Quality in communication

When you go shopping for a product, say a television, you would invariably want to get the most value for your money, in layman's terms—you want a quality product. Have you thought of what the word quality means to you? The fact is that the term quality can have multiple definitions depending on the context. There is no one single definition that can be attributed to quality. Meets the requirements, does what it is supposed to, works well for a number of years, suits my need perfectly, and there are many more suitors. In the case of the television, I would define quality as picture in high definition resolution, crisp and clear audio, and the product must last at least five years without any maintenance in between. As I mentioned earlier, quality means different things to different people. Ask yourself or your neighbor what quality means to them in relation to buying a television. They will give you a separate list of requirements and definitions.

When you go hunting for a professional training session, you would like to get a hang on everything there is to the subject you are intending to be trained in—in other words you are looking for quality training. Have you ever thought of what the word quality means to you? The word quality can have different meanings depending on the context. I cannot state a single sentence to define quality. Some IT professionals may relate quality training to the depth of knowledge that was imparted and some might give importance to the content that helps them get certifications. If you ask me what quality means, I would say that it should impart in-depth knowledge of the subject, provide sufficient examples for me to understand the concepts with ease, and if a certification is involved the focus should be on strategies to answer the certification exam. You might have a completely different expectation of what quality training is.

How can you differentiate a quality product from a non-quality one? The answer is improvement, not just once but on a regular basis. Regular improvements go by a Japanese word kaizen, which stands for continuous improvement. Kaizen ensures that the products and services are bound by continuous improvement, even if the improvement is miniscule. By improving continuously, products and services are always a notch or two ahead of the rest.

In communication, kaizen has a special meaning. The effectiveness of communication and the productivity must be improved on a regular basis. As individuals, you must always try to improve your communication skills by understanding and implementing the 7 Cs in your personal and work life, understand your own communication style and that of others who you regularly communicate with and make a conceited effort in building rapport with people who matter. This is not a one-time activity; you need to keep doing this as and when the situation demands it. To state an example, you can run this workshop multiple times, and the effectiveness in communication is bound to increase by a percentage every time you run it. Perhaps you can improvise by adding customized exercises based on your organization's cases. The underlying principle is that such workshops, whether they are on communication or any other topic, is not a standalone activity, but a process that has to be imbibed into the DNA of the organization.

Let's see what other aspects could render communication as a quality product or otherwise. Communication is of quality if it is effective in:

• Transmitting the message in verbatim to the receiver (integrity)

• Understanding the message in verbatim by the recipient as the sender intends

• Presenting the message concisely and to the point without any unnecessary text in the message

• Understanding the message easily

• Providing due consideration to all recipients it is intends to reach

• Being courteous and taking the cross-cultural attributes into play

• Reaching the recipient at the time it was intended to

When you start to answer the question of what quality means to you in communication, you could come up with an entirely different set, plus or minus the set I have put forth. For me, if my communication can meet my quality requirements as stated here, then I can subsequently consider it to be precisely that—quality. This quality message serves as a baseline, from which I could then begin to work on the principle of kaizen through one of the methods that I discuss in the next section, The PDCA circle.