Planned spontaneous communication

Author: Kevan Hall

When people sit close together, they communicate spontaneously, they look up; catch the next person’s eye and chat. Once people are out of eye contact this spontaneous communication fades quickly. Once we have to pick up the phone or compose an email, it virtually disappears.

There is a risk that I only call my colleagues when I either need something or have a problem - every piece of communication is at best neutral and often negative. It is hard to pick up the phone to colleagues, particularly if you do not know them very well.

The risk is that we lose the many small social interactions and pieces of communication that build a community and oil the wheels of cooperation. These are what we call the “water-cooler moments�; those short, informal face to face interactions that are so common in teams based in the same location.

If every communication is neutral or negative then communication becomes something to avoid. People will dread the calls from their remote colleagues and fall back even more on local relationships and priorities.

Because spontaneous communication is less likely in remote organizations and is so important, we cannot leave it to chance – we need to plan for it. Planned spontaneous communication may seem to be a contradiction in terms but it is an important technique

When a new person joins our team, we give them a list of all the other people in the team with their contact details. We tell them we expect them to make contact with each of the people on the list each week. We explain that we want them to feel guilty f they haven’t spoken to their colleagues for about a week to 10 days.

After a week, we ask them who they have spoken to. Usually they have only spoken to the people they actually met in the first week. Their reason is always the same “The existing guys seem really busy and I don’t feel like I have a reason�. We ask them every week until they are making regular contact with a number of their colleagues. It does not have to be everyone because once they are established some people prefer more connection than others – the important thing is that they build a social contact network early.

Each week all the members of my team try to talk, often at the end of the week to ask, “How was your week�. It is nice to share your jokes, your successes and your stories with someone who lives the same kind of life you do. There is no business objective to the call, but often people will say “Oh, while I have you on the phone….� and something important just pops out. Often these are things that individuals would not have called you specifically to discuss but once the communication channels are open it flows naturally.

We call this keeping the drumbeat or heartbeat of communication going. It allows communication to flow more naturally and means that not every communication is a request for information, support or extra work.

Try planning some spontaneous contact with your colleagues.

Last updated: 11/08/05 04:48pm