Social v synchronous

We use a variety of media in our project communications, and in this topic we’d like you to pause and think critically about some of the main ones.

In as much as assertiveness and responsiveness are independent personality traits that are suggestive of a person’s communication style, social presence and synchronicity are independent predictors of the utility of a chosen communication media. 

Social presence refers to the proximity of the communicating parties.

At the highest level, the parties are in the same room and can see, hear, smell and even touch each other.

Video and audio technologies to some extent bridge the physical divide; however, even highly visual written communication channels lack social presence.

Synchronicity is a function of time – here it is used to refer to the lag between sending and receiving a message.

A conversation between two people is synchronous; whereas, ‘slower’ communications that inject a significant pause between the sender sending and the receiver receiving a message, are progressively more asynchronous communications.

Face-to-face

Professor Albert Mehrabian famously coined the 55/38/7 rule, finding:

• 55% of meaning is communicated through body language
• 38% is in tone of voice, and
• 7% is in the actual words spoken.

Although this is by no means a universal truth, communicating with one or more people while you are in the same room often facilitates greater understanding between parties.

It goes beyond simple information transfer, allowing you to observe carefully each others’ body language, facial expressions, and gestures.

By being both social and synchronous, the greater understanding also promotes trust between parties, which ultimately benefits productivity.

That said, its effectiveness exponentially declines the more people you have in the room, to the point where an exchange of ideas reduces to a more unilateral presentation of information.

Meeting and coordination costs – including the cost of participants’ time – may also motivate a more efficient communication solution.

Accordingly, we should reserve face-to-face communication for high value and context critical dialogues and decisions.

Video chat/conference/stream

Video chat is no longer a novelty, given that most phones now provide the capability.

Enterprise solutions also offer the convenience and means to file and screen share, text chat in-system, and record sessions.

Yet even if participants understand and use the technology perfectly – and this can never be guaranteed – there is still a loss of interpersonal contact and the benefits that follow.

It is especially difficult to see if all receivers are engaged and understanding your message.

Pro tip: try and avoid talking group-to-group; where possible, have each participant on their own device or screen!

Audio chat/conference/stream

If Mehrabian’s 55/38/7 maxim is true, then audio-only communication media (such as the telephone) risk comprising the meaning of a message by as much as 55%.

That said, if a person’s body language is wholly consistent with their tone and the words they choose, the communication still works.

This might also be understood as the cost of convenience – the cheaper and more efficient a media, the less effective it might be.

Therefore, you should always prefer more synchronous and social media for important, complex, or sensitive messages.

Text chat/group

Continuing Mehrabian’s assumption, when you remove body language and tone from a message, it is imperative that the meaning of a message is completely and unambiguously conveyed in its words.

As more and more project teams collaborate through instant messaging apps, you should always ensure that your text conversations remain professionally appropriate and that you escalate to more synchronous channels (such as a phone call) whenever greater clarity is required.

Other social media

Social media is a catch-all term for websites and apps that allow users to create and share content. 

They may include:

• Social networks (eg Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter)
• Media sharing networks (eg YouTube, Instagram)
• Blogging networks (eg Tumblr, Medium)
• Discussion networks / forums (eg Reddit, Quora)
• Review networks (eg Yelp, Glassdoor)

Many managers now use social media to keep stakeholders informed about their projects, and we discuss its appropriate use later in this unit.

Email

Email is by far the most ubiquitous communication medium in modern business.

It is quick, global, easy to use, can hit multiple recipients in a single stroke, and provides a permanent (and often legal) record of correspondence.

As with all media, though, there is an appropriate time and place for its use, and some of those benefits can also work against you.

Talking to many businesses, you will find email is actually over-used: information is overloaded; people get unnecessarily cc’d on things; there is pressure to reply; messages often lack context – attempts at humor are regularly misunderstood; and once sent, things are all-but-impossible to recall.

The best emails are simple, to the point, specific in the action they require of the receiver, and reinforced through other messaging, such as a telephone chat.

Intranet

An intranet is a private web (cloud) based network, designed to support an organization’s employees to communicate, collaborate, and perform their roles. 

On a typical PMO intranet, dedicated project folders or sites sit within broader knowledge bases that might include templates, forms, policies, procedural guidance, and help desks / AIs.

In their primary function as data warehouses, they are largely asynchronous in that people rarely collaborate in real-time on an intranet.

Yet with tools like Microsoft’s Power BI, data analytics are playing an increasingly prominent role alongside private video/text communication channels and social networks, they are becoming increasingly social and synchronous in their use.

Postal services

Traditional ‘snail’ mail is largely reserved for only the most formal of correspondence; however, projects still have a high level of dependency on state-owned postal and private courier delivery services.

Although parcel tracking in real-time is a standard feature these days, these services are intentionally transactional and asynchronous.

Other internet

When you exclude social media, the balance of the internet is essentially one giant library; indeed, the role of libraries in society is being challenged by the Google hegemony.

Given you are accessing this course online, we don’t need to explain it much more than that; suffice to say it is an indispensible resource for project managers in the modern age!

Put simply, the more social and synchronous a communication is, the easier it is for the parties to understand each other.

The ultimate point is that an over-reliance on a single communication medium is ultimately ineffective.

Not only do we need to choose the best medium based on the richness and importance of the message, the circumstances of the receiver, and the likelihood of noise, but we also may need to reiterate the same message via different channels to ensure it reaches everyone and is understood.

There is no definitive framework that states in this circumstance, to use this channel; nonetheless with observation and experience you can learn what works best for you and your individual stakeholders.

---

Active listening

When we talk about communication, we often focus on how important it is for the sender to get their message across.

Truly efficient communication, however, depends on your ability to listen to others to ensure that you correctly decode their messages and return relevant responses.

After all, the word communication implies an exchange of ideas and knowledge.

Active listening is a bit of buzz phrase that is used to extend the idea of listening beyond just the use of our ears. 

Indeed, the Chinese character for ‘listen’ brings together the characters for ears, eyes, heart, and the number one, for undivided attention.

Here’s how to listen, actively.

STOP

Active listening places a degree of responsibility for eliminating noise on the receiver. 

In other words, you need to stop: stop what you are doing, stop what you are thinking, stop moving, and (obviously) stop talking.

Have you ever been speaking with someone on the phone and heard them typing away on their keyboard in the background? 

Annoying, isn’t it? 

Have you ever been the person doing the typing?

Active listen requires that you shut out distractions and noise and focus on the sender and their message.

OBSERVE

In other words, observe their body language – what non-verbal cues are they sending with their message? 

Are they looking nervous or distracted? Do their physical actions (for example, arrogance) align with their spoken words (such as an apology)?

Here’s a little trick – if you look interested, you get interested.

Non-verbal cues can also be gleaned from written messages. 

We now universally accept that sending messages in ALL-CAPS is the textual equivalent of shouting. 

You will see emojis in emails these days to give context to messages, but they can also be awkward unless there is a level of familiarity between the parties. 

Poor formatting of written documents and frequent spelling and grammar errors can also be taken as a sign of disrespect.

RESPOND

Active listening does not end there, though; how you respond is very much part of the process. 

Repeating or rephrasing key points to demonstrate understanding, or asking pertinent questions, are all signals back to the sender that you are interested and engaged.

As a project professional, your ability to manage your projects and people depends greatly on how well you use your words. 

However, your ability to lead projects to success depends on much more.