Committing to communication
On finding joy, learning and satisfaction from communication
We’ve had countless attempts at making Komuhn’s communication a priority; Several work sessions. Lists full of great ideas. Many promises on concluding tasks… And yet, the initial enthusiasm tended to die as fast as it sparkled, foreshadowing how much effort it would be for little in return. You might relate to us feeling numb and losing our motivation just from the thought that repetitive, draining tasks would fill our days.
That was until we decided to sit down and change things around. Make communication work for us, it being interesting, being something to look forward to. We had an honest conversation about the root obstacles we were having towards communication, both on a personal and team-level. It worked as a base for a series of discussions that then led us to create our Communication commitments.
The commitments that now guide us:
Make communication a priority by agreeing to allocate time, resources, and focus. Create better spaces to deal with it as a project.
For us, at Komuhn, this means - for example - several standup meetings throughout the week; Rotating champions; a kind of promoter/project manager, that makes sure we stay on track, and creating a space for updates and reflections on communication in our daily check-ins. Constantly revisiting and, when needed, updating the commitments.
Commit to going through the effort of creating quality, even when it's painful.
Being uncomfortable with a process and on top of it needing to deal with feedback is painful. We accepted that we are learning and created permission for feedback until “good enough to go”.
Dare to deal with insecurity and discomfort by accepting the iterative nature of the process.
Embrace feedback and make it safer to fail. For years, we have been developing our projects in discussion groups open to all kinds of participation, and now we took it a step further. We are building and designing our website all in the open, showing the process and using that as one of the key points of us communicating outside of our bubble.
Commit to exploring the self in communication by creating better conditions.
Things like removing the time pressure, encouraging the effort, and supporting enthusiasm.
Encouraging exercising writing as mastery and using this practice as a way of exploring our individual interests in different spaces.
Accept that this is an investment and that it has an inherent cost.
For us, this meant a decision not to create pressure on accepting new projects for a period and understanding the capacity that exploring this new way would take from all of us.
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