Modern Challenges with Communication

Adventures in Businessing: Entrepreneurship, Small Business, and a Healthy Dose of Humor

Show Notes:

• [0:00:50] Episode Summary | Intro

• THE Jeremy Moore?
• 2nd Vaccine Preparation & Anxieties
• Last Episode Recap
• • Building and Developing Your Team

• [0:04:35] Getting Philosophical About Communication

• Why Communication Isn’t ‘One-Size-Fits-All’
• Dangers of Treating Distributed Communication Like You’re Collocated
• • How this is applicable to all areas of your life.
  • “It started with pagers.”
• Always On, “As Soon as Possible” Culture is a Problem
• • Activity is not to be confused with progress.
  • If you’re always available, when can you ever hope to do ‘deep work’?
  • Anxiety induced by not being available, or forgetting your phone.

• [0:14:08] Story Time: Communication Awareness

• Developing Our Own Communication Tool
• • The justification, the goal, the whys and what-ifs.
• Permissions to Interrupt
• • Is it healthy, or reasonable?
• Not Having Little ‘Red Dot’ Notifications Waiting for You is Liberating
• • It takes time to reset your expectations and definition of work vs busy work.
• You’re More Than a Response Machine
• • Responding to notifications can feel productive, but it can kill creativity and progress by way of context switching.

• [0:20:09] Maybe There’s a Better Way Than Always On

• Training and Retraining Around Communication Expectations
• • We have been conditioned to get notifications and respond immediately.
  • The list of items that require immediate attention in your organization is MUCH smaller than you’re willing to admit.
  • Retraining “I need to know right now” is the major hurdle.
  • The vast majority of “need to know” items can be saved for when you explicitly choose to engage with your email, phone, etc.
• Be Willing to Shift Your Understanding of Urgent & Important
• • You’re probably thinking: “But what if we have an emergency?”
  • • Here’s why it’s probably NOT an emergency.

• [0:24:50] We Tend to “Solve” Management Problems with Software

• The Bigger Problem:
• • How and when you do, or do not, communicate with team members.
• Don’t Be Selfish
• Putting Out Little Fires Prevents You From Accomplishing the Meaningful

• [0:29:03] There Are Emergencies

• But they’re so much fewer than you think they are.
• Document and define emergencies, which details on how and when to respond.
• • Clarity on what is actually an emergency is very important, but use emergencies sparingly.
• Don’t let tools dictate how you run your business.
• • Slack is a perfect example of this.
  • • Why James won’t log into Slack anymore.

• [0:32:49] Closing Thoughts

• “We all need more margin.”
• “Slower and more intentional is usually better.”
• Next Time on AIB