How to Communicate Well

Good communication is the connective tissue between everything you do as a manager. It can make all of your activities more effective. From daily interactions with your staff, to answering emails and direct messages, to performing your one-to-ones, to giving performance reviews, to interviewing candidates for a role on your team: if there’s one skill that you can improve that will make all of these activities better, it’s communication.

Most importantly, good communication forms great relationships between you and your staff. These great relationships form strong teams. Being able to communicate clearly, candidly, and empathetically will make you a manager that others want to work for. If you demonstrate strong communication skills, then others will experience it and—more importantly—replicate it. It’s an excellent example of how being a role model can work in practice.

The Three Mediums of Communication

Broadly speaking, there are three ways in which you’ll be communicating with people at work. The first two are performed with explicit action. The third is subtler. However, all three are worth your effort in consciously improving. They are:

• Spoken communication, encompassing everything from formal meetings through to conversations around the coffee machine.

• Written communication, which covers formal letters, emails, pull request comments, and instant messages.

• Nonverbal communication, which refers to gestures, body language, facial expressions, posture, and tone of voice.

Usually, spoken and written communication are grouped together with the term verbal communication. However, it’s useful to separate them as there are some specific considerations for each of them that we’ll cover.

Before we dive in, remember this key point: try your best to represent your best self no matter how and where you are communicating. In the same way programmers continually strive to write elegant and efficient code, managers should strive to be elegant and efficient communicators. This might mean you need to work on your speaking skills in order to match your writing skills. Maybe it means you need to pay attention to your body language in meetings.

Choosing the Right Medium

The world of work unfolds across many different platforms. For example, in addition to face-to-face communication in the physical world, there’s also video conferencing. You will also communicate through emails, chat applications, and a myriad of other tools such as project management and ticket tracking software.

For example, on a given day, you may find yourself communicating via:

• Face-to-face communication
• Video conferencing software
• Phone calls
• Emails
• Shared documents
• Chat applications
• Project management software
• Ticket tracking software

And the list goes on. Each of these mediums have unique traits that make them good for some things and bad for others. You need to be aware of the medium that you’re using, and use the most appropriate one for the message that you’re trying to relay.

As a manager you’ll want to:

• Choose the right medium in which to communicate your message.
• Communicate effectively using the inherent traits for that medium.

But what does that actually mean?

• Face-to-face communication is best for exchanges that require real human connection, where you can bring your physical presence and use your body language. However, it’s synchronous and requires both parties to be there. It’s best for important conversations, such as delivering a performance review. It’s also the hardest to plan and steer, since you don’t have time to contemplate long and hard over your replies. Sometimes this can work in your favor though, such as when a one-to-one takes an unexpected excursion into a meaningful topic.

• Email is fairly formal. It is also archival, which makes it the perfect place for information that you’ll want to refer back to. The medium has an expectation that it’s highly asynchronous: if you don’t reply to somebody’s email today, it’s unlikely that they’re going to be offended. You can use this trait to your advantage.

• Documents—especially collaborative ones—are excellent for formalizing ideas such as the design of a new piece of architecture. You can take full advantage of all of the features of an office suite.

• Chat carries an expectation of synchronous exchange; especially on platforms where it shows you who is online and typing. It’s great for communication in teams, informal exchanges, and asking quick questions. It’s not always a good place for formal discussions because it moves quickly and the reader can easily get lost.

• Use-case specific software such as ticket trackers or project-management software are excellent for solving a specific workflow problem—such as organizing your current sprint—but often have subpar functionality compared to the tools above.

When you prepare to communicate something, think carefully about the medium that you should use. It can make or break the delivery of your message. For example, you’ll want to do one-to-ones and performance reviews using face-to-face communication, because the human connection and use of body language is important for forming relationships and delivering difficult messages. For a weekly update to your manager, you may choose email because it’s archival. Email may also be best for confirmation of a salary increase, but the news may be best first delivered face-to-face.

When communicating, first think about the message you want to deliver. Then put yourself in the recipient’s shoes and consider how best they might like to receive that message. Then adapt it to that platform. Don’t take two hours to write a lengthy and complex email when you could just talk face-to-face instead.

Lastly, ensure that each piece of communication that you do is fully formed and either is understandable on its own or has a call to action. There’s a big difference between this message:

​

Hello

And this one:

​	Hello, are you around today?
​	I'm looking for some help with testing my API change locally.

Managing Your Energy

In addition to choosing the right medium in which to speak to people, you need to be aware of your energy and how it manifests in your communication. This isn’t a pseudoscience; it’s real. As a manager, you’ll be in all sorts of conversations. Some will leave you feeling happy, some sad, and some angry and frustrated. We’re not managerial robots. We’re humans. So if you’ve just come out of a frustrating meeting that has made you want to throw your laptop out the window, then be aware that you’ll be carrying this frustration into the next meeting, email, or chat message that you write.

This might mean that you end up making somebody else feel that you’re annoyed at them, when in fact you’re annoyed at somebody else. Even worse, you may transfer this frustration and anger over to them! So you need to be mindful of your own mood. Check in on yourself regularly throughout the day. How are you feeling, and is this how you want to present yourself to others? Be aware that even if you are an expert at hiding your frustration in your spoken communication, the person having a conversation with you can read how you feel behind your furrowed brow, folded arms, and tense posture.

You can deal with residual bad energy in two ways. Both are equally acceptable:

• Tell the next person that you’re speaking to up front about how you’re feeling and, if you’re able to share, why that is. They’ll immediately know that it has nothing to do with them, and they may even offer support.

• Delay the next activity that you’re doing until you’ve become more centered. If it’s a meeting, just be honest. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve just had a really frustrating meeting and need to get fifteen minutes of fresh air. Can we start then? I want to be able to focus properly on our conversation.”

Measure Twice, Cut Once

In carpentry there’s a proverb: measure twice, cut once. You can’t uncut some wood, so you want to make sure it’s correct before doing so. Do it wrong, and you’ll need to do it over again as it won’t be fit for purpose.

The same is true for communication. As a manager your word carries weight: it can be interpreted as a command or as feedback. Therefore, you should think twice before you broadcast information.

Have you ever gotten some exciting information at work, felt the sudden urge to tell somebody else immediately, and did so, only later for it to be totally untrue? Have you ever had somebody tell you that they’ve obtained some information that you should know, but they can’t tell you? Frustrating isn’t it? Don’t be the manager doing that to other people.

Don’t communicate when you want to. Communicate when you need to. For example, if you’ve heard a rumor about the next project that your team is going to work on but it isn’t confirmed yet, is it absolutely necessary that your team knows that rumor? Not really. Wait until it’s confirmed, thus making your communication concise, clear, and trustworthy. Don’t spread gossip. A manager’s communication should never be driven by increasing their social capital. It should be informative, useful, and actionable.

Measure twice, cut once.

It’s Not About You

Communication happens between yourself and others. However, how you communicate should never be about you. It should be about them. When you’re writing that email, or having that conversation, try to picture what you are delivering from the viewpoint of the person receiving it. Reread that email before you send it and pretend you’re reading it for the first time. Does it make sense? Is the tone right? Is it better placed as a face-to-face conversation?

If you feel that your message belongs on a different medium or should be written differently, then it probably does. Adapt yourself for the benefit of others. Make that email a conversation, or that chat message a longer and more considered email. Your staff will notice the time and care that you put into communicating, and they’ll respect that. They’ll likely return the favor to you and their colleagues also.

Make Your Conversations Two-Way

Have you ever spoken to a senior staff member, only for that staff member to talk at you, rather than to you? Don’t be that person. Conversations should be transactional between both parties. Ensure that you connect at a human level with the people that you are communicating with. Again, you’re not a management robot issuing instructions. You’re a human being connecting with another human being. Be natural and inquisitive. Listen. Ask questions. Invite responses.

Ensuring that those you speak to have air space in their conversations with you shows that you care about their opinion. It develops trust between you. It ensures that at the times when you definitely want your staff to tell you what they think, they’ll be comfortable in doing so.

Respect the Preferences of Others

Be aware that different people have preferences over how information is delivered. This is an excellent subject for your one-to-ones. For example, some people may expect that the news of a salary increase be delivered face-to-face, whereas others may expect a formal letter or email. Depending on the person, getting this wrong could be jarring or offensive.

Dig into some example situations with your direct reports and note their preferences for different types of information. If you saw that they gave a good presentation, how would they like to receive praise? What about if they brought the production system down? You’ll be surprised by how varied the answers can be from person to person.

Suitability Trumps Efficiency

In addition to being sensitive to the recipient when delivering information, be aware of your own bias to save yourself work when doing so. For example, it’s extremely easy for you to send an email to your entire team rather than talk about the content of that email with individuals face-to-face. However, you should always choose the delivery that is best for them rather than you. It’s more work, but it’s worth it.

Be Consistent

Have you ever worked with someone who has been an excellent verbal communicator, only to receive an email from them later that was full of typos, bad grammar, and bizarre punctuation? How did it make you feel? Perhaps after an inspiring meeting with the company’s new senior executive, you receive a follow-up instant message that could have come from an AOL chatroom in 1996:

​	hey mate u gt 10 min? soz 4 the dm lol

Perceived inconsistency between your role in the organization and the persona that you adopt in spoken, written, and nonverbal communication can feel really weird for others that you interact with. Try your best to unify how you communicate across different platforms. It makes others feel that they’re talking with the real you, and each interaction is an opportunity to better your relationship and to build trust.

In addition to your consistency across mediums, is your formality also consistent? Sometimes chat applications can be highly informal, which can make it difficult to then interrupt the fun with critical feedback. You get to choose the persona you inhabit and the level of formality you bring with it. Fundamentally it’s up to you, your team, and your workplace culture as to how formal you are in your interactions, but nobody wants a manager who is also the class clown. A useful way to approach this is to start formal and gradually ease the formality with time to a place you are comfortable with, that allows you to still be authoritative and critical when needed. Once you’ve slipped down to extreme informality, it can be hard to come back up again.

Remember that as a manager, your word has weight as it doesn’t only come from you: it comes from an established position in the company’s org chart. As a manager you represent yourself, your team, and your company as a whole. Be a role model for those around you.

How to Give Feedback

Entire books are written on giving effective feedback—and for good reason. Being able to deliver effective constructive criticism is a surefire way of making your staff improve and seek your counsel as a leader. What’s even better is that they’ll begin to do it to you, which will help you improve in turn.

The best and most concise advice on how to deliver feedback is the concept of radical candor, from the book [Sco17] of the same name. It outlines what to do and what not to do when talking to your staff. Learning the concept is simple, but mastering it requires practice.

When delivering feedback, you need to ensure that you:

• Care personally about the individual that you’re talking to you. This ensures that you communicate with them because it’s in their best interests and you want to see them improve.

• Challenge directly to ensure you say exactly what you think. Get to the point, and if you think that something isn’t good enough, say it.

These two traits of sincerity and specificity ensure that you strengthen your relationship with your staff and push them toward growth. But what happens when you only do one and not the other, or don’t do either of them at all? Have a look at the quadrant.

Looking at the diagram, you can see four different situations that can arise, depending on whether or not you care personally and challenge directly. Let’s look at each of them.

• Radical candor is what happens when you care personally and challenge directly. You say what you think and deliver the feedback precisely but in such a way that ensures the recipient sees that you are doing so because you care. This is where you want to be. It promotes trust and growth.

• Ruinous empathy happens when you care but don’t challenge directly. It’s either unspecific praise or diluted criticism to avoid a difficult message. This doesn’t help the recipient improve.

• Obnoxious aggression is when you challenge but don’t care. It’s insincere praise or mean criticism.

• Manipulative insincerity is when you do neither. Good behaviors go unpraised, and bad behaviors are ignored.

Can you think of situations that you’ve witnessed in your own life that fall into the categories above? Perhaps you worked with a colleague who was performing badly and was a burden on the team. It may have been because your manager was demonstrating ruinous empathy by never tackling the performance problem directly. Conversely, you may have witnessed a manager who seemingly never praised their team and would get angry and overly personal in their criticism. Would you place them in the obnoxious aggression category?

When you’re delivering feedback to your staff, keep this quadrant in your head. Are you being radically candid? If not, why? Managers, teams, and organizations that manage to crack the art of being radically candid have healthier relationships between staff, produce better results, and enable more personal growth. Ensure that your team does the same.

Traits to Avoid

As a manager, you’ll want to avoid a number of bad communication traits. Be mindful of how and when these happen, as they have a measurable effect on those that you interact with. Have a look through them and consider whether you’ve been subject to any of them. Why do you think that is, and do you think that you can change them?

• Overcommunication. Saying the same thing over and over again is inefficient and can frustrate other people. If you find yourself having to communicate the same thing repeatedly, then why is that happening? Should that information be captured more formally in an email? Is there something wrong with your delivery that is making the message not stick?

• Waffling. We’ve all observed politicians in interviews avoiding questions by talking. And talking. And talking. Don’t waffle. If you don’t want to answer a question, or you don’t know the answer, then just say so.

• Playing to the crowd. Nobody wants a manager who does whatever it takes to please them, since whatever it takes is typically hiding information, sugar coating it, or downright lying. Say it like it is, even if it’s bad news.

• Inconsistency. Ensure that you’re being the same person to everyone, and that your message remains consistent with everyone. If you’re flip-flopping with decisions, then you’ve probably communicated them too early.

• Letting emotion get in the way_. If you find yourself getting emotionally charged, angry, or frustrated, then be open about how you feel. Reschedule meetings if you need to. Just don’t take it out on other people or let it cloud your judgment.

May the Communication Be with You

Wow, we’ve covered a lot! There are entire books written on communication, but this digest should serve you well as you get started on your management journey. Let’s recap what we’ve learned in this section:

• We’ve explored the different mediums of communication—spoken, written, and nonverbal—and how you should use them to best suit the message you’re delivering. You should be mindful of your mood and energy when going from activity to activity, and you should only communicate when you need to, not when you have the urge to.

• We’ve seen that communication is not about you. It’s about the recipients. You should ensure that you listen, have two-way conversations, and respect people’s preferences for interactions.

• Consistency is important for your own voice across spoken, written, and nonverbal communication. You should be aware of the weight your voice has as a manager and be a role model for those you interact with.

• The radical candor concept was introduced as a mental model to ensure that you’re giving effective feedback to your staff.

• We’ve explored some bad communication traits you should try and avoid.