On Communication

It may take people many years to realize how to make a relationship work. I think Caleb is generally doing very well in relationships. But at work, he could be a bit overly passionate and self-centered. Yesterday i asked him to be a consultant. He made his opinion very strongly without understanding what’s behind the scene.

My tips in communications:

1. To understand others people’s perspectives. Ask questions and understand how other people are understanding the issues. Personal experience, background and difference in use of language can result in miscommunications. We first of all need to make sure that the communication parties are on the same page and using the same language and understanding the situation uniformly. Sometimes it can be hard to understand and they don’t seem to get what I am saying. Then stop repeating. Try to understand what they are saying. If in emails, read word by word and be in their shoes. For example, Anu asking about stat holiday pay.
2. To apologize for mistakes. No matter what caused the error, I apologize and then let them know why this happens. For things I can correct immediately, I would correct and then let them know this has been corrected. And I let them know what the root cause is and how I fixed the root cause to prevent future issues. If it’s not something we can resolve immediately, I also let them know that we are aware of this issue and have been working on it. Sometimes I make mistakes that are hard to reverse. For example one time an employee asked to put their retro pay to rrsp. Usually it’s for tax purposes because it’s extra pay extra tax. He wasn’t very polite and questioned me in the email. He says well I opened an rrsp account for this! I explained to him that he seems to only have asked to open account not to deposit. I explained hoping that he understands he should have sent another email to ask for deposit. But he replied email almost immediately and I could feel that he doesn’t accept my explanation and still feel upset. I got upset too for a moment. But then I thought to myself that why I didn’t go back to him email and read more carefully. So I replied to him. I said in the email, I’m sorry about the mistake. I should have read your email more carefully and process it as you requested. Please accept my apologies. I sent this email feeling that he will still be mad. But he replied immediately. He said. It’s okay. Apology accepted. I was shocked and realized that he just wanted me to admit the mistake and apologize.
3. To always say thank you to feedbacks. It’s the best way to get the information needed to get our job done.
4. To communicate rationals behind a procedure. People don’t know what I do in the office. We educate them. For example, Coordiantors are required to approve timesheets every other Friday mroning and then make amendments every other Monday. It’s lots of work. Some of them may think that people in the office are not reasonable. Pay will be deposited on the next Friday, why to approve timesheet one week earlier? Part of my job is to let them understand the processe. In the office, we have a tight deadline too to send payroll on Tuesday. Once they understand, they are less resistant and more willing to help. Another benefit of communicating rational is to look at the procedure internally and ask ourselves if this is really necessary? Is there anything we can do to simplify this?
5. To support not blame. People forget things. They may be experiencing a personal difficulty. Their work might have got extra busy recently. Or they probably just don’t have the right resources or directions to complete the job and they don’t know how to ask. My role is to give them directions, and remind if they forget.
6. To ask for advice. In tough situations, we ask for other people’s opinions. 99% situations have a standard answer. We just need to put the question out there and ask for people’s help.
7. To think about what can be done to make other’s work easier.
8. To remember when communicating, we are mostly dealing with emotions. Some time ago, I had a relationship issue at home. I sometimes ask my boyfriend to help out with something for example, opening a jar or to clean cat’s poops. They sometimes look very impatient. Then some day he told me that it’s okay to ask him to do something, but the way I ask makes him feel that he should do that immediately no matter what he was doing at that moment. We expect other people to do their job and we ask for it. But sometimes it seems that we are only demanding but not respecting.
9. To appreciate their work. We have a job because of the services they provide.
10. To lower expectations. Don’t expect everybody to like us or understand. I’m here to get work done and provide my service.