The most important skill a technical professional has is the ability to communicate. This is what will set you aside from the rest and differentiate one consultant or firm from the others. I say this having spent my career helping engineers, geoscientists and technicians improve how they communicate. But before you consider me biased, note that in 1944, WJ King stated in his book The Unwritten Laws of Engineering, that the chief obstacles of the success of individual engineers or of groups of engineers are of a personal and administrative rather than a technical nature.” I include geoscientists and technicians here too.
And in 1928: SA Harbarger, in his book English for Engineers printed on page 1, chapter 1 “an engineer’s greatest asset is his ability to write and speak correctly, elegantly and vigorously. He cannot employ anyone to talk for him….or to prepare his reports….” (I apologize to women; back then they never imagined females in the technical fields.)
So, what is communication? The root comes from the Latin word “communicare” meaning to make common or to share. Communication is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the imparting or exchanging of thoughts, opinions and information by speaking, writing, or using some other medium.”
I suspect that anyone reading this magazine or who is remotely connected to a technical profession, certainly has ideas, opinions and information. To be a true professional and a valuable team member, subject matter expert, or consultant, you must “make common” and exchange. I consider that skill technical communication.
My degree from an engineering university is in Technical Communication. I had to take engineering courses, yet my engineering friends never had the time or requirement to take communication classes. However, to succeed, the technical professional must effectively communicate every single day. Without this skill, brilliant ideas are lost because they are not shared, or they are lost in an unorganized or cluttered message.
There are books and courses on how to write and speak, but I want to offer you three other aspects of communication that are just as important:
- Listen to what is being said;
- Understand your audience;
- Determine the best medium.
Listening Skills
In his TED Talk Five Ways to Listen Better, Julian Treasure states we are losing our ability to listen. The noise around us has made us immune to the conversations. To avoid this, we use earbuds to remove the distraction, which isolates us and further hinders our listening skills. Just like the muscles in our body, we must exercise our listening to improve. Simply practising being quiet or noticing the noises or conversations around us can fine tune our listening.
We can also adapt or flex the way we listen. For example, consider these five types of listening:
- Listening to Learn: Informational;
- Listening to Understand Emotions: Empathetic;
- Listening for Pleasure: Appreciative;
- Listening for Evaluation: Critical;
- Listening to Build Relationship: Rapport.
Different situations and personalities require us to listen differently. Informational and critical listening are required in technical environments but to truly understand your audience (which is our next key skill) you need to learn empathetic and rapport listening. When you exercise empathetic listening, you pay attention to your audience’s emotions: frustration, disappointment, excitement. When solving a problem (which often is the scope of work for technical professionals) the best way to succeed is to resolve a pain. You can’t just listen to collect facts.
Your ability to listen is an asset to your research phase, your conflict resolution skill and your reputation as a team player.
Understand your audience.
Too often technical professionals don’t distinguish between need to know and nice to know details and end up overwhelming their audience. Only include what your audience needs to be able to decide, understand, or act. The rest of the facts can be left out. To determine what to include, analyze who you are communicating with:
- What is my purpose for communicating?
- How much does my audience know about this subject?
- What do I expect the audience to do with this information?
- Is this audience technical or non-technical?
- Is there more than one person?
- What questions will my audience have about this topic?
Now all you need to do is make sure you have answered the questions. For example, if you are writing a proposal, I’m confident your audience will ask: What are you going to do? When will you do this? How much will this cost?
Remember, although you are originating the communication, it is all about the audience. If they don’t understand your message, the whole effort is wasted.
Determine the best medium
We have several communication tools to choose from but some work better in certain situations. Just because you are comfortable with one doesn’t mean it is the best for the situation or for your audience.
Here are some considerations:
- This is the most used tool and I’m not sure we can function without it.
- We can send to multiple people and send large
attachments. - It keeps a history which can be handy if we forgot what
was decided. - Because we read it when we want to, it is easier to
manage our time. This also allows us time to think about our response. - Some messages require voice and facial expressions to
be fully understood and we lose that with email. - Email can be placed in the wrong hands and may
cause conflict or hurt feelings. - There are some facts that you might not want kept as a
history and email holds us accountable.
Text Messages
- A text is useful when the message is short and
you don’t have time or desire for a email or phone call. - People working in remote locations are more likely to
receive a text than an email or call. - Photos and videos can be quickly sent to help explain
conditions. - Be careful with the auto correct tool because the wrong message could be sent.
- Tone is lost in cryptic text messages and may cause
misunderstandings. - Make sure that the people you are texting are
comfortable with this tool; it can be frustrating if the speed varies between parties.
Phone Calls
- If a topic leads to multiple questions and other topics, a phone call is much more efficient.
- Sometimes a message requires tone of voice which the
phone allows. - If building relationships (empathetic listening) a phone
call is best. - People may avoid the phone because a phone call may
be unexpected, a person may be caught off guard and not know the answers. - If not managed well, a conversation can go off topic
and take too much time; another reason people avoid this tool.
So, do I think communication is important to technical professionals? Absolutely. A technical person who cannot share or exchange ideas, opinions, and information will end up crunching numbers in the basement. However, a technical person who communicates by listening, understanding the audience and selecting the right medium, will be a valuable team member and be invited into boardrooms.
Because communication is a skill, you can learn the concepts and practice techniques.