Are your quick conversations actually slowing you down? Discover why "faster" doesn't always mean "better" and learn the key to saving time while building stronger teams.

In the humanitarian and international development sectors where rushed communication often leads to misunderstandings, this episode addresses how taking a deliberate, structured approach to conversations can transform your team's efficiency and help you make a greater impact. If you've ever felt like you're wasting time on repetitive conversations, this is for you.

In this 10 minute episode you'll learn:

• Learn a three-part process for effective communication that builds clarity and saves time.
• Discover how structured conversations can empower your team and enhance inclusivity.
• Explore strategies to overcome common communication challenges, especially in diverse, multilingual teams.

Listen now to uncover how better communication can revolutionize your productivity and create a lasting impact with your team.

WHAT IS YOUR LEADERSHIP STYLE? QUIZ

Want to know how to lead better? It starts by understanding your leadership style. To find out yours, take my free quiz “What Is Your Leadership Style” - you’ll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting your team and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.  Just click on the link fill out your quiz and click submit.

This podcast empowers international development and humanitarian leaders to achieve high performance teams, fostering diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing, overcoming burnout and overwhelm, while maximizing impact and productivity.

Learn how you can stop wasting your time by communicating

more effectively on today's episode.

Welcome to The Modern Humanitarian and Development Leader podcast, the

podcast, helping humanitarian and development supervisors make a greater

impact by taking control of your time, leading more inclusively and

empowering your team all the while avoiding stress, burnout, and overwhelm.

I'm your host, leadership coach and former aid worker, Torrey Peace.

Are you ready?

Let's get started.

Hello, my aspiring modern humanitarian and development leader.

I hope you're having a wonderful week.

In this episode, you're going to discover why quicker conversations

do not make better ones.

How better communication can help you save time and a three part process

to more effective communication so you can build a higher performance

team and make greater impact.

And today's episode is based on a bit of reflection.

And that was prompted because I have about 48 students who are

graduating over the next week.

And this is quite an exciting time because they have participated in learning

coaching skills and how to empower their teams, create more inclusive environments.

They're all talking about how they're less overwhelmed and they're

more in control of their time.

And just so exciting to see all the impact that six short

weeks, in this course has made.

And so one of the more impactful things that has been learned is

around the realization that some of these leaders feel as if they

had been wasting their time.

And they hadn't even known, they were wasting their time.

And so learning some of the skills in the course, they now feel like they

can have more productive conversations.

Conversations that may take a bit more time now, but save time in the long run.

Because quicker conversations do not make better conversations.

And that is because a lot of times, you know, the saying haste makes waste.

That when we rush through things, we don't always pause and make

sure that everyone understands.

That our team understands.

That the person we're talking to understands.

And sometimes there can be miscommunications.

We might not even understand, or we make a lot of assumptions.

It's our brain's job to fill in the gap and make assumptions.

So when we go very quickly through a conversation that is

very, very likely to happen.

And so what happens is they start to have a conversation and they

quickly goes through the conversation.

And when we are operating in environments that are not only

multicultural, but multilingual.

We might be talking to people whose second, third, fourth language is English.

Or whatever language we are communicating or maybe it's not our

first language, then things become a little bit more complicated.

And so when someone says, I want to be better at managing my time, for example,

we might assume that they mean planning when in reality they actually mean

that they want to stop procrastinating.

Or maybe they've been having a conflict.

And we make a lot of assumptions about what's true and

what's not in that conflict.

So these are examples of how, when we rush through conversations, when we

don't take the time to slow down and really understand, how we can have a

conversation, but then end up having to go back to the same conversation.

So that's the first thing is slowing down a bit to have better

and what I call structured conversations.

And the structure that I use in the course is, how to have a

coaching conversation structure.

However it can be applied in even regular conversations.

Having a solid structure to your conversation can make it more effective.

When have a structured conversation, it's like planning a trip.

You're going to have a destination that you plan out, which is

where the conversation goes.

You're going to have a route that you pick to go to that destination,

which is different choices that this person might make.

And then finally at the end you will have an understanding of

what this person plans on doing.

These are the three part process to more effective communication.

So the process is to make more structured, effective communication is number

one, we set a goal or we have a common understanding of what the goal is at

the beginning of the conversation.

Like I said before, when we're planning for a trip, we

need to know the destination.

So the goal of the conversation is the destination.

Where does this person want to go?

What did they want out of the conversation?

The second part is the middle, which is around brainstorming and thinking through

different alternatives and challenges.

And this is the part where we explore different routes to get

to the goal with the person.

And when we're coaching, we would ask them what are the routes that they

choose or that they would like to choose?

Because they know the terrain better than us.

They know the area, they know the map better.

What are the different options and which one do they want to choose?

And then also, what are some of the challenges that

might come up along the way?

What if a trees in the road?

What might they do then?

What other alternative might they take?

And then finally the last part is what actions do they plan on taking?

What route will they take and when will they start on this route to

take action in order to achieve the goal that they mentioned at

the beginning of the conversation?

An example, going back to let's say time management might be that the goal at the

beginning, that your team member mentions is that they want to be better at time

management and you learn from asking a few questions around that, that what they

mean is they want to stop procrastinating.

So the middle of the conversation are different alternatives that they can

take in order to stop procrastinating.

So that might be something like having an accountability partner, having

their supervisor check-in with them to make sure to hold them accountable.

Setting a tighter deadline so they feel more focused and ready to take

action, eliminating distractions.

These might all be different things that they could do on the route to

their goal of avoiding procrastination.

And then, they need to choose the route.

And then finally, when they choose it, that's when they can tell you the actions

that they plan on taking, and they might choose multiple routes and that's fine.

But also what challenges might come up when, for example, they are

trying to eliminate distractions?

One challenge might be for example, that they are in an open floor layout

plan and so people are constantly coming up to them and distracting them.

So maybe to overcome that challenge they might want to put headphones on or maybe

they want to remove themselves from the office altogether so that they can be

more focused on whatever it is, they need to work and stop procrastinating on.

So these are all different ways of moving through the conversation,

using this three step process, which will make your conversations

more productive and more efficient.

And of course, when we do this, this can help you save time and stop

wasting your time because you will be clear with the other person about

where they're going, what they want to do and when they will take action.

And that will make your communication more efficient.

You'll be more understanding of what that person plans on doing.

And therefore it will actually help you save time by getting on the same page,

having a common understanding of where the conversation's going, what route

this person wants to take to get there.

And then the actions and by when.

So I encourage you to think about this as you're going through your

week and your weekly meetings.

How can you use a more structured conversation approach with one-on-one

meetings, with your team meetings in order to put in place some of

these, steps that can really save you more time in the long run.

All right.

Until then keep evolving bye for now.

Are you the type of leader that tells others what to do?

Or do you let them figure it out for themselves?

Understanding your leadership style is the first step to deciding what's

working for you and what's not.

To find out your leadership style, take my free quiz "what is your leadership style?"

You'll immediately find out your default style, how it may be impacting

your team, and a few practical ways to become an even better leader.

Just click on the link in the show notes, www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz

fill out your quiz and click submit.

So what are you waiting for?

Go to www.aidforaidworkers.com/quiz and discover your leadership style now.

Your team will thank you for it!