by Web Master

Clear Communication

Trudy Downes

/ Feb 21, 2024

I recently held a training session on communication. The group broke into teams. One person from each team left the room. Those 'speakers' were in radio contact with their team and their job was to accurately describe an abstract picture (on an A4 sized piece of paper) back to their teammates who would then draw what they heard. The results were interesting.

The teams were being asked to have a conversation about an abstract item, using only words. No body language, no facial expressions, no hand signals, no shared reference points and the goal was for accuracy.

The results varied from hilarious to somewhat accurate but not to scale or well placed on the page. I called the exercise to a stop after about five minutes. The best results came from the teams where they had started by creating a shared reference framework such as whether the paper was landscape or portrait and seeking clarification along the way. They did much better than I thought they would!

Discussing what helped or hindered the accuracy the following points were raised.

Avoid jargon and technical speak. eg Instead of saying an equilateral triangle, say a triangle with three equal sides
Understand the stress of the situation. Not everyone was familiar with working radios and not everyone has the same level of hearing. The desire to ‘compete’ with other teams can lead people to rush, the desire for accuracy can cause people to focus on irrelevant details.
One key piece of information at a time
There was never going to be a winner. The best you could expect was that there would be a fair representation of the desired result and never an exact replica.

How would you have described the drawing to someone who couldn’t see you or the picture?

We then discussed doing the exercise again, with a one minute time limit using the following picture. No one believed it was possible to do in less than a minute.

Here is a 30 second breakdown of the picture above:

The paper is landscape
At the bottom in the middle is a square house with a triangle roof
There is a rectangle door in the house with a round doorknob
On the left of the house is a big tree
On the right of the house at the top of page is the sun
On the right of the house are four flowers.

It is easy enough to go through that description twice in one minute.

No one believed you could achieve the ‘speed’ result in less than a minute because their heads were still wrapped up in achieving the same degree of accuracy from the first picture. Some people are detail-driven and they wanted to describe the details of the sun. Trust me, if you draw a circle with some lines coming off it over a house and a tree then most people will know it represents the sun, the details don’t matter.

So why is all this relevant to our wellbeing and safety?

We put up signs in and around our buildings without always having eye contact or an agreed reference framework with our audience. For example I have written this article and I have no idea who is reading it; is English your first or second language or are you just focusing on how well (or not) I use punctuation? The lessons are still the same if you want to make sure your messaging gets across:

Create a reference framework that anyone can understand
Avoid jargon and technical speak. Keep the message simple and clear
Understand the stress of the situation and make it easy for people to follow, don’t get tangled in the details
The best a writer can expect is a fair representation of the desired result.

Ahakoa he iti, ka nui te wehi

Although small, the impact is significant

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa. Keep Safe.