Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We live with people and work with people, therefore communication is a crucial matter in living and working. Good communication helps everyone understand each other more, misunderstand each other less, and therefore make life and work much smoother, more effective, and more pleasant.

Miscommunication – one says something, the other understands something else – is an extremely common daily problem. If you pay attention to the communication between you and someone very close in the family, such as your mom, and count the times you and mom misunderstand each other’s talk, you will find that miscommunication happens daily, each day several times.

Communicating with other people at work, at school… is even harder than with mom, and miscommunication happens much more often.

Business text books often say: “Eighty percent problems of an enterprise are communication problems.” I would say: “One hundred percent problems of an enterprise are communication problems”. I don’t see any problem of an enterprise that is not a communication problem.

It’s extremely easy for us to misunderstand in a conversation. Ex: “Can you finish this report in 3 days?” “Yes, sir.” It happens that the third day is a Saturday. So, I have 2 days to work – Thursday and Friday. Saturday and Sunday are off. So, the report will be done on Monday. That is 3 working days. But your boss really meant “3 straight days from now,” meaning he wanted it done on Saturday.

Or, “Can you call this lady and tell her I’ll call her back Monday?” Calling… “Ma’am. My boss said she can’t talk to you now, please call her back on Monday.”

Or, “Can you pay the overdue invoice to this guy now?” And you pay not one invoice but all 5 of his invoices – only one of which is overdue and the other four are not.

Or, “Can we meet at The Z’s at noon for lunch?” “Yes”. Your friend shows up at 12, but you show up at 1. Noon for you is one, not 12.

Or, “Can you order three boxes of these pencils?” “Yes.” And you order 3 carton boxes, each carton has 30 little boxes, each little box contains 20 pencils. One carton has 600 pencils; 3 carton boxes carry 1.800 pencils. But your boss only wants 3 little boxes for 90 pencils.

Things like that happen extremely often in business. The main reason is that everyone is busy in business – people talk fast and short and don’t have time to ask.

Therefore, pay attention to your communication:

– Talk slowly and clearly.

– Make sure the other person listens well and understands you well, and you understand the other person well.

– If you’re not sure you understand, ask for clarification.

– If you think the other doesn’t understand you, repeat what you have just said with slightly different language.

– If you receive an instruction and you think you understand it immediately, you have a 50% chance of misunderstanding. When you receive an instruction, repeat that to the person giving you instruction, to make sure you understand it correctly.

– Repeat, repeat and repeat often in any conversation to make sure you really understand the other and the other understands you.

Remember, even between husband and wife, they have a lot of communication problems, not mentioning people outside the family.

In addition to the content of the conversations, pay attention to procedure too:

– When you receive a message, immediately send to the sender a note that “I’ge got you message and I’m working it. Will let you know soon”.

– Communicate to your boss often on the status of the project you are working on. Don’t stay quiet for 3 months until the end time of the project.

– Let the people in your team or your office know what you are working on, and ask them about what they are working on – say, during the daily coffee breaks. A team should know all the works that everyone in the team is doing.

– Often help people in the team or in the office. Work as a good team member.

– Use email to send common messages to the entire team/office.

The better you communicate the faster you will advance in the company, all the way to the top.

Communication is the most important task for you and your career. Nothing is more important.

Wish you all succeed.

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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