Communicating well...the incompetence...
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Long time back, not very long back though.., I would be impressed when I met a techie or a manager who was good at communicating his thoughts and his ideas, and would be impressed. Am not sure about that any more...Things seem to be changing.
With an excessive focus on communication in the IT world, it seems that competence and execution seem to have taken a back seat.
Now every time I meet some one who communicates well, I am more weary and alert than impressed and I double check and triple check if the person really knows what he is talking about and can deliver on what he is saying.
It seems that a lot of people who are good in communicating their thoughts are using these skills more to cover their incompetence, explain beautifully what the other person should be doing, and explain even more beautifully what they themselves need not or should not do.
So much for the so called "communication skills" which is deemed so important...
posted by Anirudh Joshi @ 9:57 AM,
2 Comments:
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At October 7, 2009 at 3:25 AM,
Shikha said...
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Very agreeable thoughts !!! :-)
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At October 9, 2009 at 9:36 AM,
Anirudh Joshi said...
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Another response from VDM, my friend and an experienced IT industry veteran...from Bay area..
"Interesting piece. Tend to agree with you.
The form is getting to be more important than the content -
something managers should watch out for.
I was in a dilemma once whether to hire or not a person who
by global standards lacked fluency and style in his speech
but was otherwise brilliant.
I consulted my boss about it who asked me 2 questions.
1.Do you understand what he says ?
I said yes.
2.Does he understand what you say ?
I said yes.
Then , he said , just hire him.
And what a guy turned out to be !
India is strange country. We penalize people for not being able to speak a
language that does not belong to us. We do it knowingly or unknowingly.
Conversely we reward people for knowing the language even when they
lack everything else.
The risk- we might end up with "chatterboxes" in the organization.
Concentration should always precede communication.
Unfortunately the need for getting information out quickly and making a
fast impression on others prevents people from concentrating and thus
they end up overcommunicating or even miscommunicating.
Because they have not had a chance to concentrate, their deliveries
suffer , despite the splendid communication.
Swami Vivekananda once said "Sometimes you come across a speaker
with no fluency or a rich vocabulary. But the person strikes a chord
in your heart with his knowledge and purity . On the other hand you
come across a very fluent speaker who makes no impression on you".
Bottomline - the content is more important than the context (form).
If you have content but not the context , the problem can be fixed.
If its the other way round , the organization is in trouble !"
