Communication breakdown can happen to the best teams or at any place of work Despite the fact that it is very vital to the success of any team in attaining its set goals. The famous ‘Tower of Babel’ that never reached the point of completion despite the huge amount of resources and manpower that was committed to it was simply as a result of communication breakdown.
The workplace is filled with people from different cultures, ethnicity, religious and social backgrounds, hence, ensuring communication is top notch between you and your coworkers is very vital and cannot be undermined in any way.
These differences mean that communication breakdown is bound to happen. Your key responsibility is to help your teams attain their respective goals and targets. If you are ever faced with communication breakdown in the workplace. Take a look at ways to handle it.
Take A Different Approach
Learn what caused the communication breakdown and take a different approach. It could be your language, channel or tool used in passing your message. Figuring out where or what led to the breakdown would ensure you try something different.
Find a new way to communicate better with your teammates. There are several tools that technology provides for you and your coworkers to achieve this. In essence, find out how the communication breakdown happened and resolve it.
Focus On Solutions
When there is a total breakdown in communication to a point where it results in a chaotic workplace, the natural reaction is to panic when it happens. Most people spiral into blaming the one person, group or team but this is the wrong approach.
Ideally, whilst taking stock of what went wrong and what you intend to do differently, it’s important to focus on a solution to move on from the communication break down.
Focusing on a solution could be a simple as extending tasks timelines, changing your use of language to communicate clearly with the receiver in mind. You will need to get feedback from all parties involved to achieve this.
Ask Questions To Avoid Miscommunication
Making assumptions is a recipe for disaster in the workplace and by extension, your career. If you receive a task, even when you understand it, take the initiative to ask questions where you are not clear or have doubts. If there is already a communication breakdown, which is a hindrance to accomplishing the project or tasks, don’t hesitate to ask questions. When you get to any point where you are unclear about anything, ask questions.
Perception and Listening Skills
Paying attention to your coworkers and their backgrounds would help you improve your perception and listening skills. When there’s a communication breakdown, it is a great time to work on the aforementioned set of skills. You will have to achieve this by paying attention to what is being said or communicated to you.
In conclusion, we can always recover from a communication breakdown in order to be able to communicate better. A good way to achieve this is by paying attention to your receiver as well as how they consume and interpret information. This would help you minimise the incidence of communication breakdown.
Have you been faced with communication breakdown in any way at your place of work and how did you resolve it? Kindly share your experience in the comment section below.
