The Communication Tune-Up

Welcome to the season of communication breakdown! After a brief hiatus and period of reflection where I consumed different information from expert podcasters and business professionals, had open conversations with podcast producers, and prayed for creative inspiration, I had an epiphany that led to the theme of this season.

Communication is the lifeblood of your organization, and needless to say, it’s been completely upended by the pandemic with the advent of remote work. Managers were faced with the task of restructuring their teams and workflows to satisfy new needs in a changing work environment.

But since not every person, team, and organization has adapted in the same way, in this episode we delve into the details of the top of mind actions you can take to preserve and improve upon communication at work.

By now you’re asking “Great Ash, how can I become a better communicator and leader of communication at work?”

In this episode, I break down…

Communication 101: A crash course in how communication worked before the pandemic vs. now
How we go about managing, organizing, creating, and executing our work
Living in an asynchronous world, how to balance asynchronous vs synchronous communication and what they both mean
How to vision board and execute what the communication workflow looks like for your team on a day-to-day basis
The way to use communication tools, determining which are best for which application, and how to set and maintain effective boundaries

Key Quotes & Conclusions…

“We go from the in-person experience to the remote experience, and for some that shift was easier, for others it was very difficult. So now we have to think of people, process and technology in a different way.”
“Asynchronous communication means I don’t have to respond to a message right away… Asynchronous communication allows for space in between the sender and the receiver.”
“What is time sensitive information? Not all communication is urgent, and not all communication needs to be acted upon. You must decide what constitutes that urgent or time sensitive communication.”
“It may be that not everyone needs to know particular information at the time that it’s being communicated or relayed. The decision that needs to be made; you need some strategists involved before you get the operations and the implementers in.”
“Going from synchronous communication in person– hopping in Ubers, flying in person to meetings– we went from that to literally shutting that down, and going straight remote. So we had to figure out how we were going to structure communication.”