The Half-Life of Workplace Communication
Communication evolved steadily over the last 40 years but at a hyper pace over the last few. We went from tapping our coworkers on the shoulder and spending 4-8 hours in a conference room to Slack and Zoom calls from our homes. This shift is not only a polar opposite to what our brains are used to, but due to a plethora of choices – it is hard to select a medium to deliver your message.
Understanding this and establishing communication preferences in an organization or team, especially one that works remote or hybrid, is essential.
In this article, I will go over the different communication styles, what tools are best suited for each style, determine the half-life* of each, and how to make a process that best suits the topic and team.
Social media is littered with an ongoing battle of communication norms. The terms sync and async are thrown around in comment sections – having tech bros wear the keycaps off their custom keyboards. Once you get past all the bickering, you will see that there is actually a good reason to talk about it. There is a big difference between these norms and some areas that can overlap.
