Thampi

5.5 Communication blunders you can easily avoid

/ Jai Thampi / Leave a comment

Every day we communicate with people via many modes: face-to-face conversations, phone calls, emails, snail mails (who sends them these days?), text messages, you name it. We communicate professional and personal stuff. Though we all recognize the importance of proper communication, what we don’t realize often is that we tend to make fundamental communication mistakes that can cause serious consequences such as angry clients, lost business, tarnished reputation, or an upset spouse.

Here are 5.5 common communication blunders found in work environment… and the good news: they can be easily avoided.

1. Not preparing properly

Whether it’s a presentation, an important email message that you are about to send out, or an important conservation you are about to have with somebody, it is essential that you prepare and plan your communication carefully. Create an intelligent, credible and compelling message that can be understood by your audience.

2. Not proof-reading/editing your work

Mistakes such as spelling and grammar errors will make you look silly and careless. Do not rely on spelling checkers because they won’t pick up words that are used incorrectly. Did you notice that I had inserted an intentional spelling error in the above paragraph? I used the word  ‘conservation’ instead of ‘conversation’? A spell check tool will never pick that up.

Do not misspell the name of the recipient. It is an insult.

And how about sending that email to the wrong person? Email clients tend to pick up names from the address book as you start typing the name. What if you accidentally sent out an extremely confidential internal company document to some random guy in your friend’s list (who happens to work for your competitor)?

Another annoying thing I see is the incorrect use of words such as “your/you’re,” “their/there”, “it’s/its”, “effect/affect” etc.

It’s not always easy to spot your own errors so you may want to consider asking one of your colleagues to proof-read the content before distributing it.

3. Assuming that your message has been understood

Email clients can notify you when your message is delivered. But do you know if your message has been understood? You can ensure this by prompting the recipients to respond with questions, or by asking them to repeat back to you what the key take-away of your message was. It is a big big mistake to assume that the recipient or audience has understood your message.

4. Not being assertive

Being assertive is about stating what you need, while taking into consideration the other person’s wants and needs. Being assertive is often confused with being aggressive. Aggression is pushing your way down someone else, and that is not what you want to do to anyone. Assertiveness also means saying “no” when you need to, and saying it in a smart and agreeable manner.

5. Reacting instead of responding

How often have we seen people shout back at somebody, or send a nasty email reply in haste? These are all emotional reactions rather than calm and careful responses. This is what spoils your reputation and upsets people around you. I have known people who lost their jobs because of this.

When feeling emotional rage, tell yourself to calm down… turn off that email client or your computer… step away from the situation for a couple of minutes… do whatever it takes to regroup yourself and get back your composure. Those few minutes are perhaps worth your career or relationship.

5.5 Delivering bad news over email or text message

Am sure you saw that hilarious Facebook post going viral about the guy who broke up with his girlfriend via SMS. If that was laughable and childish, how about laying off someone in your team over email or Whatsapp? Sending difficult messages is not an easy task, and it demands softening the message with non-verbal cues such as body language and tonality.

If you need to deliver a bad news to someone, do it in person. Think of the sensitivity and the emotional state of the recipient before you plan to do so. And be available immediately to actively listen and to take questions from them.

 

We all make communication mistakes once a while. If you can work on the above and avoid these common blunders in your day to day life, you can certainly protect your reputation and maintain your relationships. Over time this will help you achieve greater job satisfaction and to develop into a credible leader and team player.

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Does your Wireless Router make a ‘real’ difference?

/ Jai Thampi / 2 Comments

When my most recent blog post hit facebook, one of my dear friends asked me this in response: “Tell me what diff it makes to consumer….whether he buys a Belkin or Linksys or Motorola router…..as long as his internet provider st[r]eams a good bandwidth”

Now, price is certainly not a concern for him (he works in Wall Street) 🙂 So what makes consumers like him wonder if their Router brand is relevant or not? Simple: many of us don’t know that irrespective of the internet speed (bandwidth) delivered to our homes by our Service Provider, the throttling factor for performance in the home is the Wireless Router.

Let’s say you have a 20Mbps broadband subscription at home (in Singapore you can get 1Gbps fiber broadband for $39/month). Basic applications such as emails, web browsing, listening to online music etc. can be all done pretty well with 1-2Mbps bandwidth. The most bandwidth intensive application in a typical home is video streaming. Even for that, a 720p HD video needs only about 3-4Mbps. If you want to go extreme and stream a Blu-ray quality 3D video that would consume ~10Mbps. Agree, the cloud (server) from where you are downloading a file or streaming a video will also have a bearing on the transfer speed… but all those factors being the same, you should still have sufficient bandwidth left in your internet pipe for your other devices, isn’t it? But then why is it that your YouTube is still buffering? Why are the kids complaining that as soon as the Smart TV in the living room is turned on, the internet access slows down on their study PC, or their facetime chats stutter?

Only one reason: your Wireless Router sucks big time!

If you are using an old technology (Wireless-G, Wireless-N) Router it is highly likely that there is interference with other radio signals in the same 2.4GHz frequency spectrum. No-name cheap Routers use poor quality antennas and electronics which dramatically degrade the performance. Many of these Routers may be using a single antenna configuration (seen in their data sheets as “1×1”) which means, one antenna to transmit and one to receive. This would also mean poor signal strength when multiple Wi-Fi devices are turned on. As many of these off-the-shelf products come from OEM manufacturers they won’t bother to build in any types of QoS (Quality of Service) capabilities into their software. Picture this:  you install the best water supply system and plumbing system in your home, with a large pipe that brings lots of water into the home uninterrupted 24/7. And then you mount a tiny, old, heavily-clogged shower head in your bathroom. Good luck with your shower, isn’t it? 🙂

Industry-leading brands like Linksys and Belkin deliver high performance Routers that use latest Wi-Fi technologies such as Wireless-AC or Dual Band Wireless N. The antennas and electronics used are best-in-class, and there are even multiple antenna configurations such as 3×3 or 2×2 for better transmission and reception of signals. The software inside these Routers are custom-built with QoS enabled. Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Routers even allow you to choose which device or application in your home should get the bandwidth priority. That’s what will ensure lag-free gaming, jitter-free Netflix movies, buffer-free YouTube, crystal clear Skype/facetime conversations, all at the same time.

There’s one other point worth mentioning here as well. Most of us believe that the home network performance is directly related to internet speed from the Provider. With so many connected devices and multimedia content in our homes these days, what we often forget is that we are not always streaming and consuming content directly off the internet. You might have a desktop PC or hard disc (NAS) at home where you store all your ripped/downloaded movies, TV series episodes, music and other stuff. What if you want to stream them to your Smart TV? Yet another reason why you need a robust and high performance Wi-Fi Router such as a Linksys or Belkin Router at home.

Bottomline:

It doesn’t matter how much you spend every month for your blazing fast internet connection… if you are using a lousy Wi-Fi Router, your home network will suffer. Switch to a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router today and experience the difference.