Pressure is on for engineers to communicate face-to-face

MIT created this undergraduate program focused on “people skills” in response to industry pressures to produce engineers who are as skilled at communicating face-to-face as they are at writing complicated computer codes on their own.

A great industry example of why the courses in myLearning are VERY applicable to your job!

Read the report here.

You Don’t Know How to E-Mail

I’d say my biggest gripe at the office is our persistent and abundant inability to effectively communicate via e-mail.  I say “our” because I’m guilty of this, too. Two things got me thinking about this today:

1. I received an email with a blank subject line
2. Then I received an email sharing Erik Goodlad’s “5 min/20 Slides” presentation at Ignite Boise about managing emails

Hear me for a minute: if you’re swamped with emails, so are your co-workers, manager, and most importantly… your clients and subject matter experts.  By following some of the tips from Mike Song’s book, The Hamster Revolution, you’ll communicate better and do a better job managing your emails.

Check out Erik’s presentation, too:

What’s The Cost of Misinterpreted Messages?

“What’s the cost of misinterpreted messages?  Like a serve and return, innovation has two core foundational elements:  learning and communication.  New processes and discoveries must be learned and continuously better-communicated. ”  Mike Koper

Read the full article here:  11 Tips on Talk, Improving Communication Improves Human Performance.

What is an example (work or personal) where a mis-communication was costly?  What is your estimate of how much time or money it cost you or your organization?

Your Title is NOT an Exemption

Nothing frustrates employees more than supervisors, and particularly an org’s top leaders, who feel as though they are above the standards they set for others.  Managers who think this routinely drop the ball on projects, see a high turnover of staff, and often wonder why the team isn’t performing to its potential.

Examples I’ve personally experienced include:

• asking subordinates to work late on a Friday to meet a deadline… and promptly leaving at 3:15 for “coffee”… and not coming back to the office until Monday at 10am.
• scheduling “mandatory” meetings to get a project moving forward, only to schedule something else at the same time and attempt to play double-duty in both meetings. (Please don’t ever attempt to “run” meetings you don’t plan to attend!!)
• making every request seem like a critical fire that needs immediate attention… and you work your butt off only to find out that it was only critical b/c the boss dropped the ball a few weeks ago by not passing the information along to the team at the appropriate time.

Read more from LeadStar:

Lead Star | News and Insights | On Our Minds | Title is Not an Exemption

~Kristin

All Things Workplace: Four Ways to Help People Learn

http://www.allthingsworkplace.com/2009/08/four-ways-to-help-people-learn.html