This acceptance of the past is apparent in the intermingling of different architectural styles in the city of Shanghai. The city has over 8000 sky scrapers 30 stories or higher. Much of the city’s development has taken place over the last 30 years. Many of these more recent buildings have strong western influences.

However …

When we left the hotel yesterday, we hadn’t driven but 5 minutes when we saw this:

Amid all of the modern sky scrapers was this Stalin-era building originaly called the “Sino-Soviet Friendship Building.”

This building was constructed in the 1950s as a symbol of friendship and cooperation between China and the USSR. Not long after the Chinese liberation from Britain in the 1940s, China looked to Russia as a model of a successful communist society.

In other parts of the city, there are buildings that clearly represent the architecture of Western Europe. In fact, most of the buildings along the … River along the bank (called the Bund) were built during years of European concessions (British, French). You can see the stark contrast between the European buildings on one side of the river and the new, modern development on the other side of the river in this panorama.

Not far from the Bund is the Yuyuan Gardens, a centuries-old estate built over the course of 20+ years. It was built by a provincial treasurer for his parents’ retirement, but because it took so long to construct, his parents passed away before they could take possession.

The gardens are a beautiful demonstration of feng shui, with picturesque scenes of rocks, trees, ponds, and streams. The buildings are grand, but witha sort of grandure different from that of he west. Rather than columns and halls with geometric gardens and labrynths, this estate features a compund of different structures, each with a different purpose, surrounded by scenes of natural balance.

What is most striking to me is that all of these architectural styles are within just a few minutes drive of each other. The Bund river bank and the Yuyuan Gardens are within walking distance of each other. It is as if in Shanghai, centuries of history coexist in harmony and the juxtaposition of the new, old, and ancient is completely natural.

Pardon a mild disruption to my usual leadership and project management blogging. The next several blog posts will be dedicated to my travels in China and Russia.

By way of background, I’m visiting China as part of a group of recent MBA graduates from James Madison University. I’m going to Russia with my family to visit my in-laws. My background with Russia is extensive. I lived there for two years as a missionary for my church, have a degree in Russian language and literature, and am married to an incredible girl from Russia. My level of experience with China is next to nothing. Consequently, much of my discussion of Chinese culture will include comparisons with aspects of American and Russian culture as well. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss leadership along the way, so if you are one of my leadership readers, don’t change that dial. My project management readers should also stay tuned because learning to moderate discussions between business and technology stakeholders can sometimes be just as challenging as learning to manage cultural differences as strong and as deeply rooted as those cultural differences that exist between China, America, and Russia.

My wife is 6 months pregnant. We also have a little boy who is almost two years old. As we discussed plans for my China trip with JMU, it became clear that the best thing to do would be for my wife and son to go back to Russia to visit my wife’s family. Considering the challenges of getting a six-month pregnant woman and an almost two-year-old across the Atlantic with a suitcase and a stroller, we decided to fly together from Washington DC to Moscow.

So, that’s what we did.

A friend drove us to the airport Thursday morning in time for us to catch an afternoon flight. As my wife will testify, it is easy for me to get stressed out by situations like airport check-ins, security, and boarding, so when we finally buckled our seatbelts prior to departure, I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, my wife laughed at me,

My son, though not yet two, is already potty trained. Proudly, he went the entire 9 hours without wetting his diaper. Practically, that meant daddy and son were making visits to the toilet what seemed like every 30 minutes. Fortunately, Aeroflot put us in the first row of economy class right next to the toilet. Aeroflot rocks, by the way. Potentially more on Aeroflot later.

We arrived in Moscow and went through passport control. We picked up my wife’s baggage and checked in for her domestic flight. Then we went to the mother and child room to wait several hours.

Use of the mother and child room was free, but of course there was a list of rules posted outside the door:

“All visitors to the mother and child room must obtain a medical approval form available at the airport’s medical station.” Of course, the medical station was located down the elevator, around the corner, down the hall, and back up the elevator. When we arrived, a nurse took our temperatures with a forehead scanner. She asked if we were healthy, which we of course said we were. She asked about my wife’s pregnancy. Then she gave us our forms and we went back to the mother and child room and were admitted.

This kind of experience is pretty typical for Russia. It might seem to Americans that it would have been easier for them to have taken our temperature right then and there at the mother and child room. While that might be true, Russians have a strong culture of process orientation. In Russia, people conform to processes (or don’t conform) while in America, processes are more likely to be structured around people and their needs. That’s one reason you are more likely to find better customer service and more user-friendly products in the USA than in Russia.

Here’s another example: While my wife and son were playing in the mother and child room, I set out on some logistical errands in the airport. One such errand was to get a new SIM card for my Russian cell phone. The nearest place was a Evroset kiosk in the airport terminal. Evroset is one of those wireless retailers that sells mobile phones and plans from several major Russian carriers. I saw that they had tarrif plans from MegaFon, my carrier, so I explained that I wanted a new SIM card and a tarrif plan.

After listening to my request, the young man working the kiosk said, “Sorry, I can’t sell yoy a SIM card. We don’t have anymore. If you want, and if you have time, you could try the 3rd floor kiosk.”

You read that correctly. A mobile telephony retailer was paying this young man to sit and tell people that he couldn’t hook them up with a mobile number because they were out. They were out of their principal value offering. The American in me would ask why he didn’t just go to the 3rd floor himself to get a few more SIM cards to tie him over until his next stock replenishment.

A visit to the 3rd floor opened up a view of several kiosks and vendors. One was Evroset. Another was MegaFon. With the after taste of the previous Evroset experience still on my pallette, and seeing that I could skip the middle man and go straight to MegaFon, I decided to do just that.

The MegaFon sales rep was great. He answered my questions and got me hooked up with a SIM card and tarrif plan in just a few minutes.

Interestingly, after my phone was activated, MegaFon sent me a text message asking me to rate my customer experience at their kiosk. I texted back my rating and they credited my account with 1000 roubles (about $33 USD). Score for me AND for MegaFon. They had inventory, interacted with me professionally and helpfully, and then leveraged some existing technologies to obtain customer feedback. This was nothing fancy. It wasn’t a colorful app – just a simple application of SMS technology on the most basic device to keep MegaFon market-oriented. MegaFon, you win.

When I got back to he mother and child room, my wife wanted to take a nap, so I sat and played with my son and observed him interact with the other kids. Until now, my son’s interaction with other children has been pretty much in English only, so he uses English phrases like, “I see you!” and “Come on!” Suddenly, all of these kids around him were speaking Russian instead of English. My son doesn’t understand what’s going on; he just adapts to whatever situation he is in. For me, seeing him interact with other children who were responding to him in Russian really had an impact. What used to feel like a simple gift of bilingualism from parents to child suddenly became more real. We aren’t just teaching him to speak Russian. We are also opening up an entire group of people that will be accessible to him.

My heart became excited and frightened simultaneously. Did we really understand what that meant? Will our son be accepted by the Russian-speaking community? Will he develop English skills well enough to be accepted by kids at home?

Observing him and the other kids calmed me. Little children are generally very accepting and inclusive, so my concerns about acceptance are really misplaced adult or adolescent concerns projected on to the situation of a little child. Plus, my son absorbs meaningful input from his surroundings like a sponge. The trick would be to ensure that he continues to have many interactions in both languages.

My family and I parted at the security check point. I hate saying goodbye to my family.

After several hours of waiting and  shooting the breeze with various Russian passengers, I boarded the flight to Shanghai.

The flight wasn’t full, so we had plenty of room. There was another man my same age from Bulgaria sitting on my row. His name was Alex. He is finishing an MBA with Hult International Business School in Shanghai. We became friends and ended up transferring to the metro together to travel into town. Thanks go to him for being so helpful.

After two 9-hour overnight flights, I finally made it to the hotel and had one of the best showers of my life, that is, after I couldn’t figure out how to turn the power in the room on, called reception, waited for an engineer, who showed me how to insert my room key into a slot that activated the electricity. ‘Not sure why that is necessary, but maybe I’ll learn something about Chinese culture during the trip that will help me understand a little better. At any rate, wife and son are safely in Russia and I’m safely in China. Now for ensuing adventure…

For those of you who work in other organizations, sharing information about project management or any other discipline can be easy and fun. We just picked the 5 most relevant topics, picked speakers to present them, picked dates to conduct each session, and then published the list of sessions. So far, we have had 2 of the 5 sessions planned for 2013.

If you’re a PM and want an idea of what a community of practice could look like, here is our list of topics and the dates we’re conducting these sessions:

Portfolio Management and Corporate Strategy

Thursday, February 7^th, 12:10-1:00 pm EST

An introduction to portfolio management, highlighting the current project intake and prioritization process. Measuring value and success through post-implementation reviews to guide in the selection of future projects.

Stakeholder Management – Leading and Managing in your Organization

Thursday, April 4^th, 12:10-1:00 pm EDT

Understanding your organizational landscape, the parties involved, their interests and motivations, their relationships to each other. Leveraging existing relationships to benefit the organization. Introduction to the Organization Politics Mapping Technique (OPMT) as a framework for understanding your business environment.

Capacity and Release Management

Thursday, June 6^th, 12:10-1:00 pm EDT

Capacity management at a glance. Introduction to release management tools and techniques. Managing production and non-production environments. Understanding the upstream complexities that impact downstream release opportunities. Understanding conditions external to your project that may impact your project’s timely deployment.

Best Practices in Communication

Thursday, August 15^th, 12:10-1:00 pm EDT

Elements of communication. Understanding and targeting your message based on speaker, audience, values, experiences, motivations, and needs. Introduction to communications frameworks, templates, and guides.

Vendor Management

Thursday, October 17^th, 12:10-1:00 pm EDT

Best practices in managing, communicating, and escalating between executive sponsors and vendors. Best practices in contract management and budget tracking. Providing budget visibility to executives using meaningful summary data.

Unlock Your Potential to Influence and Engage Others, by Kristi Hedges

I had no idea what was about to happen when I began reading Kristi Hedge’s book. My expectations at the outset were simple: this is a book about sitting up straight, speaking clearly, and looking good (none of which I think I’m that great at). I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical about Kristi’s content, but I knew my leadership presence needed improvement. I knew I needed to understand more about how to win over the officers and crew if I was ever to steer the ship.

Personal Presence Role Models

A few things happened early on. Kristi referred to role models of leadership presence, referencing Steve Jobs and others. I realized that I didn’t have any such role models. In fact, it had never occurred to me that I should have role models in leadership presence. So, I started shopping around.

It was about that time that Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard gave her famous misogyny speech in the House of Representatives last fall in response to Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s sexist comments about recent events. Obviously, the drama around Australian politics had flared, creating a unique circumstance. I don’t anticipate giving speeches calling out people in public forums. So, I decided to see how Julia Gillard interacts in less extreme situations. I found this interview from Australian Agenda:

I was struck by how Prime Minister Gillard carried herself in an interview when she came under fire – a typical situation for politicians. I took note not only of Gillard’s confidence and clarity of thought, but also by certain verbal mechanisms that she used to guide the conversation:

• “I’m going to answer your question.”
• “My response to that is that …”
• “I’m going to take a different view …”
• “I’m going to disagree with you on aspects of that sentence.”
• “With respect, that’s a second order issue when compared with …”
• “Let’s be clear about this and let’s take it a step at a time.”
• “Connect the dots for me. How is this relevant?”

Intentionality and the Personal Brand

Back to The Power of Presence, the biggest takeaways for me were Hedge’s comments about personal brands, intentionality and connection.

Putting some thought to my own personal brand and what I wanted to convey to others, I decided that I wanted my brand to communicate the following:

Personal Brand Statement

Dale is a sharp, prepared professional whose focus, precision, and accuracy combine with his empathic understanding, respectfulness, firmness, fairness, and his commitment to the organization to make him an indispensable asset.

Even though I thought through my personal brand, I could tell that something else was holding me back. I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit what it was until later, when I read Kristi’s thoughts on intentionality:

I define having an intentional presence as understanding how you want to be perceived and subsequently communicating in a manner so that you will be perceived the way you want. It means aligning your thoughts with your words and actions. And it requires a keen understanding of your true, authentic self, as well as your impact on others.

As Kristi outlined the need not only to align thoughts with words and actions, as well as the importance of making authentic connections with other people, it became apparent that this was going to be an area of growth for me. I wouldn’t say my professional relationships are devoid of authentic connection, but I can do better.

In The Power of Presence, Kristi Hedges acquainted me with the works of Daniel Goleman and Reuven Bar-On and the Emotional Quotient Inventory, or EQ-i. My posts on Emotional Intelligence were catalyzed by Kristi’s book.

The Power of Presence is a must read for anyone who wants to inspire and lead others while being their best, most authentic self. Kristi starts with the internal and works her way outward, while many leadership gurus address only the external. Reading The Power of Presence has been a transformative experience for me. I’d encourage you to respect yourself enough to invest in a copy.

No matter how hard you try to deny it, your emotions are caused by your thoughts and not by external stimuli. Even though you may THINK you are a positive person, chances are, you probably have some old chatter going on in your head that contributes to whatever emotional frustrations you may be having. Here are 5 destructive thoughts that you should outlaw right now:

1. “I’m not good enough.”

This has to be one of the most unproductive things to think. The problem with this inner-dialog is that it sets you up for failure. Usually, it comes as a polarized, generalized statement – the all-encompassing umbrella that describes you as a person, including all of your inner qualities. Nothing could be farther from the truth. You may have some shortcomings in some areas. So … itemize them and get to work. The replacement for “I’m not good enough” is “I have some specific things I need to address.”

2. “I am TOO good enough!”

Don’t get this confused with the healthy, “Boy, am I grateful I was able to pull off that project.” I think there is room for an occasional expression of confidence in one’s abilities and talents. That’s healthy. The “I am TOO good enough” is different. It’s a vain countermeasure against the “I’m not good enough” thought. This is your insecurity fighting for its life. The problem with this thought is that it paints a picture of you. It reinforces the unrealistic and impossible expectations that you set up for yourself. It reinforces your constant need to prove yourself to other people. This is just noise. Turn it off. Replace “I am TOO good enough” with “I’m grateful things turned out well this time” and “I’m grateful for my gifts.”

3. “It’s not fair!”

Guess what? It never will be. Colleagues will disappoint. You will disappoint others at times. You are responsible for you and no one else. Stop trying to control other people, their behaviors, and the outcomes of every situation. The problem with “It’s not fair” is that it reinforces your unrealistic and impossible expectations that you set up for everyone else. It reinforces your need to control everything. Replace “It’s not fair” with “I would have preferred a different outcome, but it is what it is.”

4. “So-and-so is …”

… (incompetent/careless) You fill in the blank. Any time you put a label on someone else, you paint a picture of them in their imperfections. That is unfair to them. When you label someone, you assume that they are not self-aware and not trying to itemize their own areas for improvement. How do you know that they aren’t trying to improve? How do you know their intentions? The problem with “So-and-so is…” is that it justifies your own incompetency and carelessness toward that person. It’s the craziest thing about human psychology: somehow, we think that if we can put down another person, that excuses our own shortcomings. This is incredibly destructive behavior. Not only does it destroy the possibility of improving your professional relationship with the other person, but it creates a blind spot in your mind regarding the areas where you need to improve the most. Replace “So-and-so is…” with “So-and-so needs … (clear expectations, step-by-step instructions, advance notice)… from me.”

Let’s leave it at that for now. Those four items are pretty substantial and they require time, effort, and patience to implement.” Remember that knowledge is power. Awareness is power. Now that you know and are aware of these thoughts, watch and listen for them. When you pick up on them in your own inner-dialog, you have permission to not believe them, since not one of them is true. Good luck!

I found what I think is a simplified version of the EQ-I test. It probably isn’t the actual assessment developed by Dr. Bar-On, and I doubt that it is statistically accurate or significant, but it does give you a taste of where your EI strengths and weaknesses are. So, I took it.

The assessment turned out a series of scores for me related to various aspects of Emotional Intelligence. Overall, I was pleased with the results. My concern was that I would discover how emotionally unintelligent I am. Actually, I ended up being in the 77^th percentile, so I’m not completely hopeless.

This is where the art and science of leadership and management come together. Since I had quantifiable scores regarding my Emotional Quotient (EQ), I sorted the scores from high to low. Here is the result:

I was so happy to see my score for coping skills at 96. I’ve been working hard since the beginning of my career to develop them. Overall, the high end of my test results describe me pretty well: I’m an emotionally self-aware guy that strives to have and show empathy for others and adapt my social skills to the present situation.

On the low end, I bombed out on being flexible and scored in the middle range of the areas in the Ego Maturity category. Here are some quotes from my test results:

• It is difficult for you to be flexible and compromise. You are unlikely to be accommodating when things are not as you want them to be.
• Your self-esteem is fragile at best. It is prone to volatility. Some people and situations will make you feel good; others can totally shatter your view of yourself.
• Controlling your impulses can be a challenge for you sometimes. You won’t always consider the full consequences of your actions before doing something, which could hurt you or those around you.
• While you seem capable of being assertive on some occasions, it is not a regular habit for you. On those occasions that you do assert yourself, you might also hold back a little.

To be honest, I was a little scared to take the test because of what it might reveal about me. When I got the results, I was relieved for two reasons. First, the results weren’t as bad as I thought. They simply confirmed that I am a normal human being with strengths and weaknesses like everyone else. Second, they gave me something concrete to work on. You know the saying that knowledge is power? Well, it would  be much better to know of your strengths and weaknesses and start capitalizing and improving them respectively than to avoid the problem because of fear.

In true PM fashion, I’m going to follow the principles in the post about Issue Resolution (since I obviously have issues). I’m going to start addressing the biggest problem areas and work my way up. Here goes …

Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll take a spreadsheet or a bug tracking software application and we’ll “configure” it to capture the following items for each issue:

• Every issue needs a description. The description communicates to your other stakeholders what the problem is. Without a clear description, other people won’t be able to help you. You’ll find yourself constantly repeating yourself to them, trying to explain AGAIN what the issue is.
• For brevity’s sake, sometimes it’s good to have an issue title or summary. This is the 5-word, short version of the description.
• Capture the name of the person who reported the problem. This will be the same person to confirm that the issue was fixed later on.
• Also record the date the issue was raised.
• You’ll need a column or field to record the person to whom the issue is currently assigned. This is usually the developer or the business analyst who is trying to solve the problem. Once the issue is fixed, it will be reassigned to the person who reported it.
• It can be helpful to rank issues in terms of severity and/or priority, particularly if there are a lot of issues and the stakes are high. Both severity and priority are useful data points when fixing software bugs.
• A comments field or issue history helps capture the progress made in resolving the issue.
• A status field shows whether the issue is new, open, ready for retesting, or closed.
• Top it off with a unique issue number. I like to just start with 1 and work my way up. Try not to make your numbering system too complex, like confusing the issue number with a status or a category (like Active issue number 1 –A001). That sort of thing just becomes a maintenance hassle. When you start filtering out or moving closed issues off your issue tracker, it’s okay to have issues numbered 1,5,9,16,17, etc.  You may not have any control over the issue number if you’re using a bug tracking application that automatically assigns the number for you.

Your tracking sheet could look something like this:

Just having an issue tracker isn’t enough. You need to USE it. Here are some helpful hints for effective issue resolution:

• Meet with your team on a regular basis, whether that’s daily, twice a week, or whatever the team feels is appropriate.
• Use issue tracking tools that enable you to manage your issue data easily. You don’t want to have to crunch a bunch of numbers just to report to executives or meet with the team. Try to get excel or whatever tool you are using to automatically summarize the data in the way that is most meaningful for you.
• Sort the issues by severity and/or priority. Fix the severe issues first. Then work your way to the minor ones.
• Have fun. Issue resolution can be tremendously satisfying, especially at the end of it when you look back and your project/system is clean as a whistle. It can also be tremendously discouraging when issues are closed and then reopened several times. Hold people accountable for the fixes they implement.

There you have it. Issue Resolution 101. Hopefully, this has been helpful.

• What does it really mean to be emotionally intelligent?
• Do “emotionally intelligent” people never get angry?
• Am I a bad person if I wrestle with my emotions at work?
• Why do I get so worked up over petty issues?
• I want to change, but I don’t really know how. Where should I start?

Most of the Emotional Intelligence literature or webinars that I found were really about how to deal with emotionally driven behaviors in other people. Nothing really seemed targeted toward addressing emotional intelligence in oneself, as if everyone else had the problem and you had to manage it.

Nonsense.

The reverse is equally absurd: There is no way that everyone else is emotionally cool, calm, and collected, and that you or I are the only ones that have problems. So, let’s lock and load with some definitions, and then we’ll cover some DOs and DON’Ts.

Emotional Intelligence is …

According to Merriam-Webster, intelligence is defined as …

a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : reason; also : the skilled use of reason(2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests)

According to Mayer & Salovey (1997), Emotional Intelligence is defined as …

the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth.

The reason that application of the principles of Emotional Intelligence is so elusive is because it combines two psychological phenomena that appear to be in opposition to each other: reason and emotion. Trying to exercise Emotional Intelligence for the first time can seem like trying to separate two wrestlers in a circus ring. It’s not easy.

Some Emotional Intelligence “DON’Ts”

DON’T deny your emotions. DON’T let anger or apathy fester. DON’T expect to be able to become Emotionally Intelligent overnight. Recognize that even little children are intelligent. They mature in that intelligence over time. The development of your own emotional intelligence will happen in a similar fashion. While it may seem difficult to change and become less emotionally affected by the events around you, it is possible. It takes a long time and a lot of practice. You’re basically conducting cognitive behavioral therapy on yourself. Be patient. You already have the seeds of Emotional Intelligence within you. Just give them time to sprout.

DON’T blame yourself for your current level of Emotional Intelligence. Just put your feet on the path and start walking, remembering not to look back. DON’T write yourself off as hopelessly emotionally unintelligent.

Some Emotional Intelligence “DOs”

DO allow yourself to feel your current emotions and express them in appropriate ways to appropriate people at the appropriate time. Recognize that they are not a reflection of anything permanent. They simply reflect how you reacted in the current situation.

DO recognize the tendency people have to react emotionally, letting their feelings trump reason. That includes you. Graciously stick out each conversation to its logical, reasonable end, then go away and give your stinging emotions time to die down. Then come back to the situation with a fresh perspective. Part of Emotional Intelligence is simply learning to respond graciously in conversations where the stakes are high.

DO recognize destructive self-talk, This could be destructive of yourself or others. Frequently, it involves extreme labels that are seldom accurate: “I never do anything right. I always look stupid in front of her.” “They are so incompetent. They are always treat me this way. They are always rude to me.” DO stop the destructive self-talk. Recognize that it probably isn’t true. Depolarize your thoughts about yourself and others.

DO conduct an honest self-assessment. This has two parts:

First, ask yourself how you contributed to the problem and where you need to improve. In contrast, identify any unreasonable expectations of yourself and let go of them.

Second, ask yourself why you feel this way. Is there any basis for your emotions? Are they founded on some event from the past? Are they simply the result of the way the winds of your mind are blowing? Several years ago, a friend and manager once noticed that I was having an emotional reaction to a particular situation. She said some of the most merciful words I ever heard in my profession: “Why are you so concerned? You need to get to the root cause of that. It’s just a job.”

A few final thoughts:

You’re not a bad person if you have an emotional reaction to a difficult situation. No one can chart your course to greater Emotional Intelligence for you. YOU have to do it. But, if you are honest with yourself, you WILL make progress. Remember to be merciful to yourself and give yourself permission and time to grow.

Here’s what I mean.

As you get closer to deployment, you make a list of all the outstanding issues that need to be addressed and by when. You put all of these items into a spreadsheet or other tracking tool and assign an owner. Then you sort as needed. I like to sort by end date and time so I can see what is due when. The end result looks something like this:

Once you have this list compiled, then you just go down the list, following up with project team members as needed. Often times, the tasks overlap. 4.01 depends on 1.01. So-and-so needs to do X before someone else can do Y. You stop going to so many meetings because the planning and discussion is over. You just manage the execution of each line item. Emails ensue. You monitor your inbox and direct email traffic to get issues resolved promptly. It’s not unlike a game of ping pong. Just make sure you stay alert. Before you know it, you’re project is complete. It’s all in the wrist.

On occasion, I fall into this pothole of techno-babble while interacting with technology people. In full transparency, I’m not a technology expert. I know just enough about technology to interpret between the business people and the systems people. That’s it.

It’s kind of a precarious situation, since it leaves me completely dependent on the information provided to me by my friends on the technology teams. Usually, they are pretty good about escalating issues that I don’t see. For that, I am grateful. Oh, so grateful.

But every once in a while, I’ll be talking to a technical person and they will go off on something. Then the horror hits me. I have no idea what they are talking about. I don’t even know why they are talking about it anymore. How did this conversation suddenly take this turn? Am I missing something that’s going to bite me later? How do I untangle this information they’re giving me?

If you have this problem, here are a few suggestions that might help you:

Don’t pretend to understand.

This is one of the worst things you could do. Not only does it leave you in the dark, it tells the other person that you understand them, that you appreciate the level of detail they are giving you, and that you want more of it. They will continue to come back and have these conversations with you unless you say something. In any team setting, establishing communication norms is a crucial activity. If you pretend to understand, you are skipping that vital step and the team will suffer. It’s better to just say, “I’m sorry, but I’m a little lost in what you’re trying to tell me. Can we try again?”

Ask for simplification.

There are several ways of “trying again.” Don’t just let them start over. Ask them to boil what they are trying to say down to a few concise points. Here are a few good simplification phrases:

• Describe the situation from the beginning step by step.
• Can you boil this down for me as if you were telling the business stakeholders?
• I’m getting lost. Can you simplify?

Ask for a connection to what you do understand.

Another strategy is to ask the other person to connect the dots for you. “Help me understand how this relates to …”

Ask for actionable input.

Sometimes, it isn’t clear what your stakeholders are trying to accomplish with their communication. Are they asking for something? Are they just informing you of something? Does something need to change based on the information they are trying to communicate? In these situations, it can be helpful to just ask:

• Can you help me understand your intent? Does something in the project need to change?
• What actions need to be taken?
• Who needs to take them?”

Restate until you get it.

It can mean the world of difference to technical people when outsiders try to understand their world and then confirm that they have indeed understood. It instills confidence that you’re actually listening and trying to collaborate with them. They’ll know they can go to you in the future and rely on you to bridge the communication gap with the business stakeholders.