Three Basic Skills

Years ago, one of my college professors asked me what I believed to be the most basic, fundamental skill a person can have. Because I was in my senior year and majoring in both mathematics and English literature, I had become accustomed to being asked the question, just not from someone whom I considered better qualified to answer it. Rather, the question would generally be asked by one of my buddies, which typically lead to a drunken discussion (it was college) about which curriculum is better, math or English.

It's a slippery slope from a basic skill to the practicality of coursework, but the assumed positions were predictable: the math majors, with no exception, thought mathematical ability to be the most fundamental skill a person can have. After all, where would we be without mathematics? Caves, probably. The English students, for the most part, thought writing was the best skill to have. I think they're both wrong. While mathematical ability and writing are great skills, neither of them come close to the importance of reading comprehension. Mathematical literacy is not even in my top three.

Reading comprehension it is and there is no argument under the sun that will persuade me otherwise. You see, if I can't understand what I'm reading, then I'm doomed when my math test rolls around. If I can't understand concrete ideas delivered in prose, how the hell am I going to understand abstractions? A person lacking top-notch reading comprehension cannot hope to have even decent skills in mathematics. In fact, how can you write what you think about Moby Dick if you can't understand Moby Dick? If you have problems with reading comprehension, how are you going to trudge through the Agile manifesto, determine its merits regarding how it fits into your team, and then train your people to follow its guidelines?

That's leaves us with number two, which could be a lot of things. After reading comprehension, the waters become a little murky. In my opinion, though, I think it must be persuasive writing. With some clarification: writing persuasively not only means delivering a defensible argument, but it as well means proper usage of the language, proper spelling, and proper punctuation. If these three things are not a part of the package, then someone like me is not going to take your argument very seriously. A polished, persuasive argument tells me that you understand an issue and that you can defend a stance regarding that issue. The clarity of your delivery tells me that you drafted your position several times, which further tells me that you've been contemplative and purposeful about what you're presenting. There is respect here. Not only for me but for yourself.

What about number three? This one, I would argue, is active listening. I've seen it so many times in so many different settings and under so many different contexts. A meeting is scheduled and people wait their turns to talk. Make no mistake, this is not communication. This is simply sequential, unilateral, guttural utterances that serve no other purpose but to excite the air molecules surrounding the person actively emitting sound waves. Active listening is more like half-duplex communication in which a single person communicates ideas while the others in the group listen and think about the information being presented. There is a lot to be said about respect here, too.

The sloppiness associated with the above three skills has hobbled business since its inception. If you're in a meeting talking over someone or simply waiting to have your say, then what's the point of the meeting? How can you even begin to know if the person talking is making valid points? If you're not thinking about what's being said, then how can you know if the person speaking has points that might support, diminish, or nullify yours? But this is daily reality. In my industry, we have this morning meeting called a standup. On paper, it's a really good idea. In reality, it's mostly a waste of time. People wait their turn to talk while others don't listen. They're either staring off into space or playing with their phones. The irony here is that under Agile/Scrum philosophy, this is called a ceremony. I don't know about you, but when I think about ceremony I think of things like weddings and funerals and the swearing-in of the President of the United States. I think about orchestrated, pantomimed gesticulations in which that process has more meaning than what's being said.

Plato once surmised that we're just a bunch of people living in caves, trying to interpret reality by scrutinizing what we see through our entrances. Well, given even the most polished and highest form of communication, we're still left with a substantial probability that whatever we're trying to communicate may be misinterpreted. It may even offend. Communication is not an exact science. Acknowledging that does put us in a cave of sorts because none of us can ever hope to understand the essential meaning of everyone and everything around us. We interpret. And that's the best we can do.

But that's why reading comprehension, persuasive writing, and active listening are so damned important. To focus these three things is to direct your communication out of your cave entrance and into the world, where it may or may not be acknowledged and consumed. To disrespect any of these three skills is to deliver your message by bouncing it off one of your cave walls and hoping it will ricochet its way out the entrance. Such a strategy only contributes to the proliferation of all that cacophonous white noise that's out there already. Who needs that?

Below is a short list of realities that exist in my industry that can be resolved very simply by respecting and wielding the above-mentioned skills. May we all someday get as close to each of our cave entrances as we can and purposefully engage in meaningful conversation, so we can each understand the other as best as we possibly can. Until then ...

1. We really are engaging in ceremonious behavior because we are not active listeners during meetings.

2. Customers have gaps in their products because they can't articulate what they want.

3. Customers have gaps in their products because we don't bother to listen to what they want.

4. Customers have gaps in their products because we can't articulate what they want to our developers.

5. Customers have gaps in their products because we have trouble understanding the documented requirements and acceptance criteria associated with the ask.

6. Customers see their products stalled because we have not taken the time to understand their problem.

7. Customers perceive their products as stalled because stakeholders are not listening to their technology providers.

8. Development teams suffer because their backlog is neither articulated nor cadenced.

9. Development teams suffer because the definition of done is incomplete, unmeaningful, and mutable.

10. Development teams suffer because architectural philosophy and coding standards are poorly articulated or not expressed at all.

11. Development teams suffer because product owners can't articulate a customer ask.

12. Development teams suffer because domain knowledge is poorly articulated or not documented at all.

13. Teams suffer because their managers have no short term or long-term strategies mapped out.

14. Technology shops suffer through the pain of hierarchy. Too many layers leads to too much ambiguity and misinterpretation.

15. Corporations in general suffer because their leaders do not have well-articulated short term and long-term goals.