When the pandemic happened, my company, like many others around the world, went remote overnight.
Things went well enough for many months. We didn't even change all that much. We were already using Slack and Zoom; we just used them a lot more after going remote.
But over time, I started to feel a sense of disconnect. And it's not just me. Organizationally we began to feel the presence of a "communication gap". It was hard to put a finger on it. All we could agree on was that we needed to do better at communication.
But the strange thing was that we were already communicating. A lot. We were having meetings. We were proactively sharing information on Slack. Our Google Docs and Notion pages were buzzing with activity. So what's missing?
This puzzle followed me for a long time. Eventually bringing me to the framework of Intentional Communication.
Face-to-Face vs Remote Communication
When having a face-to-face interaction, we have a lot of communication channels beyond the words we speak. Body language, gestures, facial expressions. And we can instantaneously process all these information from multiple parties.
Even when we are not actively having a meeting, just working in the same space gives us an open window for additional information. We can overhear conversations. We can see what others are working on, and how they do it.
When working remote, we lose a lot of these channels. We don't have the same volume of information coming in from all directions. That means we are left with a smaller communication toolset.
It's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it might be a good thing. What's for sure though is that it's different, and carrying on with the same communication style before and after going remote is not going to work.
But then how should communication be done in a remote organization?
Intentional Communication
Precisely because face-to-face interactions have afforded us a lot of "bonus" communication channels, we have been able to get away with not crafting the exact message we want to convey, but rather let the "bonus" channels take care of it in an implicit way.
A raised eyebrow. A head tilt. A shrug. We had the luxury of "saying things" without saying things.
Now that we are remote, we don't have such ocean of vagueness to swim in. We need to communicate more precisely, conveying the exact message, and confirm its receipt.
This brings us to Intentional Communication. "Intentional" here has two meanings.
1 – Communicate with Intention
When we had a lot of "bonus" communication channels, we were constantly sending off messages, often without even saying words. We were on autopilot.
In the remote reality, however, we need to be thoughtful, effortful, and conscious about our communication. We need to recognize that communication is a valuable resource, and have clear goals and purposes for each opportunity.
This translates to having a clear agenda for each meeting, and having a clear goal for each message we send. Are you seeking information? Are you getting a buy-in? Are you motivating for action? Are you just sharing something, or need feedback?
2 – Communicate the Intention
It's not enough having an intention for a communication. We need to also communicate it.
"Inferring the context" is much easier when there are all the "bonus" communication channels. But in a remote setting, we need to be explicit about the context. We need to bring everyone to "information parity". We need to align on the "why". It's "all cards on the table".
In this way, Intentional Communication is very meta, with extreme awareness. You are not just conveying the message, but also conveying the intention of the message. You are not just listening to the message, but also listening to the intention of the message. It's more effortful, but it also transmits high density information. This means efficiency.
The Prisoner's Dilemma of Communication
The paradox of communication is that, on the organizational level, you need fluent exchange of information, but on the personal level, information is power. This is the prisoner's dilemma of communication. As a result, you can't expect Intentional Communication to organically happen.
There is a way though. In fact, there is a very close parallel between Intentional Communication and the Culture of Code Documentation.
Engineers write code, which is interpreted and executed by machines. So as long as your code gets the machine to do what it needs to do, that's job well done.
So there's a lot of space to be really clever and write code that only you would understand. There's also no incentive to document why you wrote the code the way you did. In fact, keeping your code opaque and mysterious might be in your best interest: only you can maintain it, so you are indispensable!
But a large-scale software project requires many engineers. So the code needs to be understandable not just by you and the machine but by other people too. Over time, organizations with a strong code documentation culture are able to scale and improve their products, outcompeting those that don't. So code documentation culture has emerged as the "winning DNA" of the fittest software engineering.
Similarly, I expect Intentional Communication to emerge as the "winning DNA" of fittest remote organizations. Those that can cultivate a culture of Intentional Communication, invest in the upfront effort of effectively using the communication resource, proactively establish information parity and align on the "why", will over a long run be at a much better position to scale their teams and products.
