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These 5 Speaking Habits Make People Want To Collaborate With You
Nix The Negatives
Negative like “I can’t” or “I won’t” distance you from teammates and give the impression that you’re in opposition to someone or something.
Try to propose an alternative or at least soften your phrasing.
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Collaboration
Working remotely, especially when your team is distributed across the globe, means working asynchronously, that is, across time zones. This is a skill.
Ask good questions
Don't assume that others know what you're talking about. Provide some clarifying context. Then, re-read your question, trying to identify the places that you make assumptions, and anticipate any issues that may result.
Include links to your references to ensure they're looking at the same thing you are.
Work with transparency
- Change your settings in Google Drive and allow anyone in your organization to edit new files. Then someone can make a change before they lose their train of thought. You can always revert the changes you don't like.
- Always include links.
- If you use a group chat tool, communicate in public channels unless it's a personal or sensitive issue. A public database of chats allows teammates to find answers to their own questions.
- If you have a video call, record and share it with others that weren't able to attend due to time zone issues.
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Ground Yourself In Reality
Brainstorming lets you speculate without restriction, but your ideas must be checked against reality. Be realistic about what options are actionable, and then take the next steps.
Encourage teammates to submit ideas into a single project. Then, have everyone like their favorites and sort them based on that.
Identify First Steps
Big tasks tend to lead to procrastination if we don’t immediately choose the first steps. Study past similar tasks, the necessity for it and how to achieve it.
Having a time and a place when you know you’ll need to present your ideas to an audience is a good way to force you to structure your approach.
Choose Specific Goals
Breaking your big picture into specific doable goals will make it much more actionable. Especially if they come with a finite timeline.
Big questions are worth asking but they should be framed in a way that doesn’t feel burdensome or insurmountable.
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“Be A Strong Writer”
This is one of the first pieces of advice people give to those seeking remote work.
When you work remotely, a few misplaced words can become an occupational hazard. Every word you type (or don’t) is important in conveying your ideas and communicating effectively with your colleagues.
Accessible Language
- Use of caps lock, emojis, italics and tildes (~) to make your language flowery, fun and human is a great idea for remote working. You can also use memes and gif images, provided they are not offensive to anyone.
- Robot speak is not a good way to freely collaborate with your remote peers. Use simple words, and keep it on the casual side, skipping the inaccessible and stilted language. You can also opt for contractions like writing isn’t instead of is not.
Be Clear And Concise
- Do not obscure your message by words that are there to decorate the sentence and make it sound wordy while camouflaging what you mean.
- Make good use of qualifiers ("I think, In my opinion") while not coming across as a perpetually confused person. Don’t use qualifiers while making a strong point.
- While writing documentation, it is prudent to avoid jargon and acronyms.
- Use complete words and sentences. Shortcuts and acronyms block any actual communication, acting as roadblocks. On the same lines, avoid cliches, idioms and any idiotic sounding phrase that catches the ear well but doesn’t really do any good to anyone.
- Remote working is often on a global scale, and certain expressions will not be understood by some participants, or worse, will be misunderstood.
- Your words and tone should be tailored according to your audience. The words are different when you are writing to a client, and when you are in a small group chat with your peers. More people in chat also means adopting a polished, professional tone.