I wonder which is more dangerous - Written miscommunication or Verbal miscommunication. I possess an abundance of experience in both and want to share one of the most blatant miscommunication committed by me in my previous organisation. We might call it blasphemy as well :)
I had newly joined the company and did not have much work, so my zonal manager had called me to type a report in MS-Word for him since he was old and was not comfortable with computers. The report was regarding the Risk survey done for a big Manufacturing client. To present the best report and get good business in return, a couple of managers and Management Trainees were also present and were debating on the content and the 'slick' way to phrase the sentences. Further complexity was due to the fact that this business proposal was from our CEO, who was a college friend of the client.
The easy part was that I did not have to use my brain since I was simply typing what I was told. Each and every sentence was debated a million times...it should not be offensive, it should be clear, concise blah blah blah....It felt as if all of them were masters of communication.
After an agonising two hours, the report was prepared and the zonal manager asked me to mail to the Client with cc to the 'CXO' clan and other important people. I showed my tech savvy skills by using only the keyboard shortcuts and not touching the mouse at all. All this done in a jiffy and felt i was ready to be part of 'management' as I was there. I even pointed out to him that his laptop was good and had the latest version of MS office, though he barely understood my point.
Exactly 10 seconds after I sent the mail that the bomb exploded.....The faces of the people around me with blackberry phones turned red and they couldnt belive what they were reading.....A dreaded silence in the room.....Then the old manager almost spranged towards me with rage and madness in his eyes......I typed the location as "Khajurao" in each of the paragraphs while the actual location was 'Hazira'.
The zonal manager had his mouth full of 'Pan-masala' and was mumbling while dictating. Since I didnt knew any place called "Hazira", I used "Khajurao" everywhere. A multi-crore business proposal with Incorrect location of the client mentioned at multiple places and sent from one of the important person in the organisation. The door was too far my seat else i would have ran away.
I stood up like a kid with head down. For the next 30 minutes, everybody seemed to possess the oratory skills of Winston Churchill and I received the 'message of a lifetime'. I never touch anybody's laptop after this episode !
I had newly joined the company and did not have much work, so my zonal manager had called me to type a report in MS-Word for him since he was old and was not comfortable with computers. The report was regarding the Risk survey done for a big Manufacturing client. To present the best report and get good business in return, a couple of managers and Management Trainees were also present and were debating on the content and the 'slick' way to phrase the sentences. Further complexity was due to the fact that this business proposal was from our CEO, who was a college friend of the client.
The easy part was that I did not have to use my brain since I was simply typing what I was told. Each and every sentence was debated a million times...it should not be offensive, it should be clear, concise blah blah blah....It felt as if all of them were masters of communication.
After an agonising two hours, the report was prepared and the zonal manager asked me to mail to the Client with cc to the 'CXO' clan and other important people. I showed my tech savvy skills by using only the keyboard shortcuts and not touching the mouse at all. All this done in a jiffy and felt i was ready to be part of 'management' as I was there. I even pointed out to him that his laptop was good and had the latest version of MS office, though he barely understood my point.
Exactly 10 seconds after I sent the mail that the bomb exploded.....The faces of the people around me with blackberry phones turned red and they couldnt belive what they were reading.....A dreaded silence in the room.....Then the old manager almost spranged towards me with rage and madness in his eyes......I typed the location as "Khajurao" in each of the paragraphs while the actual location was 'Hazira'.
The zonal manager had his mouth full of 'Pan-masala' and was mumbling while dictating. Since I didnt knew any place called "Hazira", I used "Khajurao" everywhere. A multi-crore business proposal with Incorrect location of the client mentioned at multiple places and sent from one of the important person in the organisation. The door was too far my seat else i would have ran away.
I stood up like a kid with head down. For the next 30 minutes, everybody seemed to possess the oratory skills of Winston Churchill and I received the 'message of a lifetime'. I never touch anybody's laptop after this episode !
