IMPROVING COMMUNICATIONS AT WORK
| Date | 01 November 1988 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb057528 |
| Published date | 01 November 1988 |
| Pages | 19-22 |
| Author | Charles J. Margerison |
| Subject Matter | Economics,Information & knowledge management,Management science & operations |
IMPROVING COMMUNICATIONS
AT WORK
by
Charles
J. Margerison
International Management Centres
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire
Facts and opinions are the life blood of all conversations. It is impossible to have a conversation without
incorporating facts and opinions. It is important to know how to manage conversations in order to gain the
benefit from the facts and opinions available to help solve problems. In this article the following will be covered:
● how to gather and use facts and opinions
● how to open up and close down a conversation
● how to diverge and converge
Every day we are engaged in the exchange of facts and
opinions. We depend on our ability to use facts and
opinions in order to get what we want.
This is so in all our
jobs.
However, facts without opinions
rarely take us very far, especially in managerial work.
To give leadership and direction managers must acquire
and present the facts to support their opinions, and also
develop opinion's and views on what to do when the
facts are there.
Most of the time we mix facts and opinions. We might,
for example, cite a fact,
then,
as a result, express an
opinion.
For example: "Our competitors have reduced
their price by ten per cent; therefore we have got to
reduce our costs". The initial statement is one of fact,
the second one of opinion.
Sometimes people put their opinions first and follow up
with the facts, as in this example: "I have felt for a long
time that we spend more advertising our old product,
because it still costs only half that of the new product
to produce".
Managing the Facts
A key conversational skill is to know the difference
between an opinion and a fact, and to use it to your
advantage. Never let a person get away by giving a set
of opinions without you asking for some supporting
facts.
Equally never let a person confuse you with facts
when what you want is an opinion on the information.
One of the world's most successful businessmen,
Harold Geneen, Chairman and Chief Executive of the
American giant AT&T, knew the difference between
facts and opinions. Each month he would call all his
senior managers together for a reporting session. At
these meetings each manager had to present both facts
and opinions on the state of their business operations
and indicate the likely consequences. Geneen was
renowned for insisting on opinions either based on or
supported by what he called "the unshakeable facts".
He once sent a memo to all his executives which read
as follows: "The highest art of professional
management requires the literal ability to 'smell' a 'real
fact' from all others — and moreover to have the
temerity, intellectual curiosity, guts and/or plain
impoliteness if necessary to be sure that what you do
is indeed what we will call an 'unshakeable fact'"[1].
However, facts without opinions are like cars without
drivers. They will not take you very far. You need to be
able to drive your facts by having opinion and views on
what they mean. There are various stages in which you
need to develop skills. First establish why you want
facts,
then proceed as follows:
(1) Gather the facts. It is not always easy to
recognise a fact even when it is presented. The
speed of presentation and the number of facts
available may make it difficult for us to
understand. Therefore, unless you have a clear
purpose, you may not understand what facts are
important. Learn how to get the essential
information on to paper or on to a visual aid.
Develop a shorthand way of recording the data,
so that you can refer to it easily.
(2) Understand the facts. If the facts are not clear
to you, then start asking some questions. They
may be general open-ended questions such as
"How did you obtain this information?" or more
specific questions like "Why is it that the figures
you gave at the beginning are not in line with
the final results you have outlined?" Or you may
simply wish to say "Thank you for all the
information you have presented; what, in your
opinion,
does it mean?" So understanding can
be a matter of clarifying the facts or appreciating
the meaning behind the facts. So far you have
not moved to the important stage of using the
facts.
IMDS
November/December
1988
19
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