No, I am not a communication expert. These tricks are found out by trying, making mistakes, and trying again. Still, I want to share them. One you can call the TAC-tick. The other one is the three points trust. 

TAC-tick

The TAC-tick is a way of handling communication to either prevent problems or to handle difficult communication in a good way. It stands for Tell – Ask – Check

Tell and ask

The main goal for the talk and ask is ‘Look in the mirror before you look at someone else’. When there are problems I often hear things like ‘I didn’t know’, ‘He should have told me’, ‘He should have asked’. I’m not saying that isn’t true. I’m saying you should have a look at what you can do. Did you tell? Did you ask?

Why is that important? Let’s take the situation where you have a good manager and a bad manager. But you can replace manager also by employee, colleague, team member, whatever you want.

A good manager cannot help you if he or she doesn’t know. Just because they are good, that doesn’t make them mind readers. So, if you want something from them, you have to tell that. And if you don’t understand something, you have to ask.

A bad manager might not help you, even if you tell and/or ask. But at least he or she can’t say ‘I didn’t know’. Many bad managers will try to get the opportunity to blame others for their mistakes. By telling problems and asking questions, you make the change far smaller this person is going to be you.

And also, in general, when two people both try to tell and ask, you decline the change on communication problems very much. If you forget to tell, the other might remember to ask. If you forget to ask, the other might remember to tell. And the other way around. You now have two changes that important information is shared, instead of one.

Check

So why check? When the Tell-Ask goes wrong, it very often goes wrong on both sides. When people don’t like working together, one most likely will not talk and the other one will not ask. They will be waiting for the other to do something.

And it’s not always when people are on bad terms. Sometimes people just have to learn what should be shared and what not. Or when to share. Certainly, if they are in a new position, a new team, or in another way in a new situation.

Just checking if the communication has taken place is always a smart thing to do. And it can be done by anyone. You don’t have to be a manager or consultant, not even a team member. You just have to know both. It does help if you have some benefit from the communication, but even that is not needed.

And it’s the same here. Even if it isn’t your job to tell or ask, but you have a benefit in good communication, why didn’t you check? You might have been able to help or to inform someone who could.

Three points trust

This is more for making sure you have the right persons to handle the communication in a difficult situation. I ask you to check for yourself two things:

• Do I know three things this person is good at?
• Do I know three things this person is bad at?

If you are not able to answer both questions very quickly, then you need help in the communication. Yes, both questions.

I think the bad one you can guess. If you think too badly about a person, you most likely will not be able to handle the communication properly. Even if you are that good, that you don’t already start with a ‘I don’t like you’ attitude, you will only be able to tell that person that he did things wrong. So, in the luckiest situation, that person will feel attacked or offended. And a person that feels attacked or offended will most likely not listen to you anymore. And are you really able to listen to the other, if you are already convinced that person can do no good (even almost no good). But very often your attitude will be used to show why you aren’t worth listening to. Why listen to a person that is very clearly against me?

But the good one is even important. Are you able to see that a person is wrong? Might need to change? If you believe that everything this person does is correct? Can you really be objective?

Let me be clear: both situations can happen, even if you try to avoid them. There are a lot of people that will only tell you their success story. And if they don’t, they will probably tell you, it’s not their fault. If that person is your main source of information, how can you know any different?

And there will always be people you mostly know because they complain or other people complain about them. If you know them almost solely from that, how could you know any different?

Good communication in difficult situations

People never listen, people never tell, people are not trusting other people enough, people are not understanding other people enough. I’ve heard them all. I’ve used them all. Certainly in situations where the topic is difficult and even might make some people unhappy. The current standard tactic is often to avoid communication until you have no other choice. But then emotions are very often present. And being objective is no longer possible.

I’m not saying you can avoid every communication problem. But I really believe you can make communication better by using Talk – Ask – Check from the beginning, preferably before it becomes a really serious problem. Certainly, before emotions become involved.

And if you want to tell or ask the right way, make sure you know the good and bad things about a person. If not, ask someone to help you that does.