Everyone has heard of the golden rule: Treat others the way you would want them to treat you. Not as many people have heard of the platinum rule: Treat others the way they want to be treated. The difference is subtle but profound. In most of our communication and interactions, we approach things from our own paradigm. We don’t often stop to think about the other person’s paradigm. Our paradigms are the lens through which we see and interact with the world, and we are all different.
How does this apply to the construction world? In construction, we are constantly being assigned to new projects. Each project has a different set of external people (Architect, Contractor, Owner, etc…) and a different set of internal people (Engineers, Drafting, Vendors, etc…). You can’t take a “one size fits all” approach to either your external team or your internal team.
What I typically see, is that people tend to interact in the way that works for them. If you like email, you tend to send emails. If you like face-to-face conversations, you tend to do that. Some of the time, this may work out for you because the person you are interfacing with just happens to have a communication style that is similar to yours. Many times though, I find that the problems we get into on our projects come down to poor communication between the team.
One way to look at this is through the DISC model. If you aren’t familiar with DISC, there are tons of resources on-line that can give you a complete overview. Basically it is a way of looking at peoples preferences when it comes to interacting with each other. In brief, people fall into 4 categories. High D is command and control. Usually your CEO types. Think of General Patton. High I will be more like your consummate salesman. Extroverted and loves to interact. High S is your more feeling types. They will be concerned with other people on the team and making sure there is harmony. The high C’s on your team are more engineering types. They love data and detail. This is a complete oversimplification and most people have a mix of these but you get the general idea.
So how do you apply this? First, you will find your communication will be more effective if you communicate in the other person’s style. For instance, if the general contractor is a high D, it will probably not help you to hit the job site on Monday morning and start asking how his weekend was. However, if your superintendent is a high “I” it will probably help if you spend a bit more time talking about the weekend rather than just launching into your list of questions.
I was in a PM’s office and they were complaining that one of their team members had not followed his instructions. I suggested that maybe it would be good to confirm the verbal instructions in writing. This did not go over well. He didn’t understand why he should have to document what he had told someone verbally. It seemed like a waste of everyone’s time. So, I asked him: What is your preferred communication style? His answer: Verbal, face to face communication was his preference (he is a very high D). I then asked him: What is your team members’ preference. He said he wasn’t sure (he had never asked). I then asked him: What is this person’s first language? It turns out, it isn’t English. So, I said, if you were living in their country, don’t you think it would be good to be able to read the instructions also to be sure you fully understood what was needed? He actually agreed with me. Looking at what would be best for the other person would greatly increase the effectiveness of the conversation.
Communication is what the listener does. You are not communicating effectively unless the person you are communicating with actually got the message. By being agile and changing your communication style to match the other person, you may find that you get much better results overall.
