Albert Einstein recognized the importance of communicating well within yourself, with peers, and with the general public. He was a gifted communicator who spoke with clarity, delivering comprehensible messages on complex topics to a wide audience spanning generations. One of the keys to this exceptional ability was his penchant for thought experiments, internal mental dialogs where he gained unique insights that helped him craft his messages in terms anyone could understand. In his thought experiments he began with a clear theory which he set about to test in some imaginary scenario. His theory guided him as he chased down the implications of his ideas, examining each experimental implication from the perspective of a skeptical listener he had to convince of the integrity of the evidence, This process revealed startling truths and prepared him to tell them in ways the world would undertand and accept.
Einstein recognized the importance of communicating well within yourself, with peers, and with the general public. He was a gifted communicator who spoke with clarity, delivering comprehensible messages on complex topics to a wide audience spanning generations. One of the keys to this exceptional ability was his penchant for thought experiments, internal mental dialogs where he gained unique insights that helped him craft his messages in terms anyone could understand. In his thought experiments he began with a clear theory which he set about to test in some imaginary scenario. His theory guided him as he chased down the implications of his ideas, examining each experimental implication from the perspective of a skeptical listener he had to convince of the integrity of the evidence, This process revealed startling truths and prepared him to tell them in ways the world would undertand and accept.
Another important contributor to Einstein’s amazing achievements was his lifelong commitment to music. He took up violin at the insistence of his mother at age six and by age thirteen when he discovered Mozart’s violin sonatas he was hooked and music was a lifelong passion. He said of his relationship with music that “I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music …”.
Long ago I learned of a study that came to the surprising conclusion that people with music and journalism backgrounds make better software developers than people with technical backgrounds like engineering, science, and mathematics. The reason for this is communication skill. They are razor focused on the integrity of their message. The best musicians and journalists are sensitive to their audiences. Their audiences are open, rather than narrow, highly specialized groups. The audiences for technical specialists are often siloed in very narrows specializations with arcane languages tailored to their needs. The products of musicians and journalists must be readily understood by effectively anyone and they bring people together. It is very challemging for specialists to communicate outside their circle. One of my colleagues was assigned to improve the communication between
Clear, concise, and effective communication is the key to software development, especially in today’s fast-paced Agile projects. These projects work closely with a broad set of stakeholders focused on delivering value. Those stakeholders have different points of view, and their own shorthand languages. Communicatoin is the bridge that enables meaningful collaboration.
Which brings me to the three-sermon problem posed by a minister I know. The first sermon is the one you intend to deliver. The second is the one you actually deliver. And the third sermon is the one your audience hears. The problem is that these are all-too-often three different things. It is easier to understand how members of the audience may hear a different versions of a message. Each member interprets what they hear based on their background and understanding of the subject. Their interpretations may bias or enrich the message in unexpected ways. But understanding how message delivered may differ from the intended message is more difficult to understand. This is especially disturbing because if the speaker does not say what they mean, an audience member cannot hope to recieve the intended message. How can we not say what we mean?
It turns out there are several reasons a speaker might fail to deliver the message they intend. These include:
- A simple slip, the speaker inadvertently leaves out a keyword such as not, or they say a different word than intended. It could be a simple as when reading they skip a page or a line. It is just a simple human mistake.
- When a speaker wants to make certain the audience knows exactly what they want the audience to pick up, the speaker may jump into a detailed how-to without explain what or why. This is more common in Information Technology communication than seems reasonable, especially when the speaker is bright and confident, but they are used to being the smartest in the room and tend to underestimate their audience.
- But perhaps the most incidious discrepancy occurs when the speaker’s intent is to please the audience, they simply tell the audence what they believe the audience wants to hear. This has a double negative impact on communication. The speaker has only a vague intent. While there may be a message they are responsible to deliver, they threw it under the bus and took a big set of wheels for a spin. Having some knowledge of the audience is important to good communication. But it is always best to allow the audience to decide for themselves what they want to or need to hear. Using knowledge of the audience to better craft a message in a way that the audience will hear the intended message accurately is a good use of that knowlege. Using knowledge of the audience to craft a message that will please them rather than communicate with integrity may gain the speaker some good will in the short run, but they are breaking trust with their audience and the damage to the relationship may be irreparable. This kind of discrepancy can take time to uncover, and the parties involved oftern suffer the boiled frog fate – they start out in a nice comfortable pool of water and they remain comfortable as the water heats up. We all know what happens to the frogs.
Frogs in Hot Water
You surely have guessed by now that I’m not really talking about frogs, I’m talking about us. And the hot water is really a nice intense project that is getting a lot of attention from our stakeholders.
In an agile project we have program increments, daily standups, lots of rituals where we have the an altar call and everyone has the opportunity to speak what’s on their minds and in their hearts. Everyone starts out optimistic, confident, amd comfortable. The stakeholders speak a variety of specialized languages so the language of the rituals is often all they have in common.
So everyone speaks the party line in the party language and all is good. As the program increments fly by, they start kicking the can down the road, maybe even use the can to make a cute frog on a tricycle. And they are maybe a bit nervous that dates are slipping and the scope is trimming, but they are pedaling along.
At some point, everyone realizes theirr cozy hot tub has become a boiling pot of frog stew. How did that happen? They all got used to going through the motions. In their daily, monthly, and quarterly rituals they were telling each other what they thought everyone wanted to hear rather than actually communicating. They had a vague sense something was not right, but in the end they were still pleased with what they were hearing.
Einstein unified the three sermons using thought experiements where he clarified his intent, verified the message was aligned with his intent, and confirming the message was comprehensible by examining it from the perspective of a skeptical and independent listener. He further refined his message through intense debates and casual conversations with trusted colleagues like Niels Bohr and Kurt Godel. And he often tooks to the podium at conferences such as Solvay where he engaged large audiences with a broad diversity of perspectives.
Let’s all close those communication gaps that plague our projects.
