Do you remember a time when you worked for someone else and they tried to explain something that was simple to them but totally perplexing to you? I have on frequent occasions over the course of my life and it seems to be the curse of those that ‘know’ (and sometimes at a highly proficient or expert level), but can’t teach to save themselves!

Just recently I was learning a new process from someone and I was getting more frustrated the more I did it. They were watching over my shoulder while I was attempting to complete the tasks and pointing-out all my mistakes as soon as I made them. All I was getting was "you don’t do it like that" and "why did you do that for?" really useful stuff for a learner.

I realized that doing what I felt like doing (picking up something heavy and throwing it as far as I could), was probably not the best way of venting my frustration. So, I focused on remaining calm so that my stress levels wouldn’t rise too high and cloud my brain so that nothing at all would get in.

I reflected upon my ’learning experience’ later that night and came up with ten reasons why many people who are experts, professionals or just know something that others want to know, can very often be hopeless at communicating that information to others.

So here they are:

1. They don’t have empathy for the learner or try to understand how the learner might view their communication

2. They forget the process involved in learning the information, skill or knowledge that they now possess

3. They enjoy the power of knowing something that someone else wants to know

4. They enjoy telling learners that they are wrong or watching them fail when they inevitably make mistakes

5. They are impatient

6. They are not aware of nor allow for the vast amount of subconscious knowledge that they may possess

7.  They have not structured the necessary learning in a series of building blocks for the learner

8. They do not encourage, inspire or motivate the learner

9. They do not utilize rich communication tools that feed the learner information on multiple levels

10. They are assholes!

That’s probably a reasonable list to start with but please let me know if you can think of some others?

Thanks for reading and have a great week - Jason

 

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NOISE - it’s all around us and influences everything we do. When noise gets into your business processes and procedures, expect trouble! Noise takes many forms, distortion, misinterpretation, misrepresentation, delay etc and the result is a map that describes the wrong territory!

There is an inverse relationship in operation - as noise in any process communication increases there is a consequent decrease in information and/or data accuracy. So the "volume" of noise in any given communication directly effects how clearly others can listen and understand. It’s the classic "Chinese Whisper" syndrome where the original message becomes more corrupted the more it is received, interpreted, then communicated to another.

A typical business example is where a consultant is brought into a business to understand and fix a particular problem. To start with, the consultant my collect information and data and may talk with and observe employees. However, the employees’ "normal" environment has been disturbed as soon as they become aware of a third party. Employees will also work and talk differently as they know they are being observed and/or questioned. Most will respond by behaving and answering in a way they think is best under the circumstances.

All this leads to a misrepresentation of the "normal process" and the inaccurate recording of the process. To accurately "capture" a system, process or procedure, noise must be minimized and this is where video shines!

Instead of interpreting a process as best possible then distilling it into words and still pictures to produce a fragmentary view of a process, video can be used to record in "real time" and "at source" with nothing left out. Screen capture video can record all PC based processes while full motion video records physical processes. By joining the two, a complete end-to-end picture can be built of a "live" process or procedure and with it, a map that accurately describes the territory!

Jason

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Do you think they plan their communication by going:

1. I need to begin by identifying exactly who my audience is
2. I’ll then assess their current understanding of the subject
3. I’ll look at how I can best communicate my ideas to the target audience so that they will have the greatest chance of understanding and absorbing the information
4. I’ll use a survey to gain information after the presentation on how effective I was with my communication

Jason

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If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!