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The late great PT Houston said that he art of communication is being understood.

In today's world where we have technology as a key enabler.

There are many different ways from which we can communicate.

And in fact, perhaps the word communication is one that is too broad,

it's too simplistic.

Not so long ago, communication meant when we spoke with each other.

Today, it could mean a whole number of things and we need to be quite clear when

we talking about communication, what it is we actually mean.

So do we mean one to one, do we mean one to group?

Do we mean virtual communication?

Do we mean by email?

Do we mean through a third party?

So the Internet.

We also need to think about what it is we're trying to do when we communicate.

What message it is we're trying to get across, and to who, where why and when.

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.

>> Well, as a surveyor my role is to deal with property.

>> Mm-hm.

>> The most important thing about property is people.

Properties don't speak to me.

>> [LAUGH] >> I have to

do all sorts of things with him because that's my skill base, but

at the end of that I can stand in front of a brick wall and talk to it.

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

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.

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.

To use Graham's analogy if we went to have a conversation with a piece of property

then the chances are you wouldn't get a reply.

Communication is all about people interacting with people.

Graham's also shared with us the importance of thinking about the receiver.

The person or people that you are communicating with.

How do they went to receive something from you?

That then, will increase your chances of sending a message and

having that message understood.

Graham also shared with us the recognition that we all have that in today's ever more

complex world, there are greater range of options that we have

at our disposal when we decide how to communicate.

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.

And by the way the importance of checking that understanding.

And Graham gave us the example of the meeting that he was in, and

all these papers that he received, and gave the analogy of the distance from that

desktop to Graham's brain to digest that information,

and to understand it in one nano-second, in reality is not going to happen.

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,

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.

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.

>> 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.

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.

You might ask a series of questions that you would expect a response on.

You might send a message after sending an email so

in other words used more than one channel.

So what does all of this begins to tell us about communication?

That in today's world,

it is not just about having a conversation that is face to face.

We have technology.

We have relative degrees of urgency.

We have the absolute importance of thinking about what the receiver would

like to receive, in what format and how and how quickly and why.

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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Interview with Graham Chase | Communication Skills

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