One experience that always sticks with me is asking a client what their worst source of greatest conflict, that was harming their ability to get the results they needed. After a bit of thought, they said a particular team.
I asked, “What is wrong with the team?”
Client: “They will not do the work we need. They have had weeks.”
Me: “What have you done about this?”
Client: “We sent them an email.”
Me: “What did you do when they didn’t respond?”
Client: “We sent them another email”
Me: “What did you do then?”
Client: “We escalated it to the their boss.”
Me: “How?”
Client: “We sent an email and copied in their boss… but he didn’t respond either!”
As a culture we are getting more averse to just talking to people. This problem was resolved easily by setting up a face-to-face chat and finding out what was going on for the other side.
However, it’s so much easier to just fire and forget!
I’ve definitely fallen into this trap. I once had an argument with someone, over weeks via messages on a bug tracking software. I could have resolved the conflict in 10 minutes by walking the the 5 meters to her desk and find out what was going on.
This is where specific training is useful just to remind everyone what we already know, it’s all comes down to healthy relationships and our ability to consider which is the right tools for the job.
Where does technology use you instead of you using it?
