“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”
~ George Bernard Shaw
The defining difference between teleworking and working in an office is that at home, people can’t physically come up to you and vice versa. Because of this, you have to ensure that you are able to communicate effectively with your office and the people who are needed in order for you to complete your work.
Being able to communicate effectively allows you to simultaneously cut down on the time you spend on emails and also increase the speed at which you complete your work tasks that ultimately translates to more free time at home doing whatever.
Best case scenario is that you don’t need to communicate with anyone in order to get your work done. This allows you to eliminate email and phone altogether and simply report to your manager with completed work.
Unfortunately, there will come times when you will need to talk to someone in order to get a work task done, and this can get annoying when the people on the other end of the line are notorious time wasters.
I will illustrate this with an example from John’s case study.
In his job, John can for most of the time work independently. Sometimes however, John does require the assistance of someone else in order to obtain materials that he does not have access to. In the case of this example, it was some software that he needed in order to test the validity of a manual he had just written.
John sent an email on Friday morning to the software engineer who was in his building requesting that the engineer send him via email the software that he needed. After half a day of waiting, John finally gets a response from the engineer’s supervisor stating that John should forward all requests for software to him and not the software engineer.
Note: In the past, John had always approached the software engineers directly whenever he needed software or help with software of any type. There was no problem then, but now it seemed to be an issue.
After reading the email John found out (via the clear CC continuation of the previous email) that the software engineer had emailed the supervisor and asked him for permission to send the software to John, even though John had always gotten it from that engineer directly. From this, the supervisor then replies that he’d be more than happy to send John the software (he doesn’t send it to John in that email) and proceeds to lecture John on how John should have approached him instead of the software engineer and that the supervisor had reminded John to do this on more than one occasion. The supervisor then goes on to say that there are good reasons to do this though he fails to specify what exactly those good reasons are.
Note: There was only one occasion when he actually asked John to contact him if John ever needed something and even then he had said it in a casual manner and John assumed that he meant that he COULD contact him if he needed anything not that he MUST
On top of that, the supervisor decides to CC the same email to John’s manager and another supervisor who has absolutely nothing to do with John’s work but happens to be in a high position in the company.
The conclusion at the end of the day was that John had no software and had been made to look the fool in the eyes of my manager and some supervisor who has nothing to do with his work but is in a high position in the company.
The following Monday, John proceeds to email the engineering supervisor to ask him for the software he had been waiting for since Friday as he had not heard from the supervisor’s subordinate. John also CC’s this to his manager to cut down on the back and forth nonsense and to ensure that his manager knows that he is indeed doing his job. Five minutes later, John received the software via email and can get on with his work.
Because of pride, egos and people who are just plain lazy, John had to wait 2 days to receive software that would have taken 5 minutes to send if some people would just take the time to shut up and do their job.
I can’t stand time wasters and as such I have learned to ignore most of them whenever what they have to say has absolutely nothing to do with my top 3 work priorities. In the case of my missing software, this was one of John’s top work priorities at the time and due to a few time wasters, he had fallen behind.
The simplest solution I found to deal with time wasters was to simply CC my manager whenever I requested anything from anyone. It’s amazing how effective people can be when they know that a supervisor is watching and they are in a position to be blamed if you fail to complete your work on time. It also helps to know who the person you are requesting something from will receive the most prodding from for not doing their job and CC that person on the request.
Whenever you make a request via email, remember the following 4 points:
- State precisely what you want
- State alternate actions if they cannot deliver what you want
- Be polite
- CC a superior who is able to scare the person you are requesting something from into immediate action
Here is an example I used on a co-worker when I was attempting to locate a document that I needed in order to complete a pending work task.
–
Bob,
I was told that you are currently holding the engine service manual in your computer. If this is true, could you please send it to me?
If you don’t have it, do you have any idea who might have the document? If you know who has this document, could you please contact them via email and ask them to send me the document as I require it urgently.
Anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated, thanks.
–
I then CC my manager on this request to ensure that my manager knows that I am indeed working and that any hold ups from that point on are not my fault. Having CC’d my manager, Bob knows that he needs to respond quickly otherwise he will be perceived as a slacker and goes about handling my request without delay.
Keep in mind, my email was direct, stated alternate actions and was polite. It doesn’t help anyone if you are abusive or rude in any way when making requests as this gives people no reason to hurry up and also leaves a bad impression of you on your manager if he is CC’d.
In saying that, don’t think that you can get away with rude emails even if you don’t CC your manager as your sent email can be replied to you with the contents of you previous email and then CC’d to anybody the sender wishes (which include your manager).
While the above mentioned methods will work to prevent people from wasting time when you need something, there are also the time wasters who try to dump unrelated work tasks on you. These people can be deflected using the following two methods:
- Provide a solution that throws the work back on them (CC’ing your manager in the process)
- Ignore them completely if they fail to follow your advice
I will illustrate how the first method can be used with an example. John received a request from Rachel in marketing to locate a document. To be polite and prevent complaints, he spent five minutes attempting to locate the document and then replies with the following email:
—
Rachel,
I’ve determined that the document you are looking for is not on my list. Searching through the server I have managed to locate a file that bears a similar name to the file you are looking for. Unfortunately I cannot view it as I do not have the software to convert the file to a pdf. Please contact Kevin as he has the software you need to convert and view the document.
If he is unable to convert the document for you, please ask him to direct you to someone who has the software to convert the file for you.
If the file is found to be incorrect, please contact the document controller as he should be able to locate your document for you.
I apologize as I am currently busy with pending work tasks, so unless this is an item that requires my immediate attention, please follow the steps I have mentioned above in order to locate your document, thanks.
—-
In this email, John has offered a solution to her request and a sequence of actions that she can take to successfully locate her document. By offering an alternate solution that involves no work on his part, he implies that he is trying hard to be helpful when in fact he is creating more work for the person requesting his help.
Most people who ask you for help on useless tasks are usually people who are too lazy to complete the task themselves and feel that they can easily dump the work on you instead. Because of this, by teaching them that bothering you ultimately leads to more work for them, this deters them in future from trying to dump work on you.
To ensure that they do not try to ignore your suggestions and continue bothering you, you state that you are busy and CC your manager in the same email. By bringing your manager into the loop, you make it clear that you are busy attempting to follow your managers work instructions and that by interrupting you, they are in fact interrupting important work that has be delegated to you from a higher authority.
This basically means that if they bother you, there is a chance that they will get into trouble and this is usually enough to deter time wasters.
If however, they insist on making you do their work, simply ignore them. Most of the time, this is enough to get them off your back and they will take it that you are simply too busy to respond. If however, they should happen to be stupid enough to complain to your manager for ignoring them, they are more likely to get into trouble than you. It is already clear from the first email that the interrupters task is not important and that you have tried to be helpful despite being busy with pending work tasks.
In summary, the keys to effective communication when you want something are as follows:
- State precisely what you want
- Offer alternate solutions to prevent back and forth
- Be polite
- CC your manager
Next, the keys to effective communication when you don’t want something are:
- Provide a solution that throws the work back on them (CC’ing your manager in the process)
- Ignore them completely if they fail to follow your advice
While it may be necessary to keep open lines of communication during a project, you want to minimize back and forth as much as possible.
To be in continuous communication with people while you are attempting to focus on work is distracting and slows you down.
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Yasuo Long believes that all employees should have the right to design their lifestyle according to their needs in order to maintain their health, their relationships and their happiness. In pursuit of this, he quit the 9-to-5 and became a telecommuter to give himself the time and mental freedom to discover what it really means to live with direction and purpose.
