Ep 249| 5 Barriers in Communication for Designer & How to practically break it ?

Welcome to this Design for Change podcast. Thank you for staying tuning in with me. In this particular podcast we are going to see why communication is becoming a big problem for all the designers. In fact, this podcast is for freshers, experienced people and also people who are working in senior management as well. Because communication is not just talking English. Communication has two things, internal communication as well as external communication. When you take internal, it's 80 percentage. When you take external, it's only 20 percentage. Okay? So a lot of people are much worried about the external communication, but nobody really talks about internal which is what is causing the major, major blocks in this video. In this particular podcast, you're going to see it in detail. Let's jump in. Welcome guys. Welcome to this podcast and today we have a very, very interesting topic. First of all, how do we understand this? Effective communication is a big problem. A lot of students in my community has also said it's actually blocking them. People are working on it, but they are saying it will take a lot of time. No guys, it won't take much time. I'll tell you why. First of all, communication has five different elements. Okay? What is your clarity and precision is the first, first important thing which you have to understand, okay? If you misunderstand what is the information, what is provided instruction, you will not understand how to even communicate and respond. Second element, active listening. If you are failing to understand what others are saying, you will not understand your user needs, you will not understand your client need, you will not understand what is really happening with these people. So that is the major, major criteria when it comes to active listening. Third is getting feedback. You have to know what is your communication is getting into that person and how are they responding. Get the feedback, close the loop, make it very constructive, guys. This is the third element. Fourth is cross functional communication. Cross functional. When you're working as a designer, you will talk with developers, you talk with testing people, engineers, marketing, sales, everything, okay? If you are somebody who is just entering the industry, your cross functional communication would be with HRS designers, co designers, your mentors, etc. So everything is communication, okay? Fifth is documentation. If you poorly document something, if you're not clear on what you're trying to say, how come people will understand you? There are five elements which I told you now. Clarity and precision, active listening, getting the feedback, having a cross functional communication, collaboration as well as documentation. If you understand this five things, guys, let me tell you, first of all, 80% of your communication will be very clear. You don't have to work on English. I'm not even talking about your English proficiency. That's. That's very, very last. I'm going to tell you at the last of this podcast why it is not very important, okay? According to a survey by Gallup found that teams with a clear communication improve the productivity by 25 percentage. McKinsey report shows effective communication can increase project success up to 30 percentage. While active listening has lot of statistics guys. A study by Deloitte found teams who are practicing active listening has increased their satisfaction index by 26 percentage. Norman Nielsen Group found active listening leads to 40% reduction in design errors. Because the moment if you listen to your customer, your client, you are your customer. What happens is you will understand their need properly and many of your designs will automatically get corrected properly. If you don't understand this only error keeps coming. Gartner research shows that structured feedback mechanism can improve performance of the team by 21 percentage. Forrester also says it reduces product rework by 29 percentage. A lot of industries do a project rework today which can be reduced up to 29 percentage if you are very good in cross communication. Statistar reports tell 35% of the project report Project failures are due to poor miscommunication across the cross functional team. Norman Nielsen group highlights improved cross communication can improve by 22 percentage. Even the clear documentation can improve your project efficiency up to 20 percentage guys. A report by McKinsey said all the statistics and information what I told they are real time. They are actually industries who collect statistics and information from the design industries, from the, from the designers, from the community, from the people and the market. And then they give this value. That is why I told you these five important things you need to fix. Okay? Jagdish, how to fix this? You said this is a problem you've broken down. How to fix this? Let me tell you guys. If you wanted to improve in clarity, you need to first use simple language, use visual aids, use sketches, use wireframes prototype. See Google uses a detailed guidelines. You know when they communicate to different things. That's why they formed Google design system library. It actually makes their products cohesive across various, various various streamlines. Google has huge products and services, right? How they are seamless because they make a very communication clear. Okay. You have to practice writing your communication first, guys. If you wanted to improve, you need to write before what you wanted to say to somebody. At least pick one person whom you wanted to talk with and do this activity and get a feedback from that person and get a feedback from your peers. Also how it is Looks like then you can improve it. How do you improve active listening? See, when you listen to your particular customer or a client and do it in a regular basis and encourage them to openly talk, ask questions, listen. Ask questions, listen. What happens is you will create a huge difference in your understanding. 80% of your understanding comes from active listening. This is the statistics. IDEO fosters a culture of empathy and active listening. You know what? They have a big innovative studio. They are solving some of the intangible problems because they understand their customer from a very, very empathetic point of view. IDEA solves some of the systemic problems. Wicked problems which other industries are even dare to not even touch. Okay, so understand this. You can go to IDEO website and find 101 methods of how ideas cracked many of the problems in the world. Okay. You can conduct user interviews. Guys, practice summarizing these points and ensure how you understood and ask them a feedback. Okay, which leads me to the third point. Feedback. When you document something, when you have a clear process, when you have a mechanism to document whatever you are talking your customer, client, you will understand how feedback is important. You will see how much your refinement in communication happens. See Atlassian design systems. They use a regular Sprint reviews inside their company. They retrospect their processes and refine them completely in an iterative way. Then and only they're able to create a huge difference. So create a feedback form. Why don't you gather your response and discuss with your teams to improve. If you are particularly improving your cross functional collaboration. Make sure you're also talking with your other teammates very easily. And be be very proficient with the tools like miro, Slack, Trello, InVision. So these tools be like very, very good in terms of collaborating with them. Airbnb's cross functional team works very closely, guys. You know what that lead to a seamless user experience across their platforms. Airbnb was very poor before 2013. You can see their design system is so proficient. They are having so much of clarity in their design process. And now everybody is able to operate that website, mobile app, everything which is so clear. Okay, you can do a role playing with your colleagues or your teammates also to make sure how are you getting this cross functional communication? Understand a designer, how you'll talk with developers. Understand how our developers understand. Understand how a testing people understand that this is most most important. And fifth is documentation. Practice writing it down before you document something. Use proper tools to document your first project in a detailed way. Then you can make it in a so detailed visual data presentation. Everything because if you're not documenting properly, it becomes a big problem. You have to see IBM's design thinking framework, guys. This includes a very detailed documentation. They are improving their projects consistently across all the disciplines, across all the horizontals and vert only because of their design thinking framework. What they have. You can go to IBM Design Carbon system how they have formed the design system. You will be really amazed. There are many podcasts also which I've recorded in that and you can also see in the Spotify there are many other designers who have recorded many podcasts in this design system. Okay, so improve upon all these things guys. So now I've given you solutions how to practice it. Jagdish, let me tell you guys regularly practice it anything. If you do it for 31 days, you will see a huge difference. Use proficient tools and platforms to document the things and make a collaboration. Make sure you're collaborating with your teammate to get feedback. Make sure you're having a role play and also mention what is your role and responsibilities. Clearly and always have a mindset of improving iteratively in your communication, in your process. If you're practically doing this and reflecting on a week basis, reflecting on a day basis and then showcasing with your peers or your mentors or an accountability partner, you will see a huge difference. Improvement in your communication. Let me tell you guys, internal communication. What you think, what you speak and what you act is 80 percentage. And 20 percentage is only the English communication. Whatever you make, the outside communication, what you make in that 20 percentage. Also I'll give you one more statistic. This is a research by Chicago institute. They found 56% of your communication happens only through your body language, non verbal. Very, very interesting. 23 percentage happens with your attitude and behavior and your energy. Only 7 percentage constitutes to the English language or a Hindi language or whatever is your regional language which you're talking with. So 20% itself is very small in that 20 percentage. Only 7 percentage constitutes to your so called English skill which you are thinking in your mind as a biggest problem in your design career, which is not the big problem. Thinking clearly, why you want to be a designer. Thinking clearly, what is your skill set? Thinking clearly what your design is, what your strength is. Thinking clearly how to communicate with the people is the major major thing. If you fix this guys, let me tell you, your career will be skyrocket in a different way. I wish you all the best. I've given you all the statistics, information and practical steps. Also how you can improve it. Pin me in this podcast. What did you learn from this your top three takeaways because if you're taking action, only you'll be able to progress in the next next level, guys. And pin me. What did you improve after implementing those tips? I'll be more than more than happy to reply you and comment back to you and get in touch with you. Okay, thank you guys. If you found this podcast useful, please give me a Best start rating in Apple and Spotify and subscribe me in further episodes to get notified as well as if you're an Apple podcast listener, drop me a review, write me there. And if you're a Spotify listener, just drop me a rating and write about what do you think about this podcast? Okay, thank you. We'll see you in another episode. Take care.