice the Other Person

  

This Syntax Error can be a little tricky to recognize. It’s in the category of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” Here’s a key: talking to yourself about needing to pay attention to the other person is not paying attention to the other person. What was that, again? When you are in any way putting attention on your own performance in a conversation or meeting, you are NOT paying attention to the other people! 

The trickiness lies in needing to become an observer of what’s going on without focusing totally on your own agenda, behavior, or opinions. It’s a perceptual skill. 

The times we are most likely to get hooked on ourselves vs. the other person are not what you would think. It’s not generally our arrogance that has us focus on ourselves – it’s our anxiety, fear of failure, threat or embarrassment. Although overconfidence has its costs, those of us who are even thinking about our actions are more likely to take too much responsibility for the conversation rather than too little.  

That means that much hope lies with us. If you consciously notice the balance between attention on yourself (your thoughts, feelings, intentions, information) and on the other person’s thoughts, feelings, etc. and make sure it is kept fairly even, hurrah! That is the big step. 

The more each person manages the balance between self and other, the more we will pull together to reach our most important goals. 

Communication Hack no. 4 is to pay attention to that balance, to be able to use the skills of self-disclosure when it’s your turn, and to ask open-ended questions and listen well when it’s the other person’s turn. 

One of our most valuable Syntax exercises is the practice of three different kinds of listening, depending on the context. The one where you drop your internal dialogue and really tune in to the other person will help you correct Syntax Error No. 4. 

For more on how SYNTAX enables teams to get more done, visit syntaxcommunication.com.  You can hear about all ten SYNTAX Errors in ten ten-minute programs recently offered as a teleseries – “More Success with Less Effort in 10 Minutes a Day,” now available as a set of ten mp3 recordings. Email syntaxoffice@syntx.com for ordering information.  

Magic without Tricks - How to Shape a Workplace Culture that's Good for People (and Great for Business) [Matt Perez]

Last October 17, Matt Perez of Nearsoft discussed his insights on building a good culture in the high-tech engineering workplace: Magic without Tricks - How to Shape a Workplace Culture that's Good for People (and Great for Business)

Here is a report on that event.

If all you care about is money, then this talk is not for you. However, if you like growth, lower costs, and higher profits, then come right in. Those are all side-effects of what this talk is about: making a positive impact on the world, starting with your organization.

Very early in Nearsoft's history we made our overarching goal to help spread technology entrepreneurship anywhere we operated. The question for us was how to transform a boring and traditionally exploitive business into an out-of-the-ordinary workplace, with a healthy, nourishing culture that great talent would be attracted to.

WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)

You will learn about the characteristics of a positive workplace culture, specifics of how you could get there, and pointers to resources to help you do something similar in your organization.


Matt talked mainly about his experience at Nearsoft, which provide engineers teams based in Mexico on a contract basis to their clients.  Nearsoft has grown from 7 people working out of a rudimentary structure in Hermosillo, Mexico to some 120 people today, and is building a 3-story office building to house their operations.  So they are clearly doing something right.

Several books provided background, instruction and inspiration for Matt.  Two were by Ricardo Semler, Maverick and The Seven Day Weekend.  Maverick described his experience with Semco, the company he inherited from his father in 1988.  Their business was manufacturing industrial equipment.  When he first took over the company, he quickly realized it needed a complete makeover.  Effectively he had to start from scratch.  He established a democratic culture.  Its success was demonstrated by a five-fold growth in the size of the company.  The company’s products achieved such credibility he was able to sell industrial  equipment to the Germans!  The Seven Day Weekend was a follow up to Maverick that built on the lessons he had gained leading Semco.

Peak, by Chip Conley, described his success in the hospitality industry.  He ran a chain of hotels and managed to get his employees passionate about their work and their employer, overcoming the fact hotel workers are typically earn low wages, and experience high turnover.

With Nearsoft, Matt’s objective was creating a workplace culture that's good for people and good for business.  He had been through a lot of experiments in culture and wanted Nearsoft to leverage from that experience.   His foundation goal was shaping a workplace culture that's good for people and good for business There is a shortage of programming talent everywhere (not just in Silicon Valley!).  The world is finally figuring out that everything is run by software.  One cannot simply write some code and throw it out there.
Nearsoft’s goals at a more detailed level included an eagerness to experiment and a willingness, even an eagerness to fail.  Trust is required to run experiments.  The expected payoff was a lot of learning and a lot of bonding in the engineering teams.
Matt offered particularly striking observations regarding recruiting new engineers; doing this right was as important as anything else at Nearsoft.

Matt saw awards and recognition within the industry as key to measuring the success of Nearsoft in creating the work environment he envisioned.  He did not always find success here.  CMMI for example did not work well; it came across too much as fill-in-the-slots, the workplace equivalent of the undesired paradigm of teaching-to-the-test in primary and secondary education.  So Nearsoft moved on towards benchmarks.  They chose to get involved with the Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.  Here they had success, entering in the top 20, and moving up each year.  This competition looked at credibility, respect, fairness, pride, camaraderie, commitment, cooperation, strategic alignment, cultural competency, leadership skills and trust.

One of the most striking aspects of Nearsoft is the important they put on recruiting.  The challenge is finding good people; Matt reports there is a shortage of talented and capable engineers everywhere.  The world increasingly is run by software.

For those who were almost good enough to hire, Nearsoft offered a unique opportunity: join as an intern and contribute to an open source project.  The interns were evaluated on the quality of their work and especially on how much of their work was accepted by the open source community in charge of the project.

At Nearsoft, Matt worked towards creating a democratic workplace, with the goal to get more people to do the things that make a company work.  He found too much of the decision making was falling on himself and his partner.  The paradigm was “father may I”, even though Matt was not more qualified to make the decisions.  It took him a while to realize other people did not have the information necessary to make decisions.  So they opened up everything for inspection – including salaries.  Employees were able to analyze compensation and identified aspects that were not equitable.  For example, women tended to be paid less.  So Nearsoft created a plan to address that.

Democratic practices include open books, a flat organization, minimal management and no titles.  A team can fire a member they find is not productive.  And people can work from home or work remotely.  In this regard, Nearsoft introduced the concept of remote teams, two or more engineers working remotely from the Hermosillo home office.  The intention was to improve focus by having multiple people working together.

Matt Perez

Matt has been an Engineering and Business Executive for over 30 years. Throughout his career he has worked in rapid growth environments.

Matt has been the Sr technology executive in six startups and helped raise close to $50M in VC in investments as a co-founder for three of them. He also worked at Sun Microsystems for nine (of the good) years, where he first got to deal with the issue of hyper-growth and the impact it has on culture.

Matt now leads Nearsoft, Inc, a very successful software development business, with operations in Mexico.

Communication Hacks 3 [Lucy Freedman]

Much as we may love what we are working on, our effectiveness depends on how well we communicate about it.

This is the third in a series about ten “syntax errors” and hacks that will fix them. The errors are based on the understanding that human communication has a syntax, or structure, which determines the quality of the outcomes. SYNTAX is a system that can be used to debug interpersonal communication.

Each short blurb in this series includes something specific you can do to cut through the chaos whenever you encounter that particular Syntax Error.

Ten Syntax Errors

Error No. 3 Assuming Others Think As You Think, or Know What You Know (Or Ought To!)
 
"But I thought you meant...."
"Everyone knows..."
"You shouldn't feel that way. You should feel..."
"Of course we'll take care of it. Why do you have to ask?"
"They know how to get there."

Uh-huh.
Later, we find out it ain't necessarily so.

Probably within the past 24 hours every one reading this has experienced at least one assumption being made without being checked out.

So, if our assumption didn't actually come from the other person, where did it come from? It came from what we call our "map." It came from our own experience, not from theirs.

In engineering environments, this error has its special manifestations. Generally, engineers do not assume that others think as they think, when the others are non-engineers. In fact, they may just assume that few other people think this way and that most people are rather illogical. The world would no doubt be a better place with more people trained to think and analyze, with metrics and data. So it seems.

As soon as you find out someone has a similar background, the Syntax Error of assuming they think similarly is reactivated. The tendency to forget to verify, or to overlook the questions that should be asked, or to skip steps in an explanation, is more prevalent when we share the same acronyms.

Engineering teams are certainly as subject to group-think as other teams. Remember the big 1999 Lockheed Martin screw-up of not realizing that some measurements were metric and some were English, causing the loss of a Mars space orbiter, to the tune of about $125 million.

Most assumptions don’t have that size payload, yet they cause erosion in our efficiency, effectiveness, and working relationships every day.  It’s worth reminding yourself to double-check.  Whenever you find yourself thinking, "Of course they think / feel as I do or as I expect them to," think again. If you could correct this error in daily scrum meetings when you are using an Agile development approach, wow, it would help avoid a lot of potholes.  

Remember that no thinks exactly the same way or has the same knowledge as anyone else. It keeps the world interesting! If we didn’t have differences, it’s said that we wouldn’t need each one of us. For teams to collaborate, we need to hear those differences and allow new possibilities to emerge from them.

The weird thing is that we rarely realize that we are assuming, so making it conscious and having a choice is the big step.

The communication hack that corrects this error of making assumptions is to have multiple ways to inquire and check in with other people, and to do so often. For example, saying back what you heard can frequently reveal divergence from what the person thought they said or intended to say. Actually listing assumptions is a good technique to use when setting up a new project. Using diagrams to back up verbal discussions also reduces groupthink.

It's usually informative and delightful to find out about the other person's unique viewpoint. Often, what they are thinking is much more positive or helpful than what we had assumed! Any tension that arises can be channeled into creating new options.

Today, and as often as you think about it, verify what you thought you heard, ask that further probing question, open your mind to what is really coming from the other person, and run team decisions through a follow-up protocol such as an action list to make sure you and others really are on the same page.

Lucy Freedman is the president of Syntax Communication Modeling Corporation, co-author of Smart Work: The SYNTAX Guide to Influence and developer of the Syntax Influence Course

For more on how SYNTAX enables teams to get more done, visit syntaxcommunication.com.  You can hear about all ten SYNTAX Errors in ten ten-minute programs recently offered as a teleseries – “More Success with Less Effort in 10 Minutes a Day,” now available as a set of ten mp3 recordings. Email syntaxoffice@syntx.com for ordering information.

Communication Hacks 2 [Lucy Freedman]

Much as we may love what we are working on, our effectiveness depends on how well we communicate about it.

This is the second in a series about ten “syntax errors” and hacks that will fix them. The errors are based on the understanding that human communication has a syntax, or structure, which determines the quality of the outcomes. SYNTAX is a system that can be used to debug interpersonal communication.

Each short blurb in this series includes something specific you can do to cut through the chaos whenever you encounter that particular Syntax Error.

Ten Syntax Errors

Error No. 2 Staying in the Negative

What? Engineers being perceived as negative? Face it, it’s the fate that comes with loving to solve problems.

Negativity can arise and / or be perceived when we are just using logic, with such positive intentions as
•    Defining the problem
•    Uncovering root causes
•    Critiquing the plan
•    Finding the exceptions
•    Demanding evidence
•    Expecting rigor
•    Building a better mousetrap
And, a common favorite,
•    Protecting others from their folly.

The difficulty is that people avoid the negative. They don’t want to hear about it. They sometimes become defensive. They don’t answer your emails.
Fortunately, this is a solvable problem. Whatever it is that needs to be changed can be viewed and described from different perspectives. You can learn to frame things so that they reflect your true positive intention rather than coming across as criticism. When you want to raise criticism, you can frame it positively so that there is a chance the recipient will be able to hear it. (I hesitate to call it “constructive criticism” because that word is associated with some pretty bad attempts at diplomacy. Avoid the “sandwich” strategy, if you know what I mean.)

Some people make the mistake of thinking that a soft approach is what is called for. Soft-pedaling that misses the point or glosses over an issue is not helpful. On the other hand, being able to communicate in a specific and positive way usually is helpful.

Try this approach to shift from one frame to the other:

Instead of talking about
•    The problem
•    Why it exists
•    Limitations
•    Failure: What is broken or whose fault it is

Talk about
•    Your desired outcome
•    How it might work
•    Possibilities
•    Feedback: What we’ve learned about this so far

If you are able to clearly describe your desired outcome, you will probably have also shifted your own thinking from the negative to the positive.  Listen closely to be sure you really are stating the outcome in the positive, rather than a disguised negative, such as “What I want is for you to stop interrupting.” It can be stated as “What I want is for you to listen through the end of the sentence before giving your response.”

To learn more about this technique of shifting to the positive, download your complimentary excerpt of Smart Work: The SYNTAX Guide to Influence. Chapter Four spells out framing in detail.

The next SYNTAX Influence Course will be held in Silicon Valley August 20-22, 2013. Give yourself the opportunity to develop conscious competence for avoiding or remedying ALL the SYNTAX Errors that crop up in human collaboration! Email syntaxoffice@syntx.com or visit syntaxcommunication.com for details

Lucy Freedman is the president of Syntax Communication Modeling Corporation, co-author of Smart Work: The SYNTAX Guide to Influence and developer of the Syntax Influence Course

Syntaxcommunication.com

Communication Hacks [Lucy Freedman]

Much as we may love what we are working on, our effectiveness depends on how well we communicate about it.

This is the first in a series about ten “syntax errors” and hacks that will fix them. The errors are based on the understanding that human communication has a syntax, or structure, which determines the quality of the outcomes. SYNTAX is a system that can be used to debug interpersonal communication.

Each short blurb in this series includes something specific you can do to cut through the chaos whenever you encounter that particular Syntax Error.

Ten Syntax Errors

Error No. 1 No Clear Goal

Most of us are used to thinking about goals for projects, career plans, business ventures, or athletic achievements. We know that all of these activities benefit from having well-defined goals and timelines, even if we change them as we go. While we plan out our route for our next vacation trip or academic degree, we are less likely to think about our goals in the short term.

Case in point: when did you last stop and think through the desired results of a conversation you were getting ready to have? The majority of people come to conversations with their intended outcomes only partially formed. Very often the impulse that starts the conversation takes us to less-than-optimal destinations.

Day-to-day casual conversations probably don’t call for a lot of goal-setting ahead of time. It’s those conversations about which you may be a little uncomfortable that would benefit from a few moments of focused intention. These are the conversations most likely to go south, just as you thought they would, unless you get really clear on your outcome.

If your answer to the question, “What do you want from this conversation?” is mostly what you don’t want to have happen, you may unwittingly be setting it up. For instance, “I don’t want the other person to be upset about this,” may well set you on a path that will upset them. Take the extra moment to ask yourself, “What do I want instead?” and state the desired result in the positive. “I want him or her to be open to hearing what I have to say.” Just focusing on that intention, rather than what you want to avoid, will change the tone of the conversation and make your desired result more likely.

Clarifying the goal is also a great hack for moving discussions out of the muddle and onto the right track. Before you go around and around one more time in a frustrating meeting, stop the back-and-forth and say, “Let’s see, where are we headed? What do we want to come out of this?” or some variation. Not only will your time be spent more productively, you may become the local hero who keeps the action in forward motion.

There’s more to becoming really skilled at setting in-the-moment communication goals, as well as goals in general. It’s a topic that we emphasize throughout the Syntax Influence Course, where you get to practice this and other valuable techniques.

Correcting Syntax Error #1, No Clear Goal, helps prevent many of the other downstream errors that will be covered as the series continues.
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Lucy Freedman is the president of Syntax Communication Modeling Corporation, co-author of Smart Work: The SYNTAX Guide to Influence and developer of the Syntax Influence Course

Syntaxcommunication.com

Keep Your Culture Positive! [Ron Lichty]

Editors note: Ron Lichty is the co-author of Managing the Unmanagable, a book that breaks new ground on the topic of managing software engineers and programmers.  Here he discusses the effect of positive and negative comments on an engineering team.

Which is more effective to improve team performance: positive feedback or constructive criticism? a positive culture or a negative one?

The answer: both.
The real question: in what proportion?

The answer to the proportion question, from new research by Michigan doctoral student Emily Heaphy and team productivity consultant Marcial Losada: http://abs.sagepub.com/content/47/6/740.full.pdf+html

The ratio of positive-to-negative statements is directly correlated to "strikingly different results for each performance category" of teams:
* The highest-performing teams expressed 6 positive comments for every negative one
* Medium-performing teams expressed 2 positive comments for each negative one
* Low-performing teams swung the other way, expressing almost 3 negative comments for every positive one

"…in order to predict team performance, one only has to know the ratio of positive to negative interactions…", Heaphy and Losada concluded.

Negative comments must clearly be part of the mix. Pollyannaism - positivity alone - is no answer. Teams must hold each other accountable. It's just that most of us don't want to work in a culture that swings hard negative.

What we all need to note is that the swing negative starts from a 6-to-1 positive-to-negative ratio!

Throughout our book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams, www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net , we devote pages and pages to the value of praise, recognition and having fun with your teams - all key components to building a culture of positivity. "Say 'thank you' at least ten times every week," we counsel. "Never pass up an opportunity."

We knew it from our experience - we just didn't have the research to prove it.

Heaphy's and Losada's conclusion: "We need to have organizations with teams where the abundance of positivity, grounded in constructive negative feedback, can generate the state of realistic enthusiasm that can propel organizations to reach and uphold the heights of excellence."

More at http://ronlichty.blogspot.com/2013/04/keep-your-culture-positive.html
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Reviewers have been comparing Ron Lichty's book, Managing the Unmanageable: Rules, Tools, and Insights for Managing Software People and Teams, to software development classic The Mythical Man-Month. http://www.ManagingTheUnmanageable.net . Ron has been transforming chaos to clarity and making software development “hum” for most of his 20-plus years managing software development and product organizations, from first-level manager to VP of Engineering and VP of Products. He has been brought into organizations from startups to the Fortune 500 to solve problems like painfully slow product development, past-due estimates with no delivery in sight, challenges arising from geographically dispersed teams, productivity bridled by uncertainty, and an "order-taking mentality" from teams that should be eagerly proactive. Ron has repeatedly demonstrated that small tweaks can result in dramatic impacts to throughput, quality and customer focus. His practice includes agile transformations, creating roadmaps everyone can follow, building communication with every part of the organization, and motivating and inspiring software development teams. Ron is a mentor, a coach and a team-builder.