Why effective communication is important

In a recent contribution to the Engineering Australia website, the UAE Chapter President, Harry Roberts, expressed his appal at a report sent to him which was riddled with typos, spelling mistakes, and grammatical errors. Mr Roberts then asserted that catastrophic results can come from such careless mishaps in communication, and that the job of engineers is not only to produce accurate drawings, but also to effectively communicate among themselves and with other stakeholders.

To achieve quality outcomes, workers in our industry need to be skilled communicators, so as to efficiently and pleasantly interact with employers, colleagues, and clients. At every step of a project, clear and timely communication is vital—especially in civil engineering, the products of which are often large and heavy infrastructures that directly impact the daily operation of communities, where a tiny mistake could lead to catastrophic accident and even loss of lives. From sourcing public opinions, discussing research and findings in planning, proposing construction plans to relevant authoritative bodies, to keeping the gears running while the project is under construction or maintenance afterwards, any messages should be clear to people from a range of professional backgrounds and with varying levels of communication skills. This helps ensure all steps outlined are correctly understood by whoever performing the actual physical tasks, and that on-site supervision and off-site updates are kept consistent.

Below are three of the most common communication mistakes engineers can make, with some suggestions as to how to avoid or fix them.

Unnecessary abstraction

Many engineers slip into abstraction while describing or defining project objectives and scope documents which are supposed to be clear and approachable to all stakeholders. For example: “This project will accommodate a large amount of passenger under emergency circumstances”—the scale of the project and the importance would be much clearer if the person had specified the approximate number of people (say, 100,000 passengers per day) and what these “emergency circumstances” are (for instance, road accidents or natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes).

For engineers, being concrete is more important than sounding academic. We should always get straight to the key figures, to demonstrate just how large a project should be and how long it should take to finish an infrastructure that satisfies all the outlined requirements. Be mindful of a balance between numbers and words to be precise or descriptive, depending on the situation.

Underexplaining/Overexplaining

Not all our readers/listeners will have as extensive a technical background in engineering as we mostly do. A term can be extremely commonly used, no explanation needed, in the engineering field and among professionals, while completely unheard of or unclear to external stakeholders, especially the public community who should ultimately benefit from the construction of any civil projects. Similarly, getting from point/step A to B can be glossed over when communicating steps of a process between two engineers, but to external stakeholders, the little increments between A and B also need to be listed in order for them to fully grasp the scope and flow of that process.

We should try and put yourself in the other party’s shoes. Before deciding on how in-depth an explanation should be, ask yourself: Do they have the same level of technical knowledge as I do? Will they be more comfortable and less intimidated by this new information if I use more layman terms? How involved are they in the process or this step of the process? How much time do they have for the communication aspect of the job? Your colleague who underwent the same training procedure as you did will certainly appreciate brief and technical updates on how your tasks are going, while a member of the community will be more readily involved in the feedback step if you explain the project to them from their perspective: how will they and their local community benefit, for example.

Sparse and inconsistent communication

Lastly, an often overlooked aspect of communication is frequency. The practical mindset of us engineers sometimes makes us limit communication to external and even internal stakeholders to a minimum. Of course, lengthy and excessive meetings are terrible for productivity; however, lack of consistent interactions between different teams and between the company and their clients/the public will likely lead to more miscommunication and preventable errors. Teams should try and set interval between checkpoints where colleagues and stakeholders receive updates on how your end of the process is going, any potential risks to look out for in their tasks, any changes to the plan and expectations. This helps ensure that no party has to be frustrated by a lack of input and have to make guesses as to how to proceed—which we all know is detrimental to the quality of the final outcome.

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With the Kypreos Group, transparent and timely communication with our clients and partners comes at the forefront. This value is integrated throughout all our training and project conducting – read more here on our website.