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Create an Effective Communication Protocol With these Rules

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cottrell explores the concept of communication protocols between people, drawing parallels to technical protocols like HTTP and Unicode. He argues that while humans have implicit communication protocols through language and culture, we often experience breakdowns that reveal broken protocols. To address this, he presents four rules for developing stronger communication protocols in both professional and personal relationships.

The first rule is to decide the situations where a particular protocol should be used. Different contexts—such as work tasks, personal grievances, or company vision discussions—require different communication approaches. What works with close friends may not be appropriate with distant coworkers, so it’s essential to be sensitive to context.

The second rule focuses on determining the acceptable medium for transmission. The choice of communication channel significantly impacts how messages are received. For example, family notifications by police are always delivered in person, while small project tasks might be handled via email or Slack. Conflict discussions often require face-to-face interaction to convey emotional nuance, whereas financial discussions with superiors might benefit from email for record-keeping.

The third rule emphasizes always completing the communications loop, which consists of sender, receiver, and feedback. Many communication failures occur when feedback is missing or misunderstood. Cottrell suggests techniques like repeating back what was heard—common in counseling—to ensure proper decoding and reduce miscommunication.

The fourth and most important rule is to understand the human motivations of both sender and receiver. Unlike computers, humans decode messages differently based on personality, shared history, and cultural context. Inside jokes create private protocols, but these can mutate when shared with others. Recognizing that each person perceives messages differently is crucial for developing effective interpersonal communication protocols.

Recommendations

Concepts

  • Communications loop — A model consisting of sender, receiver, and feedback that ensures complete communication. Feedback is often overlooked but essential for effective message transmission and decoding between people.
  • Personality tests — Suggested as tools for understanding communication styles in close relationships. These tests can provide insight into how different personality types communicate and interact, particularly useful for high-intensity work relationships.

Tools

  • Dolby audio encoding — Dolby provides tools for developers to improve audio quality in web projects, including surround sound support in browsers. Their free online encoding utility and integration with tools like Adobe Audition can enhance user audio experiences.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to communication protocols between people — Jonathan introduces the episode’s topic: four rules for developing strong communication protocols. He defines a protocol as an established system for communication between entities, drawing parallels to technical protocols like HTTP and Unicode. He explains that while humans have implicit protocols through language and nonverbal cues, we often experience communication breakdowns that reveal broken protocols.
  • 00:04:01 — Rule 1: Decide situations where protocol should be used — Jonathan presents the first rule: decide which situations a particular communication protocol should apply to. He explains that protocols vary depending on context—work tasks, personal relationships, expressing grievances, or declining invitations all require different approaches. The key is recognizing that not all protocols work in every scenario and being sensitive to context.
  • 00:06:23 — Rule 2: Determine acceptable medium for transmission — The second rule focuses on choosing the appropriate communication medium. Jonathan illustrates how medium affects message reception, using examples like police delivering family notifications in person versus discussing small tasks via email. He notes that emotional conflicts often require face-to-face interaction, while financial discussions with superiors might need email for documentation.
  • 00:11:25 — Sponsor break and Dolby audio technology — Jonathan takes a sponsor break to discuss Dolby’s audio technology. He explains that Dolby provides tools for developers to improve audio quality in web projects, including surround sound support in browsers like Safari on iOS 10. He encourages listeners to visit developer.dolby.com or spec.fm/dolby to learn more about enhancing audio experiences.
  • 00:11:55 — Rule 3: Always complete the communications loop — Jonathan introduces the third rule: always complete the communications loop consisting of sender, receiver, and feedback. He explains that feedback is often overlooked but essential for effective communication. Techniques like repeating back what was heard—common in counseling—help ensure messages are properly decoded and reduce miscommunication caused by ‘noise’ in the transmission.
  • 00:16:02 — Rule 4: Understand human motivations of sender and receiver — The fourth rule emphasizes understanding the humanity behind communication. Unlike computers, human communication is influenced by unpredictable factors like personality, shared history, and cultural context. Jonathan suggests using personality tests for close relationships and recognizing that inside jokes create private protocols. Most importantly, each person decodes messages differently based on their values and perceptions.
  • 00:19:29 — Conclusion and encouragement to reflect on communication — Jonathan concludes the episode by encouraging listeners to reflect on their communication practices. He acknowledges that communication is a vast field that can’t be covered in one episode but hopes listeners will think about their assumptions and consider the humanity behind their interactions. He reiterates the importance of choosing appropriate mediums and understanding different perspectives.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2017-02-13T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:20:58

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey everyone and welcome to Developer Team. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and in today’s

[00:00:07] episode we’re going to be talking about four rules for developing strong communications

[00:00:12] protocols. So we’re talking about the concept of a communication protocol. And for the sake

[00:00:20] of today’s episode, a protocol is quite simply an established system for communicating between

[00:00:26] two entities. Okay, that’s a simplified definition, but an established system for two entities

[00:00:35] or more entities to communicate. And in today’s episode, we really want to focus on how two

[00:00:42] different people communicate, right? Because every day we’re working with these very strict

[00:00:48] protocols that have these definitions. We can go and look at the definitions and really

[00:00:55] protocols are the basis.

[00:00:56] for so much of what we do as developers, particularly with technology, obviously, right? We have

[00:01:03] the hypertext transfer protocol. We have things like Unicode. All of these things rely on

[00:01:10] a shared, agreed upon standard, right? That’s what the protocol is. And the protocol requires

[00:01:18] that both sides agree on the meaning of the messages that are transmitted between both

[00:01:25] sides.

[00:01:26] Now, the thing that makes it so important to me is that when we’re talking about communication

[00:01:27] this, an interesting concept when it comes to humans is that we have kind of an implicit

[00:01:33] protocol, right? We have language. Languages are implicit protocol. We have a lot of implicit

[00:01:41] protocols that are nonverbal, nonverbal communication. We have all of these ways of decoding the

[00:01:47] messages that other people are sending to us, and all of these ways of decoding messages

[00:01:53] that we see in the media as well, right?

[00:01:56] So this concept of protocols is particularly interesting because we haven’t explicitly defined them, usually, we haven’t explicitly defined them, except at a cultural and maybe a linguistic level.

[00:02:13] In other words, we do have things like the dictionary, and we have some level of shared history and documentation of that history that we can reference when we are communicating with one another.

[00:02:27] But as we’ve talked about plenty of times on this show, and we’re going to continue talking about it, the interpersonal communication that you have with your co-workers and the relationships that you have in your job,

[00:02:40] these are so important to your career. In fact, perhaps the most important things to your career.

[00:02:48] And so even though humans are relatively pretty good at developing these implicit, almost instinctual,

[00:02:56] it depends on who you talk to, which scientist you’re talking to. I’m not a behavioral psychologist by any means, but these almost instinctual ways of communicating and understanding the world,

[00:03:07] we don’t often think about protocols in the same way that we think about allowing two computers to communicate to each other.

[00:03:16] However, we do still often have communication breakdowns. And what this reveals is perhaps a broken protocol.

[00:03:26] So I want to give you four rules, or maybe you can view them as guidelines, for developing stronger communications protocols.

[00:03:34] And we’re talking about either strengthening your implicit protocols with other people, or perhaps actually developing explicit protocols.

[00:03:46] And this is often what we see when we have people going through counseling.

[00:03:50] There are models of communication that are used in counseling rooms because the protocols are not the same.

[00:03:56] So we’re going to talk about some of that stuff today.

[00:04:01] We’re going to jump straight in, actually, to rule number one.

[00:04:05] And that is, number one, decide situations where your particular protocol should be used.

[00:04:11] Now, let me back up and say, we’re talking about communications protocols.

[00:04:16] These are going to vary.

[00:04:17] There are going to be many communications protocols that you use with other people.

[00:04:23] You don’t treat everyone the same way.

[00:04:26] And maybe there are subsets of protocols.

[00:04:29] For example, language is a kind of a superset of many protocols that you may use, depending on the scenario.

[00:04:36] And it’s really important that as you start thinking about this, let’s say, for example, that you want to develop a protocol for asking someone to do a task at work.

[00:04:49] This may be a very specific example of a protocol.

[00:04:52] Or you could be developing a protocol for your personal relationship.

[00:04:56] Or you could be developing a protocol for your personal relationships, right, where you want to express a grievance or maybe you want to turn down an offer to hang out.

[00:05:05] Now, before you get turned off from this idea of kind of treating yourself like a computer, understand that all of these rules are going to be centered around making this work for humans, right?

[00:05:18] This is not about turning your thought processes into a mechanized thing.

[00:05:24] Instead, it is about learning.

[00:05:26] Really investigating the ways that you communicate.

[00:05:29] So, number one, decide the situations where this protocol should be used.

[00:05:33] There are times when a particular protocol that you use at work is not going to work out very well in your social situations and vice versa.

[00:05:43] You may not necessarily need to tell the same types of jokes that you tell to your closest friends to your distant coworkers.

[00:05:53] And so these are protocols that you should understand and be.

[00:05:56] Sensitive to so that’s rule number one decide the situations where this protocol should be used where it’s appropriate not all communications protocols should be used in every scenario that you encounter rule number two determine the acceptable medium for transmission determine the acceptable medium or perhaps media but the acceptable medium for this particular transmission this is something that goes largely overlooked and it is often the source of communications mishaps in communication.

[00:06:23] So, number two, determine the acceptable medium for transmission.

[00:06:26] In business and in personal relationships alike right because if we use the wrong kind of medium it can absolutely add color or perhaps remove a large amount of information from that message for example my wife and I we often watch the first forty eight this is a show about crime investigation specifically about homicide and one of the messages that they often have to deliver is a family notification.

[00:06:56] To the victim’s family now the interesting thing is that in every scenario no matter which police department we’re talking about across the country all of the police departments always deliver that information in person this has been an established protocol for the for these police departments there are situations where whatever the message is will dictate the type of media used so if you are.

[00:07:26] Talking about tasks on a project a small task with a client it is very possible that you can talk about that task through email or perhaps on a chat client like slack however if you are talking about the vision of the company it’s very possible if not likely that that is a an in person kind of media right you you may need to be face to face for that particular communication to to be effective.

[00:07:55] Another example.

[00:07:56] Of this is when you are expressing yourself in in a conflict and there’s a lot of emotion that can’t be transferred through through pure text right so having at least vocal inflection may cut down significantly on the issues of miscommunication and that’s really what we want to do with protocols right so this is this is something that you have to determine on a case by case basis sometimes.

[00:08:25] But you.

[00:08:26] Also should set up guidelines right so for example if you are dealing with conflict you always do that in person or perhaps you decide that every communication that you have with your superior with your boss about money should be done via email so that you have that record that record keeping available and you have context for previous conversations and that kind of stuff so understanding that the media that you choose to communicate.

[00:08:55] Through.

[00:08:56] You makes a big difference in how that message is received and in the value of that message in the long run.

[00:09:04] So rule number one decide which situations the protocol should be used in and rule number two determine what medium is most appropriate for for your particular message for that protocol we’re going to take a quick sponsor break and talk about today’s sponsor Dolby I don’t know about you but when I hear the name Dolby when I hear.

[00:09:25] About the brand Dolby in my mind I think of studio quality or theater quality sound right and that’s what Dolby is known for.

[00:09:34] But the reality is we don’t have to go into a studio or into a theater to have good quality sound anymore right the the technology has advanced beyond just simple stereo sound and Dolby is providing this to you as a developer as a new tool because.

[00:09:51] Statistics are showing that today’s users want better audio in fact.

[00:09:55] 80% of digital device users rank sound quality as important across the digital entertainment ecosystem now this doesn’t always mean that you need better audio assets in fact sometimes your audio assets are perfectly fine you probably need a better audio codec to be sure your users are hearing everything.

[00:10:15] Now asset encoding with Dolby is easily accomplished with the tools that you’re probably already using if you’re dealing with audio very often like Adobe audition.

[00:10:25] Or.

[00:10:25] You can use Dolby’s free online encoding utility now here’s here’s an interesting reality that you may not be aware of if you’re a web developer you can add surround sound audio to your web development projects.

[00:10:41] Your browser audio can be surround sound now in particular iOS 10 supports the surround sound so you have digital audio that you can deliver to the browser.

[00:10:55] The web development browser this is going to open up so many awesome things that can be done in the browser just by using a new codec and it’s totally free for you just go and check it out developer.dolby.com or you can go to spec.fm.

[00:11:11] Slash Dolby to learn more about how you can use Dolby to increase the quality of your audio thank you so much again to Dolby for sponsoring today’s episode of developer T so we’re talking about communications protocols.

[00:11:25] I feel like Dolby is a great sponsor for that by the way because they’re going to increase the quality of transmission of audio but we’re talking about communications protocols not just in terms of increasing the the ability to be heard right.

[00:11:41] This is a person to person discussion it’s a psychology psychology discussion but it’s also a discussion about eliminating some of the problems that we may not even see happening for example.

[00:11:54] Using the.

[00:11:55] Wrong medium to transmit a message rule number three always complete the communications loop always complete the communications loop okay so you may be listening to this and wondering what the communications loop is and in fact I didn’t know what the communications loop was and wouldn’t have had I not study communications in college but the communications loop is very simple you have a sender this is the person with a message to send right and then you have a receiver.

[00:12:24] This is someone who is going to be hearing or reading or otherwise consuming receiving that message from the sender that initial transmission the sending is one part of the loop and then the last part of the loop and this is the one that is probably most often forgotten is feedback okay feedback is actually a new message that is sent back to the original sender and it starts a new loop so you should be.

[00:12:54] Once you’ve gone down this line a little bit just sending feedback to each other right there may be a new message initiated from a person who who has just sent feedback so it’s not always just responding it may be proactively adding a new message to the communications but this this feedback loop is incredibly important a lot of people forget to complete the feedback loop now what does that look like what typically it looks like either a.

[00:13:23] One.

[00:13:24] One sided conversation where one person is only wanting to send a message and not receive any feedback on those messages another example of this is when you have two people who are simply not communicating you’re not even sending a message right or perhaps you’re trying to send a message but there is this other piece that comes in which is noise this is the final piece of the feedback loop.

[00:13:50] You should understand and noise when you’re talking about two people.

[00:13:54] Talking to each other communicating with each other noise comes in many different formats not necessarily literally noise although of course that is to be considered but also the psychological noise or perhaps something that redirects the message from its original intent.

[00:14:10] We’re going to talk a little bit more about the human side and intent versus reception later on in the fourth rule but understand that this communications loop is incredibly important so if you are sending.

[00:14:24] A message you should also be waiting and expecting feedback and if you don’t get the feedback that you were looking for or or any feedback at all or perhaps for some reason the feedback does have something noisy maybe it’s a nonverbal feedback that you’re not picking up on.

[00:14:40] Then you you should be asking for that feedback right encourage the other person whoever you are establishing this communications with encourage them to to communicate back to you their thoughts.

[00:14:54] You should also be asking for that feedback that you’re not picking up on.

[00:14:55] Then you you should be asking for that feedback that you’re not picking up on.

[00:14:58] A lot of times the feedback portion of a communication protocol between two people is most effective when it includes a reciprocated reputation of what was just said right so this is very commonly used once again in counseling.

[00:15:17] When you have two people who are communicating the first person communicates some kind of message.

[00:15:24] And when the second person receives that message and decodes it for themselves, they should turn around and repeat what that message was to the sender.

[00:15:34] This is a very effective way to provide feedback, even if you don’t necessarily have anything to add to that message.

[00:15:43] Really, what you’re saying is, here is how I have decoded what you have said to me.

[00:15:48] A lot of times, what this will end up prompting is some correction in the decoding process.

[00:15:55] And this kind of brings us to our fourth rule or guideline for developing strong communications protocols.

[00:16:02] And that is to understand the human motivations of the sender and the receiver.

[00:16:08] Understand the humanity of the people in your communications loop, right?

[00:16:14] The sender and the receiver.

[00:16:15] Remember that unlike computers, communication technology…

[00:16:18] These protocols between two humans will be heavily influenced by something that is not necessarily predictable, right?

[00:16:26] Our humanity is not necessarily predictable.

[00:16:28] We have different ways of formatting messaging.

[00:16:31] We have different ways of decoding messaging.

[00:16:33] And these are things that are not easy to nail down.

[00:16:36] This is why psychology is such a broad area of study.

[00:16:39] And it’s something that is ongoing and probably always will be because we haven’t totally figured out how humans’ brains work.

[00:16:47] And so when you have…

[00:16:48] When you have two humans interacting, you are kind of multiplying that complexity, for lack of a better understanding.

[00:16:55] You’re multiplying that complexity because of the way that two different types of people will end up interacting.

[00:17:02] Now you can do some investigation, especially for your primary relationships in your life.

[00:17:07] For example, Lauren and I, we’ve decided to understand as much as we can about each other.

[00:17:13] And we take personality tests and that kind of stuff to determine what are some ways

[00:17:18] that our different personality types, our general personality types, may end up communicating.

[00:17:25] And that can be very insightful.

[00:17:26] And there are a lot of studies that can give you some insight into how you communicate.

[00:17:32] This would be something that you could do with coworkers that you have high-intensity relationships with.

[00:17:38] When I say high-intensity, I mean when you are constantly in communication with a particular coworker.

[00:17:44] Maybe you do this with your boss or someone.

[00:17:48] He works right next to you every day.

[00:17:50] These are the kinds of relationships that you want to really understand as much as possible, right?

[00:17:55] So that when you are developing communications protocols, you’re doing so with those pieces in mind,

[00:18:02] rather than only relying on your implicit assumptions about how communication should happen between two people.

[00:18:09] For example, between two people, there may be an inside joke or a memory that is shared.

[00:18:15] This creates a private protocol.

[00:18:17] Between those two people.

[00:18:19] But the thing is, that protocol could be mutated, right?

[00:18:23] That memory or that inside joke, that protocol could be mutated if that joke or memory is shared with a new person.

[00:18:32] It’s no longer private anymore.

[00:18:34] Furthermore, I can’t stress this enough.

[00:18:37] Each person will have a different perception of messages that are being sent.

[00:18:41] And because they value different things, each message may end up carrying different.

[00:18:47] Different underlying emotional and perceived intention.

[00:18:53] I want you to fully grasp this here.

[00:18:55] Just because we are different, when I hear one message and you hear the same message,

[00:19:02] we’re going to decode those messages differently, right?

[00:19:05] We’re going to understand what they mean to us differently.

[00:19:11] I’m not going to understand a message the same way you will.

[00:19:14] Now, there’s going to be overlap.

[00:19:16] There’s going to be linguistic.

[00:19:17] Overlap and cultural overlap, but every message is going to be decoded differently.

[00:19:22] And you have to remember that when you are developing communications protocols between you and other people.

[00:19:29] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer tea.

[00:19:32] I hope you have enjoyed this discussion on communications protocols.

[00:19:36] Uh, it is certainly not a discussion that is going to be closed out with a single episode of developer tea.

[00:19:42] Uh, communications is a huge field of study and that inter change between.

[00:19:47] People that is such a complex and special thing that you should spend some time, uh, developing at least some thoughts around this for your own life, for your own relationships.

[00:19:59] And so I hope you will go and think about how you communicate with other people and how important it is not just to rely on your assumptions, but instead start thinking about the humanity of it and start thinking about what medium is most acceptable, et cetera.

[00:20:14] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of developer tea.

[00:20:17] Once again, and thank you to Dolby, our incredible sponsor.

[00:20:21] Remember you can get great quality audio in the browser now, right?

[00:20:26] And, and iOS 10 is supporting this Safari is supporting it.

[00:20:31] Windows, uh, Windows browser is supporting tons of support for this, and it’s increasing the quality of users, uh, experience and users have expressed that they want this increased quality and you can learn more by going to spec.fm slash Dolby.

[00:20:45] Thank you again to Dolby for that.

[00:20:47] For sponsoring today’s episode.

[00:20:48] And until next time, enjoy your tea.

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