Linked – It’s Not Nagging: Effective Communication is Deliberately Redundant
Long ago, I improved my training delivery and presentation skills by studying the experts. In doing so, I came across the brain science behind repeating yourself. Whether you want to measure it by the seven-touch rule for sales (customers act after hearing your pitch seven times). Or the importance of saying it three times, which is the rule for presentations (Tell people what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell people what you just told them). There is clear evidence that we need to repeat ourselves more often.
As Irina says in the link below:
As much as we wish saying something once would be enough, experience shows it rarely is. I learned this the hard way when I first became a Tech Lead at Google.
Despite giving clear instructions — or so I thought — my team missed important details and failed to complete tasks, resulting in missing deadlines. This wasn’t their fault. It was mine.
My experience taught me that clear and concise communication is not enough. We also need deliberate redundancy.
If you know anything about me, you know I am a big advocate for repeating yourself, especially if you work with a remote team. Saying something in one conference call doesn’t get you the desired results. It would help if you found creative ways to repeat yourself without nagging, which isn’t easy. It takes practice and thoughtfulness, but it’s also easier to do than ever because we have many different communication tools.
It’s not nagging to follow up a meeting with an email summarizing the discussion. It’s good meeting etiquette. It’s not nagging to drop a group chat in Slack or Teams for updates. That’s what those tools are for. It’s also not nagging to expect your team to report progress in many ways. That’s their responsibility.
Think of it this way. Do you tell your partner and family members that you love them once and assume they know it doesn’t need to be repeated? Of course not. We find multiple ways to communicate that message because it makes for a better relationship.
Your team needs the same repetitive communication to improve their results, too.
https://www.thecaringtechie.com/p/its-not-nagging-effective-communication
