In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws continues the conversation with Josh Durham, Founder of Gamut Project Solutions and seasoned professional in the construction industry. With over seventeen years of experience overseeing billion-dollar projects, Josh shares insights on making the distinction between the appearance of effective communication and the genuine, meaningful exchange of thoughts and ideas. This episode also offers practical strategies for improving your professional communication, making it a must-listen for anyone seeking to enhance this critical workplace soft skill.
GUEST AT A GLANCE
Josh Durham is an expert in the construction industry with over seventeen years of overseeing complex projects worth over $1 billion in various sectors. Josh founded Gamut Project Solutions to offer guidance and support to his clients as they face the high stakes of commercial construction.
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
🔊 Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
🎙️ Host: Brandon Laws
📋 In his own words: “The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.”
THE SINGLE BIGGEST PROBLEM
In this episode, we pick up where we left off in our last conversation with Josh Durham, Founder of Gamut Project Solutions. While last month, we talked about the Foundational Five leadership principles of Agreements, this episode tackles the second principle: Communication.
George Bernard Shaw once said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” These breakdowns in communication, according to Josh Durham, aren’t just a business issue. We find that, whether in our professional or our personal lives, “when you think you’ve communicated something clearly to someone,” and it goes into their brain and becomes “something completely different, that’s the illusion that true communication has happened.” It’s like the telephone game we played as kids.
So how do we ensure that our message is being heard? And how do we ensure that we’re hearing others? Believe it or not, there are practical steps that we all can take to become effective communicators, but we’ve got to be intentional about implementing these methods in our day-to-day conversations.
PODCAST EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
Falling for the Illusion
“There are plenty of studies out there that say that folks need to hear things 8, 10, 12 times before they really get it and sometimes even more, depending on the complexity of the context. Right? In this high-tech world that we live in now, where folks rely on firing off emails, text messages, Slack messages, whatever it is — and that counts as their communication — we have traps and pitfalls set up all around us in this world for poor communication to occur or the illusion that communication has occurred.”
The Brain Basics
“When we are talking about communication, a lot of it comes down to the tough conversations you’ve got to have, right? Folks fail to communicate clearly or directly because there is fear, and that ties back to brain biology. Actually, when we talk about this in the Foundational Five, there are three things that every single human on this earth is wired to want. And for those three things, it doesn’t matter who you are. We are all wired to want to survive, belong, and become. […] When you have to speak up and say something that’s challenging or potentially there’s going to be conflict with […] how you say it, your survival instincts are triggered, right? […] And often, in this day and age, folks are choosing to freeze or flight, and they don’t want to engage in that communication. That really sets you up for issues to fester and age in a bad way, and eventually, they’re going to come back and bite you in the butt.”
The Ability to Listen
“I say speak up when you disagree, but the superpower in communication is always listening first. So you’ve got to speak up when you disagree, but your ability to listen to someone first and actually have empathy and hear what they’re saying is the key to quality communication.”
Keeping the Calm
“[If] the leadership hasn’t set up a workplace where folks feel psychologically safe, like they can speak up, they can voice their opinions and concerns and ideas, you’re setting yourself up for explosive conversations all the time, potentially. So that’s a big thing that we try to steer folks away from. [If you] create a work environment where people feel like they can voice their ideas and concerns, the peaks and valleys of tough conversations will be much shallower, right?”
In Their Shoes
“I tell folks to save sympathy for the funerals. […] Empathy. It’s simply the ability to understand and identify with another person’s feelings, thoughts, or attitudes. That’s what it is. It’s not the ‘Aw shucks. Yep. You’re right. We’re terrible. You know, we’re the worst. I’m sorry. We’ve caused all these issues for you.’ That’s sympathy, and that doesn’t get anything done really in a communication that’s not moving the issue forward. […] Show empathy for their struggles. I’m sure you’ve been in their shoes at some point in your life, whether professionally or personally. We’re all going through the same kind of stuff just in different ways.”
Playing the Blame Game
“The second you point your finger at somebody or the second you say you don’t know how to do your job — you can say the most eloquent thing that’s ever been spoken on this earth, but guess what? That person, the receiver, didn’t hear a word you said because they are building their argument and their counterargument in their head, and maybe they’re trying to decide whether or not they want to knock you out. You’re working against yourself when you use blame language in a conversation like that.”
Time for Self-Reflection
“Disagreements are an opportunity for you, for us, to think again about our position. This is going to be hard for folks to hear, but we’re not always right. […] It goes back to those basic instincts. We want to think we’re always right because we want to survive, and we want to belong, which means we want to be part of the group. And if we’re wrong about something, maybe we’ll get kicked out of whatever group it is. And so we want to always think we’re right, but we have to be open to the idea that maybe there’s a different way to look at this, and maybe that person has valid points.”
LEARN MORE
Dig deeper into the Foundational Five Series and more at the Gamut Project Solutions website or connect with Josh Durham directly on LinkedIn.