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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?

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.

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Judge–But Don’t Be Judgmental

Leave out the emotion. Look at your data objectively to determine the best course of action.

By: Melissa Thoma   |   09/14/2010

Anyone who owns or manages a business knows that making tough decisions is at the core of the job. And in a milieu marked by instantaneous communication and the strain of recession, the decisions just keep getting more difficult.

Those same stressors affect our personal lives and relationships. How do we get the job done at home when we are busier than ever, unable (or unwilling) to disconnect from the constant stream of incoming communications and faced with the reality or threat of fewer resources? It’s a perfect storm. A tough decision can suddenly turn home into a battlefield where each partner is wounded by friendly fire.

Recent business decisions confronting Martin and me have required more attention, negotiation and granularity than ever before. The stakes are high; we don’t have a cushy net. Needless to say, it’s made for interesting pillow talk.

We’re forging ahead by using a principle we (or at least my husband) only recently identified: We must act with discernment, not

judgment. Just what does that mean?

Here’s my line of thought.

On the face of it, a judgment should be a fair and accurate weighing of the evidence to determine an outcome. In a court of law, evidence is presented and a judgment, or decision, is made. However, there is another kind of “judgment”: the act of judging people, facts, situations or experiences through the discoloring lens of emotion, opinion or your own personal baggage. Think “judgmental.” That little “al” tacked onto a perfectly appropriate decision-making tool can mess up a decision–and a relationship–very quickly.

When emotion and personal opinion take over, we can become judgmental. We blame others and take problems personally. Not a good frame of mind for making high-quality, high-stakes decisions.

Call to mind an experience in which you and your partner held opposing opinions about a topic. Say you want to spend spring break on the sunny beaches of Cozumel. In your opinion the best, most delightful, most exciting and economical way to get there is by cruise liner. Your partner’s opinion is that cruise liners are the most boring, claustrophobic, snail-paced way to get to the Mexican Riviera. Who is right? How will you decide? What is that conversation going to be like?

If you attempt to decide using these very emotional and personal opinions, you’ll likely end up not just disagreeing but fighting. You’ll either end up at home for spring break because you couldn’t reach a decision, or the decision will be so charged that one of you will be burning up on the beach . . . and not from the subtropical sun.

Now let’s talk about discernment. What I’m referring to here is the ability to look at objective information or inputs and determine the best course of action. This means slowing down to gather as much objective data as possible. You would determine in great detail what a successful outcome for the decision would look like, and then use the inputs to discern what course of action will come closest to creating the optimal outcome. In my experience, this approach simply requires–first and foremost–an agreement between the partners that you will approach the material with discernment and not judgment.

All right, now let’s plan a vacation. Using discernment, we first agree that we want to go on vacation for one week over spring break. We agree that Mexico, specifically Cozumel or a similar beach, is the destination and that we would like to enjoy the journey, as well as the destination. We look at our budget; how much are we willing and able to spend? What are our optimal arrival and departure times? How do we want to deal with food? Entertainment?

Armed with this level of information, and agreement, you might come to the conclusion that the cruise really is the best way to meet the majority of your desires for the money. Or perhaps the facts point away from a cruise toward a vacation package at a trendy, all-inclusive resort. Either way, if you approach the options without being judgmental, it’s more likely you’ll be able to discern a decision that is agreeable to both of you. Martin and I have seen this work time and again. We’ll be caught up in making some pretty hefty judgments, back up and dig out some objective facts or data, come back to our decision without holding so tightly to our precious opinions and–voilà–the decision is clear and acceptable to both of us.

In decision making, details matter and facts matter. Discernment is an internal process. Good decision making is a dance in which we can use our guiding principles to filter through the data to reach the best decision. Self-management guru Stephen Covey calls it “integrity in the moment of choice.”

So the next time you and your partner find yourselves caught in a situation that has led to an argument, you might try asking, “Are we making a proper judgment, or is there a bit of the judgmental involved in this?” Try backing up and starting from scratch with more information and less opinion. Reaching your decision through discernment may yield a way forward that makes you both happy–and happier with each other.