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Date
We all know that communications is the key to successful project management. As a rule of thumb, project managers spend 90% of their time communicating. At times it seems that we have some difficulty getting our messages out, whether the message is about customer changes, status or performance reports, just simple updates or expressing the value of our work. Reading a recent article by Cindy Mehallow on GreenBiz.com (www.greenbiz.com) triggered some thoughts about how to communicate with management about the value of corporate socially responsibility efforts. One of the issues we find with getting management to embrace sustainability is that there is a lack of understanding as to its value. Perhaps that misunderstanding has a lot to do with the “message” being received. Cindy talks about “loaded language, over-communication, misdirected messages, semantic short circuits” and “too much noise” as impediments for communications. We think that understanding and addressing those communications issues may lead to a better acceptance of the message.
Sometimes, we, at the intersection of project management and sustainability, speak in tongues (or as we refer to in our book, the “Language of the Green Wave”), but don’t realize it. It is clear that there is terminology that should be understood by the project manager. But because the project manager has a grasp on the terminology doesn’t necessarily mean that the “receiver” has the same understanding (“shared experience”). A reality check with the receiver needs to be done in order to assure a mutual understanding of expectations and results. In addition to the understanding of the “lingo,” the effect of the words needs to be understood. As an example, the words “global warming” can be tempered by the words “climate change” to avoid controversy about the causes of global warming that can cloud judgment.
That leads us to another point by Cindy, and that is “noise.” Anyone familiar with the Sender-Receiver Model, first introduced by Elwood Shannon and Warren Weaver, Bell Laboratories, (Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press), and referred to above, will recognize the references. In that model, messages are carried over a channel. As the message travels the channel and crosses the boundary between the sender and the receiver and then crosses the boundary back from the receiver to the sender during feedback (across the area know as the "shared experience", there is the potential for noise. Noise can be anything from literally noise ("I can't hear you!"), to distraction ("Something else has caught my ear!") to competition for the channel (more than one message being transmitted at the same time).
Reducing the distraction by using a common language, avoiding controversy when possible, making sure that the right stakeholders are engaged, checking the understanding of the message and not "fire hosing" the information to the point of having the receiver glaze over, will go a long way in reducing the noise and allowing your message of the value of sustainability to get through.
Posted
by
Dave Shirley
on: April 10, 2013 11:40 AM |
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