coltmelrose.com

I was thinking today about how we communicate with others and how that communication gives us the end results we see.  In every relationship you have communication or the absence of communication, and you have end results that you get from that communication. Those results are good, bad or ugly.  I have experienced all three. As I look back at the projects I have worked over the years I can think of multiple situations where the end result fell into one of those three categories.  Every one of those projects developed from “segmented communication.” By that I am referring to having conversations and then working on the project and having more conversations and working more, etc… You get it.  Back and forth communication. The more you communicate, the better the end result is.

The problem with this communication style is that it takes so long to get to the end result.  Between going back and forth between all the decision makers it can become rather lengthy.  To solve this problem, we tend to work and work and work on a project and skip the steps of the back and forth communication. This workflow cuts out the time invested in the project but also cuts out the little decisions that drive the project down the right path. Instead of making that right on I80-94 and going toward Ohio, we stay on I-90 and end up in Wisconsin. And by the time we know where we are and how far we are from where we want to be, it’s too late. So what should we do?

There is a fourth category that I see some of my past projects falling into: Great! Now don’t go getting all “I can’t believe he is so prideful…” What I am saying is that the quality of the work meets or exceeds the expectations and is right on target with all points of the execution. So how do we get here? How do we get to “Great!”

As I look at the process of those projects, I see a common thread, “Collaboration.” Time taken to work together and share ideas in the midst of the process. Time to work through the little decisions and get to the best possible conclusion before going out of the way and having to turn back. This happens when we build teams instead of individuals who work in very specialized areas. This happens when as a family you meet and talk and work together. This happens as you break down the idea that two people working on two different projects exclusively will give you better results that two people collaborating on both projects.

Where have you seen Collaboration?  Where have you seen Segmented Communication? What conclusions have you come to?