Survey: People skills valued over those for IT

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Direct Communicators

Interesting article. Gates is clueless but then many are.

Many of us in IT have worked hard to simplify communications only to be horrified by the fear of email which surfaced shortly after it was used in the second US Microsoft anti-trust case. At that time I thought e-mail communication was the future and that it would replace regular mail and much of telephony forms of communication.

As it is becoming understood, this future was only acceptable to those who are direct communicators, which in the USA is about 40 percent of the population. The us shoot from the hips concept of communication is illustrative.

Direct communicators do not see email as rude but rather as a game of catch. I toss the ball you catch and send it back. But as it turns out about 40 percent of the US population sees email as rude - especially when they are physically just down the hall. We have even had organizations create policy restricting the use of email.

With concern over creating a paper trail and those who see email as rude, its promise for productivity enhancement has been greatly reduced. The same promise threatens Blogs and of course chat forms of productivity enhancement. Lets be clear the US is now in one of its most productive stages and the reason is communication by electronic form other than telephony.

This article points to a more subtle battle for productivity in the work place. This is a battle of those who describe them selfs as GREAT team members which most of us think are good listeners but bad communicators. These are the fellows in a class room that never participate, never ask questions and never make their point known.

Direct communicators listen for the point which is often conveyed quickly and brilliantly in short email or blog entries. The rule they operated under is Quick - Brilliant and Gone on to other issues. Those who are thought of as great listeners were not rewarded in college for that. Sure they learned, but in college you are rewarded for participating.

So here is what we need to forestall the inevitable decline in US productivity being advanced now by Bill Gates. We need to make direct communication less threatening to those who need a meeting to create relationship. We need to turn the business place into a university learning environment and we need to do that soon before our lives are consumed building relationships in teams that usually produce little.

Frank L. Mighetto CCP

Posted by: mighetto   Posted on: 12/14/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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