Ask a friend, Kati Alijoki Sanoma

In the past few months, what have you been experimenting with and learning from it, Head of Insight at Sanoma, Kati Alijoki?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of communications and how important it is that a company/division/team has a common language. Needless to say, during covid as remote work has increased tremendously, talking with each other and using common language are worth their weight in gold. In my position as a Head of Insight, I find myself quite often in complex data-intensive projects where it is so easy to get lost in professional/technological jargon and find out that in the end people involved in the project are actually solving almost the same problem… but not quite. 

So here are a couple of old tricks that I’ve been lately reminding myself

1. Do not assume. Ask and speak up. There is absolute wisdom in the saying there are no stupid questions. I always try to take the role of asking rather than assuming. This is the mantra I try to get through with my teams also. If someone has to be the one asking stupid questions, be the one and be proud of it.
2. Call a colleague rather than reach them in Slack/Teams/Whatsapp/Messenger/Jodel… This I fail miserably myself. As my calendar is packed with meetings I seldom find myself talking on the phone. But I do it as much as I can. It is so much about how we say things rather than what we actually say.
3. Create a common language. Do not assume people know what you are talking about. One of my latest observations is that if you try to involve people in projects, you should always start creating a common language. Lately, I’ve been dealing a lot with CX projects. Do not assume people know what is the difference between e.g. customer centricity and customer experience. Make sure you share the same definitions. After that, it is much easier to get people involved and even excited.
4. Stop using 3/4/5 letter acronyms. Nothing to add here. 😊

So with these learnings, I try to continue on the bumpy road of communicating with the people in the office but a lot of the same rules also apply outside the office life as well. Go and try.

Thank you Kati!
(Kati in LinkedIn)