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One area to which the “Golden Rule” does not apply is communication.  You should never talk with people the way you want to be talked with; you should always communicate with others the way they want to be communicated with.

Just like everyone has a different work style, everyone has a different method of communication with which he or she is most comfortable with.  Each of us has a method at which we’re most reachable by, are most responsive to and feel less awkward with.  Some people hate the facelessness of emails, some don’t have Twitter accounts, some would be more inclined to reach out to a stranger electronically, and some feel tongue-tied in person.  If you want to create or foster a positive relationship with people, it is important to address and deal with them via a method through which they feel they’re at their best.  If you approach someone out of his element, chances are they are not going to be willing to communicate with you, regardless of how useful that communication may be to both parties.

People make faux-pas along those lines all the time.

• Cold calling people who are selective call-returners
• Sending urgent emails to co-workers who don’t have smart phones (and who are not tied to their desks/computers).
• Texting friends who do not have text-messaging plans (and thereby forcing them to cough up $0.50 per text in addition to annoying them).  There are some good business communication tips here.
• “Dropping by” someplace where a senior manager might be to casually mention a proposal you’re working on
• Sending formal emails pointing out mistakes or misconducts to an employee who clearly told you to come to him if you had any issues with his work product

Each of those methods (cold calling , text messaging) are in and of themselves neither good nor bad.  However, when paired with the wrong person on the other end, they could be devastating to your relationships and your goals.  Cold calling someone who doesn’t return calls or pick up the phone will obviously not get you the sale.  Pointing out mistakes via email might give the recipient employee a sense of being a bit attacked as opposed to a desire to fix the errors and move on.

Just as you cater the content of your speech to the individual (hopefully), so you must cater the medium.  While it might be that the recipient’s preferred method of communication is not your preferred method, take it as an opportunity to get out of your comfort zone and get comfortable with another medium.  Incidentally, that is how many shy people acquire their networking skills.

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At the risk of sounding touchy-feely, I need to impart on you how important it is to be aware of what your employees are feeling.  Someone once told me that as soon as a person feels something, it becomes true.  In other words, a person’s opinion becomes his reality.  It doesn’t matter at that point what is fact and fiction.  If I feel like I’m being mistreated, I believe that I am.  It doesn’t matter whether you, as my boss, believe that you and everyone else at work is really good to me.  You cannot argue that point with me and win because my belief in this is based in feeling, not fact.  If my feelings are strong enough, they will outweigh whatever facts are present.  The only thing that you can and must do is to find out what I’m feeling and, more importantly, why.

The “why” is important in terms of what circumstances or events led to my feeling.  It doesn’t matter, however, whether it’s logical for the event to have contributed to or caused my feeling.  The fact is that it did.  All you, as manager, can do is to determine that A in fact caused B, and that in and of itself is extremely valuable.

For example, if an employee is tired because he worked late the night before, he might blame his boss for being a slave driver or the company for not allocating work appropriately.  It doesn’t matter that he worked late because he is not as fast at getting work done as others.  What matters is what you gather from this: that (a) the employee is dissatisfied and (b) that it is working late that is making him so.  You can draw you own conclusions and solve the problem.  You can, for example, give him some training to increase his efficiency or work with him to manage his time better, depending on what you think is the cause of his late nights.

What you can’t and shouldn’t do, however, is argue right, wrong, and logic.  You shouldn’t say the employee is being unreasonable because he has only been working late a few nights and you can’t say that your being a slave driver is an outrageous accusation.  Even if they’re true, these reasons will mean nothing to the employee who feels wronged.

Therefore, the way to avoid unnecessary attrition, gossiping, accusations, and general discontent is simply to take interest in what your employees are feeling.  Showing your genuine concern will help build the relationship necessary for people to open up more to you, which in turn prevents even more problems before they start.  It becomes a virtuous cycle.

How you build this relationship is a whole separate topic, but one simple thing you can do is schedule weekly meetings with each of your employees individually.  Talk to them about how they feel about their work, their workload, their career development, their learning, their efficiency, and what can help make any and all of those work better for them.  It might seem awkward at first and both parties will be hesitant, but after a while it turns into a habit and becomes natural.  Just stick with it and be committed to it.  You will see instantly how much it both improves communication with your employees generally and gets you insight into their feelings specifically.

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A few weeks back, Matt Blumberg of Return Path wrote a post about what gets said versus what get’s heard and nothing is more applicable to this than the language of deadlines.

Let’s examine some basic logic here.

If on Monday you say:

“Have this done by Friday,” this says to me that you are expecting this no later, but not necessarily any earlier, than Friday.  This also says to me that you won’t harrass me tomorrow or the day after about whether I’ve done it, but I should expect full retribution if by some extraordinary reason I don’t have it to you by Friday.

“This needs to be done ASAP,” this says to me that I have to either a) guess as to what you consider to be ASAP for me or b) apply my own interpretation as to what ASAP means.  If I’m not masochistic, I will probably ask you to clarify when exactly you want this done by, which is when you should respond with the phrasing in the previous paragraph.  However, most people will assume b), which will probably not be the same timeframe as a).   Therefore, if I hand the assignment in the next day when you actually wanted it the previous day, you cannot tell me I’m late with it and you certainly can’t go around writing on my reviews that I don’t meet deadlines! “ASAP” is not a deadline; it’s a figure of speech.

Same thing applies to setting priorities:

“This is more important than what you’re currently working on so do this first,” means I have to drop what I’m doing and do this new assignment. It doesn’t tell me when I have to turn it in but that’s what the above guideline for setting deadlines is for.

“This is really important,” means this absolutely needs to get done and I should definitely not forget about it.  However, the other work I’m doing is also important, so I’ll just add this to the queue. A statement like this gives me absolutely no guidance as to where this task falls in the food chain, which is fine unless you actually wanted it to get done first.

The moral here is be precise.  Be clear.  Think of it as covering your own ass.  When setting deadlines and priorities, you have to be so clear that there is only ONE way that your words can be interpreted.  That way no one can say “Oh I thought you meant this.”  If you don’t do that, however, don’t get all huffy that people can’t read your mind as to when and in which order you want things.