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Marriage By Memo

You put everything on paper and assign action items at work. Why don’t you do that with your family at home?

You put everything on paper and assign action items at work. Why don’t you do that with your family at home?

By: Melissa Thoma   |   10/15/2010

In business, 90 percent of success boils down to clear communication. The quality of communication between customer and company predicts the quality of client service. We rely on accurate communications to make agreements, give instructions, strike deals and negotiate compensation. The wheels of any organization can fall off if communication gets bungled, boggled or blown.

Most of the verbal exchanges made in the business environment are reiterated or enhanced by written communications. I give verbal instructions to my teammates regarding client feedback and then follow up with an e-mail. After our weekly client meetings, we follow up immediately with action items detailing agreements, accountabilities and deadlines. We shake hands over a contract we’ve initialed. We take notes during a meeting and then distribute those to the group afterward. We do all of this because we understand that clear communication makes the wheels go round. Without it, we’re out of a job.

So just how important is clear communication in a marriage or long-term relationship? A column by Thom W. Conroy says it well: “In any relationship, the cornerstone of understanding another human being lies in the ability to communicate and, lacking this, a relationship is superficial in nature at best.” Since marriage is no “superficial relationship,” I’m on solid ground claiming that clear communication is an absolute imperative.

So why don’t we take another page from the playbook of business and bring more written backup into our marriages? Wouldn’t that take us far in increasing clarity and understanding?

When you sit down to talk about something important with your partner, how often do you take notes? As I think about this, I’m struck by my completely habitual note-taking during any business conversation. I walk around Thoma Thoma with a small orange notebook (because orange makes me happy) and scribble notes about every conversation I have. And it’s a pretty good thing, because more often than not, I find myself returning to those notes to clarify a detail or date that slipped my mind — or to see if I promised to do something I have now forgotten. It’s a lifesaver. I think my larger-than-wanted posterior is due to the extremely effective way my note-taking covers my backside.

But at home, I rarely take notes. I rely on my perimenopausal brain to remember everything (which is dangerous). And without that pen-to-paper effort, I just might not be listening quite as carefully to what Martin is saying.

Have you ever written up a contract with your child? Funny — we negotiate with our kids all day, every day, to greater or lesser effect. But if you have ever drafted a written agreement about, say, use of the car or the weekend curfew, you might have noticed that those agreements seem to stick more often. They do in my house, anyway. And it’s hard for a preadolescent to argue that he or she didn’t understand that midnight did not mean “any time convenient between 12 and 1 a.m.” when you have talked through a written document and then both signed it.

At Thoma Thoma, action items are the lifeblood of the agency. A wise consultant once taught us that breakdowns at work usually happen when “you don’t fulfill a request I didn’t make.” He reiterates that true agreements require a clear request, a clear consent to the request, consensus on criteria for completion and a deadline. Action items are the written response to agreements made during meetings and interactions. They involve the action, the person responsible and the deadline. These are effective, hard-working documents that ease stress, grease the wheels, reduce conflict and clarify conversations.

Man, why haven’t I ever used action items at home? I’m thinking about this because recently I raced out of town with so little prep time that I missed any kind of conversation with Martin or my son Sam about what needed to happen in my absence and who needed to do what to cover all the bases. So I wrote a long, detailed memo to Martin and Sam and e-mailed it. Just for good measure, I printed it and posted it where they would be sure to see it . . . right on their dinner plates.

Guess what? I got home to find the printed memo all marked up. It had aided their suppertime discussion and planning for the following days without mom. It was marked up with notes about who would do what. Items were systematically checked off. Everyone was fed, clothed, washed, entertained, caught up on school and work. It was wonderful. No harried, nagging conversation between two adults who are on their way out the door for the day and really are only able to track about half of the information being downloaded. Just a memo. Sweet.

So that’s it! I’m going to start using action items to keep my boys in the know about who expects what and when. That’s just good communication.