The ideas of this article are mainly based on the book: “The First Minute” by Chris Fenning, spiced up by real life examples, own experiences and personal tips and suggestions.
The most common causes of miscommunication at work are lack of context, unclear purpose, not getting to the point, mixing up multiple topics in the same conversation, and long & unclear summaries.
The scope of this article is to raise awareness of how teams can communicate better.
By applying some basic, structured steps, workplace communication can be majorly improved. In a nutshell, these steps are:
- preparing the audience
- getting to the point quickly
- focusing on action & solutions instead of the problem
The book recommends using the first 15 seconds for framing the conversation, by mentioning the context, intent, and key message, and the rest of the 45 seconds for creating a structured summary, including the goal, problem, and solution.
Let’s dive in!
Framing The Conversation [15 seconds]
The focus of the first 15 seconds in any conversation is to give the audience a context of the discussion, present the intent and provide a headline with the most important message.
Giving Context To The Audience
When you start with your conversation (either verbal or e-mail), you already have the context in mind. Keep in mind, that your audience doesn’t! Let’s be realistic here, the audience most probably also has other things in mind, like their own projects, what to have for lunch, problems at home… etc. Context is always needed! Never assume that the audience knows what you are talking about. Giving context takes just a few seconds.
- name the project
- name the process, system, tool
- name the customer
- name the task
A few examples:
- “I am working on project X”
- “I am about to submit a holiday request”
- “The office supplies have arrived”
- “I am planning the office party”
- “My car broke down”
Present The Intent Of The Upcoming Discussion
The scope of this part of framing is to make it clear to the audience why you are communicating in the first place. This part answers the question: Why is the other person listening?
The longer it takes to state the intent, the greater the chances that the audience will form their own opinion about what the intent is. Given the audience’s other preoccupations, there’s a risk that they might make a wrong assumption, like: “This is not important”.
If you are the audience in a conversation, where more than 5 minutes have passed, and you still don’t know what the intent is…ask! “Is there something specific I need to know?”
| Intent Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Need help / advice / input | “Can you help me…?”, “I need advice…”, “Can you please explain…” |
| Request action | “Can you provide an update on…”, “Can you send X to Y?” |
| Waiting for decision | “We need to decide on XYZ” |
| Provide information | “Here is a the report you asked for”, “You need to know …” |
| Just want to talk | “I have a funny story to share…”, “You might find this interesting”, “Do you have time for a story?” |
The Key Message The Audience Needs To Know
This is the most important piece of information that the audience needs to know.
You are doing it wrong if people ask you:
- “Why are you telling me this?”
- “Is there anything I need to do?”
- “So what?”
- “I am not sure what to do with this information”
Let’s Put Context + Intent + Key Message Together
[Context]: I am working on project ABC.
[Intent]: You should know…
[Key Message]: We missed the deadline, but the client said it’s OK.
[Context]: I read the report you sent me.
[Intent]: Can you please explain?
[Key Message]: I want to understand the change in the timeline.
[Context]: I am testing the data transfer process.
[Intent]: We have a problem.
[Key Message]: We are going to finish a month later than planned.
Providing A Structured Summary [45 seconds]
The focus of the next 45 seconds is to give the audience a sense of what you are trying to accomplish, show what is preventing you from reaching the goal and what the solution to that problem is.
You don’t need to be an expert to understand the structured summary.
Keep it simple and concise.
[Context]: I have reviewed the IT security policy
[Intent]: We need to take action
[Key Message]: Our firewall is not compliant anymore
[Goal]: The new industry regulations require a level 5 firewall for all transactions to keep payment data accurate
[Problem]: Our current software only allows us to support up to level 4
[Solution]: We need to come up with a plan for upgrading the software and present it to the leadership team for approval
Real Life Applications
The above framework isn’t applicable only to conversations based communication, but also to:
- Sharing E-mails
- Meeting invites
- Status updated
- Intros for presentations
- Instant messaging platforms
- Interviews
- Answering unexpected questions
Sharing E-mails
Forwarding e-mails
Don’t just expect people to read tens of e-mails dating back 3 months and let them dig for the information you need them to understand. That’s the direct path to misunderstandings and ignored requests.
Instead, treat every forward as a new discussion and include Context & Intent & Key Message & Goal & Problem & Solution.
Long e-mail chains
When a long e-mail chain has been going on for a while, and new people were added to the discussion along the way, there is the chance of misunderstanding and not being up to date with the latest developments. Often people take discussions offline and forget to update the whole group.
The Goal-Problem-Solution (GPS) Summary never killed nobody. From time to time it’s advisable to me included in a long e-mail, for more clarity.
“I have been following this discussion for a while now and would like to clarify the goal we are trying to achieve here. Can you let me know if this summary is accurate?
[Goal]: insert you goal understanding
[Problem]: insert your understanding of the problem
[Solution]: insert your understanding of the solution
Meeting Invites
In this case, the Context and Intent are still highly important, while the Key Message can be replaced by two other elements: Meeting Purpose and Meeting Output.
Context & Intent go in the subject line, while Meeting Purpose and Meeting Output go in the body of the invite.
This meeting invite framing will also at as a support when you start the meeting, because:
- Not everyone read the invite
- Not everyone still remembers the details
- Focuses the group’s attention in the same direction
- Audience is aligned
- Calms your nerves 😊
- Reduces time spent explaining the problem and giving context (yet again) and shifts the focus on solving the issue and finding solutions
Final Comments And Summary
The first minute is crucial for the success of the communication.
While you are ready to talk about a topic, your audience might not be. Help them by following these easy steps:
- Setting clear expectations about the duration of the discussion
- Framing the attention by giving the relevant context
- Letting the audience know what the intent of the discussion is
- Getting to the point quickly
- Make sure they are your right audience
- Giving details about the goal of the discussion
- Naming specific roadblocks and problems to overcome
- Proposing and discussing solutions
If you are as excited about this technique as I am, you can get the book and dive into more details yourself.
