Chapter 17 - Action-Oriented Communication
To read:
Crucial conversations: Don’t dodge difficult conversations. Make those critical conversations meaningful, write the authors of Crucial Conversations.
Speak New York: If a panhandler says, “This isn’t Congress, people, you can pass a bill,” that’s a normal conversation, writes the New York Times.
Communication styles: If we don’t acknowledge differing styles, we risk confusing the people in front of us, suggests this essay.
To watch:
Communicate fiercely: The key to communication is openness and directness, says Fierce Conversations author Susan Scott.
Chapter 17
Action-Oriented Communication
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
— George Bernard Shaw
Here’s a shortcut to experience the most effective way for an entrepreneur to communicate: take a walk through midtown Manhattan, stand for a few moments in line for a ticket at Penn Station, then take a long ride in an elevator at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. Listen carefully. No better short course exists on the conveyance of critical information. For New Yorkers, communication is “stand closer, talk louder, and leave shorter pauses between exchanges,” in the phrase of Georgetown University linguistics professor Deborah Tannen, a native. "I call it 'cooperative overlap'. It's a way of showing interest and enthusiasm,” she once wrote.
OK, I’m being a bit facetious here. But only a bit. New Yorkers live in an environment of constant hustle and it breeds fierce conversations. It’s an environment that in many ways resembles the fast-paced, no-time-for-BS, active verb reality of a startup. Don’t get me wrong — fierce does not mean rude. It means direct, honest, and action-oriented. Quite the opposite of rude, it is actually more compassionate in that we do not want to waste each other’s time. That is the goal and focus of this chapter.
Now, my intention is not to diminish the fact that communication styles come in as many forms as those communicating. But modes of imparting information essentially break down into four broad categories. “Process-oriented,” is the tack generally taken by engineers or economists — bring on the data and win your case with the facts and numbers. “People-oriented” communicators, as in the way human resources executives generally look for the “who” in the subject under discussion such as“how will this affect” someone or the people in a group?” This is among the reasons we at data.world call HR “Employee Experience.” There’s “idea-oriented” communication, which often involves the sometimes meandering discussion of the “big picture” or the “ultimate vision.” Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs was a perfect example of the “idea-oriented” communicator, as is author Simon Sinek who famously advocates for finding the “why” in our conversations. I include a TED talk Sinek gave on this kind of communication on the Digital Companion.
All styles have their place and all of us have our unique styles. But in startups, you have no time to waste. Every day counts. The opportunity cost of lost time is huge. Startup life can be short and fragile. So, one way to get things done quickly is to communicate in an effective manner. This is why I’m such an advocate of “action-oriented” communication. Let’s focus on the results. Let's hear about the steps to overcome a specific challenge. Let's be quick, direct, and pragmatic. And communicate preferably face-to-face, or at least over Zoom.
I realize, naturally, that all of these communications styles have their place in any organization. The head of IT is talking to the head of marketing about software options to improve the efficiency of prospect conversions in the marketing funnel… this is going to be a “process-oriented” conversation. We’ve all gathered at a brainstorming retreat to peer into the future opportunities of a radical new technology… well then, by all means, let’s mimic Steve Jobs’s “idea-orientation.” If Lisa Novak, our head of Employee Experience, is having a difficult discussion with a team that is really stretched for capacity, then this needs to be “people-oriented,” and focused on the effects and impacts on team members, and how we are helping them alleviate that. But we err when we consider these modes of communication as either/or propositions.
The point I hope to drive home here is that all modes of communication have their utility, but “action-oriented” communication is not just one among the modes. It is foundational to all of them. For all styles to be effective in the enterprise, action-oriented communication should be the prefix and suffix, the way to open and close the more discursive forms of conversation we all inevitably have. It makes all conversations more meaningful.
For most of us, this doesn’t come naturally. With my background as a programmer — a code-focused activity classically undertaken by introverts working under dim lights — it took more than a little effort for me to master active, action-focused communication. We all have to work at it. A life-changing book on the topic is Fierce Conversations, by Susan Scott. I include a great podcast with her on the Digital Companion.
Her essential point is that all “fierce” conversations need to have four objectives: One, they must interrogate reality; two, they must provoke learning; three, they must aim to tackle our toughest challenges; and four, they should enrich our relationships. I really believe her four objectives align with the styles I outlined. And the interface between them all is enabled by the action-oriented communication I advocate here.
“Staggering amounts of money are dedicated to reviewing basic business processes,” Scott writes of most companies, “while employees long for one galvanizing conversation that will explain the situation and get everyone back on track.” That’s it, the imperative of the galvanizing conversation, which all too often never happens. I introduced Fierce Conversations at Bazaarvoice and it taught even the most communications-challenged people how important it was to have fierce, direct, face-to-face conversations — and how to have them — because as she puts it, “life changes one fierce conversation at a time.” Think for a moment about how true this is within the inflection points in your own life, whether it was your conversation to decide to get married, to have children, to start a company, or to ponder some other crossroads. This is the book I wish I had read when I was a young programmer. Life is too short not to be fierce.
Another resource on the subject is the book Crucial Conversations, a review of which is included on the Digital Companion as well. It makes similar points and focuses particularly on managing “high-stakes” conversations: you are asking your boss for a promotion, leading your team on a change of strategy to save the company, or problem-solving when emotions are running high. Its specific utility is that it includes a training program that we used with great success at Bazaarvoice. But the bottom line in both is the same: don’t waste time, and nothing beats face-to-face conversation.
This brings me to the sea change in communication we’ve all been through in recent years with a devastating pandemic that has forced the global rollout and adoption of communications technologies — led by Zoom videoconferencing — that will be among the most enduring features of a once-in-a-century contagion. The tricky part is that as we’ve moved into virtual space for so many more of our critical conversations, action-oriented communication has become even more important. And while face-to-face conversations are rarer, they are all the more useful when we can actually have them.
Remember back to the initial days of the pandemic. Zoom (or Google Meet or Microsoft Teams), telemedicine, streaming, online classes, document sharing tools like Google Docs, collaboration tools like Slack, or data.world, digital signatures, online or curbside shopping, instant message apps, and so much else were akin to floating planks in a brutal storm. Some of us were more familiar with them than others — those of us in the tech sector had a head start to be sure. So did the digital natives, who don’t remember a world without the internet. But all of us grasped these relatively new creations, often in desperation, to keep lives and families together and companies afloat. But now, after more than two years as I write of on-again, off-again cloistering, cocooning, masking, and working and learning from home, these are no longer just a useful means to cope in the short term. The tools of virtual communication will be permanent fixtures in almost every company, new ways of experiencing family and community, and even the building blocks of new companies that would-be startup entrepreneurs reading this book may be now imagining.
Which makes it all the more imperative that we think seriously about action-oriented communication and the importance of face-to-face communication which will inevitably be more sparse.
At data.world, we were certainly pre-pandemic early adopters and we’ve used Slack since the beginning. We’ve integrated Google Apps with it (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, etc.), which has given us what amounts to our own intranet. Of course, we’ve also integrated the data.world platform with Slack, and we use our own platform obsessively when it comes to accessing our data and the resulting analyses of it. We’ve also had regular stand-up meetings since the beginning of data.world, which was inspired by my co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Jon Loyens. This includes the executive team — we meet at least four times per week and most of us have continued the practice even with the greater use of virtuality and video to keep meetings short and focused. And we use Google Meet or Zoom constantly to communicate with our clients, prospects, and each other. So we get plenty of in-person, video-driven, and instant-messenger type communication at data.world.
However, I made a mistake in the first couple of years at data.world. We became too dependent on Slack because of just how easy it was. It is like we were always in a meeting and the noise-to-signal ratio was quite high. And the mistake I made was not having in-person quarterly All-Hands meetings as we did at Bazaarvoice. I thought, “Well, we are having stand-ups all of the time and we are constantly on Slack.” But there is nothing like a good quarterly All-Hands meeting in person — to get outside of the office and have some more long-form communication to rally around the beginning of a quarter and reflect on achievements and lessons learned of the past quarter. Working with our Culture Club, we rectified that four years ago and started to have them at the Alamo Drafthouse, the Austin-founded combination cinema, and pub that is a favored venue of the team. At times when it has been safe to do so, we’ve met at different outdoor, in-person venues again (as well as the office) and I don’t doubt that the Alamo Drafthouse, or something like it, will be a gathering spot in whatever hybrid form of in-person/remote work we ultimately settle into.
Reflecting on this today, we are in the age of ubiquitous Zooms. We’ve gone from pandemic to something closer to an endemic-with-working-vaccines world, which allows us to get together in person without fear. I’ve been thinking very deeply about what our new communication norms should be. On the one hand, for the knowledge economy, we’ve got the luxury of capturing the gains of what we learned during the pandemic and making these tools a new norm. We learned how to be efficient and effective in working from home in what has been the world’s largest communications experiment in history. The entire knowledge economy, which undoubtedly is advantaged in this new reality, was boosted by that experiment as we worked remotely and strived to bend the viral curve, protecting ourselves, each other, and our medical workers from being overwhelmed. And now, in the knowledge economy, we can blend the best of a hybrid work style. This allows us to get together in person as often as we want to build up that bank of trust best achieved in person, while also enjoying the best of at-home work combined with the flexibility it offers. You can work amid and around so many tasks, from dropping off or picking up your kids at school, taking a mid-day workout break, or focusing without distractions. On the other hand, we still have our physical office space at most companies, including our own at data.world, with all of the costs that entails. Do we need a place to call home, with our core values framed and shown in the office? Do we need a place to take our customers, partners, and investors? What do we do about a place to get together for our “Weekly Hoot,” what we call our regular in-person gathering each Friday at data.world to celebrate the milestones of the week?
The answer for me at data.world is a resounding yes to all these questions, even with the cost of office space. But many haven’t made the same decision and are more like unencumbered nomads wandering from venue to venue around the country — or even the world — when they want to get together in person. There is no fixed sense of place in that world — only of virtual places online blended with rotating virtual spaces offline. That may work just as well. And only time will tell as we now figure this out together over the coming three to five years. Meanwhile, Google and Meta/Facebook have just finished the final touches on their largest office spaces ever in Austin’s downtown. The massiveness and beauty of those buildings are breathtaking but I wonder just how many people will be physically in them, and when.
I had an incredible conversation about all of this in April 2022 with a group here in Austin deeply involved with all of these challenges. It included Robert Alvarez, the CFO of publicly-traded BigCommerce; Jonathan Coon, who founded and led 1-800-CONTACTS.com and is now leading the new Four Seasons residential development on Lake Austin; Kelley Knutson who is the President of Netspend; Bob Campbell, who founded Deloitte’s Federal practice and grew it to over a $1 billion annually (and wrote the Afterword of this book); Arlo Gilbert, the Founder and CEO of Osano; Leslie Wingo, the President and CEO of Sanders\Wingo; and Emily Rollins, who was a partner at Deloitte and now serves on several public company Boards, including Xometry and Dolby Laboratories. We talked about the fact that we are still in the early innings of remote work, with collaboration tools that will be vastly improved from their current state. For example, there will surely be tools to mitigate the inevitable background noise at your Zoom location, the finicky microphones we’ve all experienced will get better and the fast-evolving virtual reality headsets that are no longer confined to the realm of gaming will play roles in this evolution. Microsoft Teams Together Mode has now evolved to a theater-style display and I have a video of Microsoft's vision for this on the Digital Companion.
I also spoke not long ago with Chris Hyams, CEO of Indeed, the world’s largest job-search engine, who is an Advisory Board member at data.world. We spoke at Culturati, the definitive conference on company cultures founded by Eugene Sepulveda, CEO of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, and Josh Jones-Dilworth, CEO and Founder of JDI. Chris made a winning point: What you need to care about most is what your employees want. For example, perhaps for engineers, this new way of working is truly bliss because of the lack of distractions in doing highly creative and concentrated work. I remember as a young programmer when my parents would interrupt me and it would sometimes take an hour to resume the flow as I was cranking out code. But for younger people starting out in sales, and needing the constant interruption of hearing how others do it and being coached by both their peers and manager, working from home could be highly detrimental to their career. Chris is advocating the design of an optimal working environment for different types of employees with different needs. That makes a lot of sense to me, and is the essence of the conversation we are now having right now among our executive team at data.world. Time will tell what works best, and it really is a brave new world for the knowledge economy. And I don’t mean that in a dystopian sense, as Aldous Huxley’s infamous book Brave New World suggests. Rather, I envision a utopian future quite different from Huxley’s where we really lock in the lessons of the pandemic to design a more optimal future of work, a future accelerated by the massive disruption of COVID-19 which forced us to adapt and adopt at warp speed.
So, as I boil this all down, my preferred mode of action-oriented communication today really depends on what type of meeting we are having. For a highly strategic multi-day meeting, there is no doubt that in-person is best. I can’t imagine spending two eight-hour days on a Zoom — well, actually I can as I did just that during the worst part of the pandemic curve. Being able to whiteboard together, rapidly iterate, and just blow off steam and enjoy each other’s company is best done in-person for this type of long, usually quarterly, meeting. But for a typical workday, working from home with multiple Zooms, combined with the frequent use of Slack and data.world, could work just fine. And that can be topped off with a nice face-to-face coffee meeting to coach a team member as needs dictate. It’s possible to blend the best of both worlds — in-person and virtual — in a single day. And if you need to do an impromptu video or phone call for maximum iteration in the moment, then just do it. Don’t just send that Slack or message via data.world and call it a day. Speed matters — and the high fidelity of a real-time conversation, where you can hear each other’s intonation or see each other’s faces, can really make the difference if your goal is to move quickly. And most of the time, moving quickly should be your goal.
It took me a while to learn this, especially since I grew up as a BBS nerd. But, trust me, this is how you maintain a very efficient communication flow. But whatever the mode, the most important skill is learning when to talk, and when to listen. One of the most powerful skills to master as a team player is to know when to not share news of your dog or simply echo the thoughts of others for the sake of talking. Pay attention to the introverts, make sure their thoughts and insights are not crowded out by the ones we’ve all encountered trying to be the smartest in the room. Be wiser, listen carefully, and respect the time of your team members. Complement each other, don’t compete for attention. Pretend you’re a New Yorker, and strive for productive, kind, but fierce conversations.
‘The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.”
— Peter F. Drucker, author, and business philosopher