Three tips on the good use of communication. By Diego Perdomo, Program Analyst in Altia.

Throughout my professional career I have discovered tools and methodologies, not exclusively related to technical knowledge, that have improved my day to day challenges that have appeared on the road. The good use of communication is one of those tools that enhances and facilitates our work.

There are many aspects of communication that can help you but in this post I have tried to present three tips that have always been very useful:

Clear, short and concrete messages

Sometimes we want to express a lot of things when communicating: elaborate a broad context, explain all the details, specify at a very low technical level without it being necessary, etc. These are some of the "traps" in which we fall and that can undermine the message that you want to transmit. It is not always possible, but whenever possible, we should try to meet "the CSC" (clear, short, concrete).

One way to help is to imagine that we are on the other side, and as the recipient of our message, ask ourselves: Am I getting the message? Are you telling me what I need to know?

The email can be your ally

Sometimes, we pick up the phone or write through instant messaging to move information without having organized or structured it too much in our head previously. As a consequence, the idea we have, may not get through fully or coherently. In these cases the email is always a good option, since when we have to write what we want to get across, we can review, structure and reread the message as many times as necessary until we are satisfied before sending it.

One good idea is to use short paragraphs, points to enumerate, bold text to highlight and any visual element that facilitates the understanding of the mail as a set of ideas that you are trying to transmit.

Positive communication as a reference

A positive attitude is essential to face our daily work, in the same way, extending this attitude to our communications will make make all the difference.

A positive communication will provide feedback with ease and help create a perfect environment for addressing tasks proactively, encouraging people to face new challenges, motivate and build trust.

A good exercise to improve this aspect is to analyse, for example, messages that you've sent today. Now, try to classify which have been somewhat negative and then think about what reactions have been generated. Would that reaction have changed if you had approached the message from a positive perspective? How do you think it would have changed? After asking yourself this, if the answer is positive and you are still in time, why don't you give it a go and put it into practice?

These are just some useful examples of good use of communication, but there are many more, so it is essential to continue analysing and working every day to get the most out of this powerful tool.

By Diego Perdomo, analyst programmer, A Coruña