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And actually, why are we doing it?
What is it we're trying to achieve when we are communicating.
So today, we're going to be discussing these issues with
Graham Chase who is the chairman of Chase and Partners.
And Graham has had a very varied career.
And he's going to share with us some examples of how he communicates and
how he decides on which ways to communicate with the various parties that
he's related with in his different experiences.
So Graham, what do you mean when you talk about communicating?
Let's begin with that.
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If I did, I certainly wouldn't get any answers from it.
But I get my instructions, and the decision-making process, from people.
>> Right.
>> And the first thing to do is to understand people.
It's quite interesting what we said about Peter [INAUDIBLE].
Because it is about understanding and communication.
Another thing in my world of property is
we use rather glibly the words of demand and supply.
And if we look at the demand, you can have, demand is an abstract
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assessment of what the market is looking for.
Ultimately though,
what I need to understand is what is the effective amount.
Which element can I rely on that makes me achieve what I needed to?
And communication is exactly the same.
What is going to be the effective communication?
And you've said, today we have a wide variety of options, a spot for
choice, >> Mm-hm.
>> Making the ability to communicate, strange enough, harder.
>> Yes. >> Because of those options.
You've got to think even more about it.
Long gone are the days when.
If you remember we used to have the tennis.
>> [LAUGH] Indeed.
>> When that machine used to rattle,
you knew that what was coming through was important.
>> Yes.
>> That tended to be little thing that went off on your heads saying I need
to wrack on it.
>> Yes.
>> What do you need to do today?
So what time communication.
First thing is to understand what project is and what it's going to need.
Importantly though, I'm going to put it in terms of there being a client and
a service provider for the purposes of an example.
It doesn't really matter about me as a service provider.
What does matter is the client.
>> Right. >> And therefore, I have to understand how
the client wants to communicate, was often is addressing about that,
is usually the client themselves doesn't know how they need to communicate.
My job is therefore to make sure that I find out what they need and
how best to communicate their cards, that's on the outward side.
The same rules apply inwardly.
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What used to always surprise me, particularly as a youngster, is I'd get
called into a meeting and being told I'd be dealing with this, that, and the other.
Given a whole series of papers.
And then, they'd launch off talking about the project as if I'd understood
everything about it, and within a nano second,
the information in those papers had more from there to there.
That distance from there to there is the longest distance in the universe.
It is the thing that makes them.
So first of all, getting information from that paper into there is a long way and
secondly, and putting down your decision making and
communicating it is a long distance from there to there.
The reason it's long is because you have to unscramble all
the thoughts that the drives the paper coming toward you, or
what you've got up there into something which is effective so you can communicate.
The first thing isn't to worry too much about the media you communicate although
ultimately that will be important.
It is what is needed to communicate to make it effective and to ensure that it is
understood coming back to listener criteria of understanding effectiveness.
>> There are some really important points that we need to emphasize at the moment.
So from what Graham shared with us so far,
the guiding principle about any medium of communication is people.
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But actually what Graham has shared with us is the importance of understanding what
it is we need to communicate in the first place.
Who to, and what they want before you even go anywhere near to deciding how you
communicate because that will follow.
The third and this may be challenging in some situations,
is to make sure that the receiver has time, to use Graham's words,
unscramble what they've received so that they can understand.
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So there needs to be a realistic amount of time for the receiver to get
that information, to understand it, and to descramble it, as it were.
So moving on then.
When you get to that stage of deciding which communication channel to use,
how do you then decide what's going to be best.
>> The importance of the message.
>> Right, okay.
>> And even then there are choices.
So for instance, if the message is critical but your client is in Australia,
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it's not necessarily a good thing to ring
them at one o'clock that time but it's 1 o'clock in the morning that time.
Indeed.
>> But it may be critical that you do, and, if it is critical, and
you simply send them an email, then they need to react within 10, or 20 minutes.
>> Mm-hm.
>> They're asleep, you're not going to get the answer you need.
Now, that's an obvious example.
But it is an important one.
And you're quite right.
The interpreted as I was saying earlier is decide what it is you need to communicate
and then decide how you're going to communicate.
Because I can't give an answer.
It will depend on the circumstances.
Well, I do know, is that everything you do should be tailor made for the client.
On the whole in the service industry, you are not providing widgets.
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You can have a tick box arrangement, but I think most people understands
that if you just simply hide behind the tip box, the service is not provided.
You have to tailor make it.
And therefore, you have to understand circumstances and the need for
communication and what impact it has to have.
Usually, if it's a difficult situation, I will ring.
If it's one where the decision making is obvious based on simple or straightforward
questions, or even if they're complicated questions put simply is the key, an email
may be best to give the decision maker, the client, the opportunity to come back.
Or part of your team, where you're looking for information or looking for answers or
questions, the same thing applies.
A text, something quickly, means we've got a problem arising.
Can I see you in five minutes?
>> [LAUGH] >> Maybe the right way if you can't get
hold of them on the phone.
And then, there are other things where you are reporting or
communicating to a board, and there may be a dozen people on the board.
Trying to speak to each one in turn would be hopeless.
Why?
Not just because of the difficulty of getting hold of 12 in the requisite period
of time, but because your message, it's like this big difference at the end,
when you speak to the last member of the board, than it was to the first one.
And you need consistency of communication.
So then the email or the letter, whatever it is, may be best.
But the key words are effective communication so that the understands and
you choose it depending it on the circumstances.
In another word, communicating is saying we're sending you a report,
it's coming through.
They're about ten points which need decisions.
I'm just ringing you to explain that and
please give me a call once you're ready if there's anything you want to discuss.
Or to communicate you might say, I finished my report, Ii'm pretty confident
about it, you should said that, because otherwise why are they employing you?
I'm going to send you a draft, would you have a look at it and
make sure you feel I've covered all the ground and communicated my views to you
in a way that you understand, or if you feel I need to add anything to it.
So that when they get the report, it does exactly
what they expected you to do and what you said you would do on the tin.
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>> It's really, really so powerful what Graham has been sharing with us.
Because as we said at the start, the word communication, perhaps today,
is not the right word to use anymore, because it is so multi-faceted.
It's a very complex set of processes.
And we've been exploring with Graham now,
how we decide which communication channel or channels to use.
And clearly the importance of that communication
is a key decision making factor.
So is it really urgent?
Is it a priority?
But then, need to think about where that communication is going?
Is it going to Australia and it's 1 o'clock in the morning?
So does that mean you use a safer or different way of communicating.
Well, that depends.
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It depends on what it is, how important it is.
And Graham said with the example he gave us, if you send an important email because
you didn't want to wake anybody up at 1 o'clock in the morning in Australia.
They get email in the morning when they wake up and it's too late to respond,
then that communication has gone very, very, very wrong.
So what does that tell us straight away making decision about what to communicate
and how is not a linear process there are dependencies at each stage and at
each stage you need to make the right call so you take the right course of action.
And also, there is several different news issue you can take as well so for
example if you are sending a communications message to somebody,
you might check their understanding by ask them to come back to you.
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You need to think about the volume of that communication,
you need to think about the timing of that communication,
you need to think about what needs to be done with that communication as well.
So there's a whole number of different angles we need to think about when we're
communicating today using all the different delivery channels that we have
at our disposal.
And thank you very much to Graham for sharing with us some of your experiences.
Thank you, Graham. >> Yes.
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