Recently, I wrote a piece on the critical importance of communication. In my opinion, the one core skill that any person needs, be it in business or life in general, is the ability to clearly communicate their thoughts and views. After all, without clear communication, how can anything involving more than one individual progress?
In an effort to take this point to the next level, I want to share a concept that I learned years ago from some organizational behavior consultants working with my organization at the time on large-scale change initiatives. The concept, called “Background-Foreground Communication”, is intended to enable groups to accelerate their integration and, ultimately, their performance so as to achieve faster results.
The concept is rather simple in its description, but amazingly interesting in its execution. In a nutshell, “background communication” is non-verbal communication comprised mostly of thoughts in one’s head that exist during an interaction with another individual or group of people. For example, if you walk into a meeting with a work colleague and you just hung up from a phone call wherein you learned that a loved one had been injured, most likely what will be running through your head is your thoughts and concerns for your loved one and, understandably, not the topic at hand. “Foreground communication” is verbal communication, or simply, what we speak aloud and share with those around us. As I said, so far, conceptually simple.
The beauty of this concept is in the understanding that while background communication exists, productive dialog is impossible. In order to achieve productive discussion, it is imperative that background communication be brought into the foreground where it can be dealt with and properly set aside. Doing so enables effective communication to occur and, hopefully, objectives to be met. To be clear, it is not necessary to disclose the specific details of your background thoughts, but merely the existence of them which will preclude fertile discourse.
By way of another rudimentary example, imagine you are making a sales call to a prospect at Heinz and prior to going into the meeting, you unfortunately sat on a piece of chewing gum leaving an obvious stain on your pants. Now, when you begin to make your pitch, the prospective client is busy thinking in their head, “gee, I wonder if she knows that she has a stain on her pants?” Meanwhile, you are thinking in your head, “I hope they don’t see the stain on my pants” – the one that you so diligently tried to hide with your jacket. How well do you think this sales call is going to go?
Now imagine that you bring this “background” to the “foreground” right away. Perhaps some self-deprecating comment about how clumsy you are or how you purposely got a gum stain on your shirt to show them how their white vinegar product has alternative uses and can be marketed as a great chewing gum stain remover. Now, not only will this approach bring the background thoughts to the foreground allowing for a productive discussion, but it also opens up another viable discussion about a Heinz product that would likely not have happened otherwise.
Regardless how you choose to go about clearing the path for fruitful dialog, make sure you give yourself the best chances possible for a positive or productive outcome during each interaction by doing so. In fact, I have found that this approach can work rather well in personal relationships as well by creating a platform for a discussion with just the simple phrase to a colleague or loved one, “Can we chat? I have some ‘background’ that I’d like to discuss.”
Nina Nets It Out: When you really stop and think about it, clear communication is absolutely critical to achieving just about anything in business or in life. Be sure to not allow yourself to be distracted by “background” when having discussions. Pave the way for fruitful dialog by moving the background to the foreground.
Great, helpful post, Nina
The other alternative we talk about is to “bracket” or set aside the background dialogue with an internal promise to revisit it at a more convenient time. Your enthusiasm for foregrounding the background makes me reconsider whether I can really bracket my background thoughts.
I feel as though I’ve pulled that off. Though I also recall conducting a training for a room full of attorneys and being very concerned if I had enough time to get through my material. I foregrounded that thought explicitly – “You’ll see me check my watch occasionally because I have a lot to cover and I want to make sure I give you the most important material I can cover in the time we have.”
A number of people thanked me for the comment after the training, saying they would have interpreted the “watch-watching” as an insult but took it as a compliment after my disclosure.
So, there’s one more bit of anecdotal evidence in favor of bringing the back to the front.
Wally,
Much appreciate your comments and support!
Tim,
Many thanks for stopping by, reading and adding to the discussion.
I am not suggesting that your “bracketing” approach can’t work, but I have found in my experience that foregrounding background items is the truest and shortest path to productive discourse [and to emphasize a point I wrote within the entry, “To be clear, it is not necessary to disclose the specific details of your background thoughts, but merely the existence of them which will preclude fertile discourse.”]
Your example is brilliant for showing how foregrounding clears the path for fruitful, well-received dialogue rather than having a room full of attorneys insulted merely for not knowing your reasons for “watch-watching”.
Tim,
I just had a read over your blog. I added you to my Blogroll and encourage my readers to check out your writings as well!
Nina –
After having read this last week, it must have sunk in. I tried it “in the moment” and it worked! It’s an easy concept to get, but powerful in its application. Thanks for sharing it.
Dan,
I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear of your success with this communication approach! I have long benefited from it and couldn’t be happier to share it with my well respected peers.
I absolutely agree Nina.
It speaks volume of how one can have clarity of thoughts and focused attention during a discussion. This is like momentarily shutting off a potential distraction and most importantly, constructively staying on course with open frankness, courage, and understanding seeking. However, I would be cautious in trying to cook up a far fetched storyline just to hide the real reason. Would being honest work?.
Thanks for the great tip.
Yuvarajah,
Without a doubt, honesty is what it is all about. I wasn’t implying that one should be deceitful about things when explaining background. In fact, white vinegar does remove gum stains! But my use of the word “purposely” as part of the explanation for the stain might have led you to believe I was recommending deceit…which I surely am not. Thanks for your readership and comment.