A Tale with Two Morals

Last week, I was working on a document for a project team of which I am a member. I had agreed to send it to my colleague so he could give his comments, and then we could send it to the entire team the next day, at the latest. I sent the document as an attachment, and went back to my work.
The next afternoon, I received an urgent e-mail from my colleague, which was forceful in its tone.
'Keith, (my colleague wrote), I am still waiting for his document. Let's not lose momentum on this. I would like to send this out to the project team as early as possible.'
I wrote back immediately that I had sent the document as an attachment in my previous mail. In case my colleague had a problem with attachments, I copied the text from the document and included it in the mail.
My colleague wrote back apologising, saying that he had somehow missed the attachment.
Originally, I had thought that he was obviously better with technology than me. This is an opinion I have about everyone. I am really bad at things like text messages, e-mail, etc., in fact I only have a very basic knowledge of any computer program. I still prefer to use a flipchart rather than Powerpoint. What is important, however, is that I know I'm useless. This is really a very important difference. I make it very clear to people what I am able and unable to do. This is why nobody is surprised when I send an e-mail with no attachments and only the text 'FYI' in the body. This is also why people will give me a copy of information in a way that is easy for me to take in, as they know that any other way increases the risk that I will not be able to talk to them about their offer later. To my knowledge, nobody thinks I am stupid. I try to improve my skills, but if I do, I keep it a secret!
Somebody who I'm reminded of in this aspect is Warren Buffett. First of all, I am in no way saying that the billionaire investor and I are similar in any other way (the difference in the number of zeroes in our bank account balances should convince anyone of that), but when I read the article on the swampland blog regarding Buffet's part in the fall of Lehman Brothers' Bank.

"Buffet was hurrying to a social event when he received a call from Bob Diamond, the head of Barclays Capital. Diamond was trying to buy Lehman Brothers and rescue it from oblivion, but he was having trouble with British authorities. So he had come up with another plan, one in which Buffett would provide insurance that might make it all work. It was all too complicated for Buffett to take in in a quick phone call, so he asked Diamond to fax him the details. Buffett got back to his hotel room around midnight and was surprised to find ... nothing. Lehman went under, and within days, the world was in a full-blown financial crisis.

Fast forward 10 months. Buffett, who admits he never has really learned the basics of his cell phone, asked his daughter Susan about a little indicator he had noticed on the screen: "Can you figure out what's on there?" It turned out to be the message from Diamond that he had been waiting for that night."

Later, when asked if Diamond's proposal would have persuaded him, Buffett admitted that it was a possibility.

For me, there are clearly two morals to this tale.
Firstly, we are (unfortunately) very definitley in the 21st century now, and part and parcel of this century's business in the fact that the main communication tools are e-mail, cellphone (including sms text messages), and voicemail. This is how business is done today. Many businesses no longer even have a fax. If someone carries a mobile phone, he or she should really be prepared to receive calls. If he or she does not answer every call, voicemail is inevitable.
The second moral is much more important, as it relates to my own technical skills. It is also one which many people are ignoring, and it is this: If someone asks you to send a fax, you send a fax. You assume that they have asked for a fax for a specific reason. They may prefer to receive faxes, or may not have time to listen at the moment, but a fax can be read at any time. Perhaps they don't have access to their computer, and don't know how to use voicemail.
A corollary of this rule is: If trillions of dollars may be at risk because of a vital part of the world merchant banking system is at risk, send a fax, leave a voicemail message, send an e-mail, send a letter by courier, and follow Warren Buffett to wherever he's going.

People are People!

Occasionally, people ask me if I have any good advice for them to remember as they start a new job, or when they are about to meet and do business with a new culture. My favourite maxim is this deep philosophy: 'People are People'
When I say this, most people either just laugh and say 'Isn't that the title of a Depeche Mode song?', or they just laugh, and remind themselves to get advice elsewhere. What Iactually mean, of course, becomes clear when you think about what people are. In the film Men in Black, a character learns that there are aliens living on Earth, and that this fact is kept a secret from the public. He asks 'Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.' His colleague answers:
'A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. '
This is an entry to my way of thinking. To continue, we can say that people are, at various times, thoughtful, kind, random, surprising, cruel, highly intelligent, equally stupid, forgetful, absent-minded, creative, dull, blank, unoriginal, unprepared, efficient, assuming, etc. The list of character traits that people can have is as long as the list of people on the planet!
With this in mind, it is a wonder that we are able to communicate effectively with anyone at all. Fortunately, people are people (!), and it is in human nature to communicate, to connect, and to want to join together and interact. This, together with our tendency to make assumptions (e.g. when someone says "Can I have some coffee?" we assume they want us to give it to them in a cup with boiling water poured on it) makes human interaction possible.
So, remembering that people are people, we should really hope that they have all the virtues, but prepare for the eventuality of them having all the vices! If we communicate using simple language that is impossible to misunderstand, and continuously ensure that the listener comprehends, and accepts the message, then we achieve our goal. In order to communicate effectively, we sould never assume that the listener 'is on our wavelength'. To paraphrase, we should treat the listener as if they are children.
Of course, I don't mean we should condescend, or speak in a patronising tone of voice, but we must remember that people are people, and children are very easily distracted, and very quickly lose focus. It is also true for us, that our listener may be trying (successfully or not) to multitask, and read while we are speaking, or speak while they are reading what we wrote. We must be prepared for our listener to be interrupted, or to suddenly be forced to leave. We cannot rule out the possibility that the head of a multinational corpporation is also distracted from a conversation (although he probably won't be distracted by the ice-cream van coming round the corner!).
Happily, the opposite is true, too, and because peope, make assumtions, and suppositions, we don't have to worry too much about giving explanations exact enough that a computer will understand and follow. How often do we hear or say the welcome comforter 'I know what you mean'?
My advice, therefore, for effective communication is to think of people as people, to consider, but also to welcome the human element.