The Administrative Professional

Communicator’s Toolbox – Ask Doug
By Doug Coleman

We spend most of our waking hours communicating whether it’s face-to-face, on the telephone, through email, or, through letters (remember writing, folding, stuffing and sealing the envelope, and licking the stamp?). Administrative Professionals often have the double challenge of communicating for two people - themselves, and their supervisor.

To start this column, I asked an Administrative Professional I know what she feels she needs in her Communicator’s Toolbox. Her answer was an eye-opener. “Everything,” she said. “I need to know how to communicate more effectively, efficiently, and accurately. Communicating takes up most of my day.” My only response was, “Wow. That’s a big order, but, like the way to eat an elephant, let’s take one bite at a time.” So, here is our first bite.

Communicating is the act of delivering a message from your mind to the mind of other people with as little change in the meaning as possible. Notice that I didn’t say “…with no change.” That’s because it’s impossible to deliver a message exactly, and that’s the key word, the way you have it in your mind. Your message is influenced by too many unknown factors for you to count on being understood the way you want or hope it to be understood. Sorry, but that is one of the cold, hard facts about communicating. So, we start this column with the discouraging truth that all communications will be changed by the receiver in some way, possibly in a very small way, but changed. Count on it. This happens to you every day, and you may not be aware of it, but it happens.

Ok, let’s start understanding why your messages aren’t received they way you send them. First, there is nothing concrete about words. There’s no secret society that makes up our words and gives them an exact meaning that will not or cannot be modified or even changed. On the contrary; words are created by people and the meaning evolve over time. Words to meet the needs of technology like internet, television, I-Pod, so on are good examples. 50 years ago there wasn’t an internet. The word didn’t exist. The internet was created, somebody gave it a name, and the dictionaries started listing the word with a meaning based on how people used it.

You have a book-full of words you use everyday that have meanings you understand based on your personal experience with those words. They are your words and your meanings. Other people, including your boss and your coworkers have their own words and their own meanings based on their personal experiences with their words. Are you starting to see one of the big problems in communication? No word means exactly, there’s that word again, the same thing to every person.

When I tell people this fact, their immediate response is to ask, “How can I be sure to get my message delivered the way I want it?” My answer is, “There’s no guarantee, but if you don’t try, you can be sure you will be misunderstood.” There are some things you can do to reduce the risk of being misunderstood. Use the simplest, most basic words possible. The average person understands most of the one and two syllable words and some three syllable words without much confusion so keep your words simple. Even these simple words can be affected by a person’s experience. For example, if you used the word “terminate” referring to a process or a policy, can you guess what message might be received? In times of economic distress, the first thought many people will have relates to job security because that is the way this word is being used a lot at this time and it could set a negative tone.

Many people make the mistake of trying to expand their vocabulary. The marketers of vocabulary expanding training claim this is the way to get ahead and be professional. I don’t agree. The way be get ahead and be professional is to be clear and understood as a communicator. Using words other people don’t know or understand is not the way to make friends, communicate clearly, or be professional. Keep your words simple, familiar and don’t just state your thought. Explain it so there can not be any doubt about your message. Take the extra time and paint clear word pictures.

If you have a question about communicating, send me an email. I will answer every email question and will select one for each issue as the topic for that issue. Remember, your “Job One” is effective communicating. By comparison, everything else, is easy.

Until next issue, don’t forget to Ask Doug.