A recurring theme I’ve heard over the years is that customer/software vendor/services vendor/sales rep/help desk lie. Although that may sometimes happen, more often than not, it’s the result of poor communication skills on one or both sides.

Getting Better or Getting Worse?

In some ways, it appears that people in our industry have become somewhat more sophisticated about how they request and deliver information. On the other hand, there are other people in our industry who are too stubborn to consider that they’re just as fallible as the rest of us and refuse to make an effort to clarify what they say. In addition, our small world continues to become more global in scope and more blended every year. To communicate with an increasing number of cultures involved in our business, we must make the effort to communicate effectively even more intensely.

An Example

A customer of mine was watching a product demo and asked if “the software could do X.”  The software’s sales representative replied, “Yes.”  Upon receiving the software, the customer looked through the manual and couldn’t find the feature that he’d asked about.  He called the software company and found that it didn’t do what he’d asked about. As you can imagine, he was particularly upset about this.

I know both parties in that transaction fairly well, so let me “translate” what each party really meant by what they said:

Customer:  “Is X a module in the system that could be set up (notice that I didn’t say “configured”) by pressing a few buttons and entering some static data?”

Sales rep: “Yes, it will do X, provided you do lots of programming using our own programming tool.”

It Happens Over-and-Over Again

Let me come clean--this isn’t just one isolated example.  I’ve heard of this exact situation from other people, as well.  Here’s another, unrelated example:  When my office was in Michigan, there was a traffic circle a few blocks from my office.  Despite its rules being described in the “Rules of the Road,” booklet, few drivers seemed to understand how it worked, as so few people read the “Rules of the Road.”  So, the rest of us could say, “Well, it’s not my fault that these other people don’t understand the law.  I’m going to drive assuming that they do and it’s not my problem.” 

Of course, those of us “in the know” about the traffic circle can’t and don’t deal with it and other drivers in this way because we don’t want to get into an accident.  We approach the circle planning to be cautious about the other drivers, which is the entire premise behind defensive driving. And so, driving is not as much about being right as it is being safe, although it’s not always something we remember when we’re angry with another driver. The same can be applied to LIMS – do you want to be right or do you want to be understood?

Watch Your Language

In this newsletter, and in articles elsewhere, I’ve urged readers be as descriptive as possible and to refrain from assuming the other person is listening or speaking in the same frame of reference. My pet peeve is the very confusing—and sometime downright expensive—use of the word “configuration” to mean “customization,” as some of you have gathered in my periodic attacks on this issue over the years.

If you’re using language you know or suspect is confusing or misleading to the other party, remember that in some people’s minds, that is equivalent to lying. Now, you don’t want to be accused of that by a potential customer or vendor, do you?

Ask More Questions

If you’re unsure whether you and other people with whom you are talking are on the same track—let alone the same page—try asking questions about what they think you’ve been discussing, and then ask the same question in a different way. That will sometimes illuminate gaps in understanding. Of course, this is not an easy skill to acquire, but can be learned with practice and experience. Plus, dealing with an irate client or vendor because of some misunderstanding is enormous motivation.

In the End
Getting the right information communicated between two parties is easier said than done. However, the realization that each of us contributes to the problem is a step toward minimizing it, although it’s not something we’ll ever be able to eliminate.

And, just as some of us drive in a manner that indicates that we place more importance on being undamaged than in being right, it’s exactly the same situation with communication. Communicate to be understood rather than to be right.