Playing Broken Telephone For Keeps

For some strange reason, communication is often a very difficult thing to get right.

You may be familiar with a children’s game called Broken Telephone, where a message starts at one end of a line of kids, and is passed along in whispers from one to the next until it reaches the last child in line. This child announces the message she heard, which as you can imagine usually bears no resemblance to the orginal and causes much laughter.

Playing for keeps
It happens with adults too, in the work place. Probably more so with software than other types of production, good, accurate communication is vital. Even if two people are talking about a subject they both know well, what one is picturing could be different to the other. The extent of this difference may be subtle, yet material to the outcome of the project.

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
—George Bernard Shaw

In matters of communication healthy skepticism can be a good ally. If I am aware that what’s in my head as a result of what someone has told me is likely to be different from what’s in their’s, I can do something about it. But if I assume they communicated the idea perfectly, and I understood it perfectly, there’s likely to be some disappointment along the way.

However, if I am aware of the potential for communication to go awry I need to ask more questions. Really listening to the answers can highlight discrepancies in our mutual understanding. And if both parties are aware of communication’s hazzards, then this exercise can be fruitful rather than being seen as a waste of time. Successful communication comes as a result of both of us not being fooled by the illusion that it has taken place.

‘Done‘ is a valuable technique to check the quality of communication that has taken place. Using it to good effect can show that you’re on the right track, and avoid the disappointment of unmet expectations.

Tagged as: communication, done