This article describes an activity to really get yourself and others to increase their level of communication detail.
Peanut Butter and Jelly
mmmmm. Holy crap I love PB&J sandwiches. In fact I just got done eating one. That reminded me of a really fun and silly activity I did when I was an On The Road Trainer for Chilis Bar & Grill. Mind you that was a LONG time ago.
The Activity
Ok the jist is very simple. The process involves 2 people. One person who is going to be trained (Instructor) in the method and the trainer (Sandwich Builder). The goal is to get the Builder to put together the sandwich with the directions being supplied by the Instructor. Now this sounds pretty easy doesn’t it? The fun part is to take what the Instructor says for face value and only do the bare minimum to comply with the direction. Here is a fun example:
Instructor: Pick up the bread.
Builder: Uses his feet to pick up the piece of bread.
Instructor: No, pick up the bread with your hands.
Builder: Uses the back of his hands to pick up the entire loaf of bread.
Instructor: NO! Pick up a single slice of bread.
Builder: Uses his mouth to pick up a slice of bread still in the wrapper.
Instructor: GAAH No, Use your hands to take the slice of bread out of the wrapper.
Builder: Uses the bottoms of his hands to pick up the piece of bread then eats it.
You can see how quickly this can become horribly out of control. Its a lot of fun. Here is something that would get the Builder to do the job correctly.
Instructor:
Using your right arm slowly extend your arm so that your hand is approximately 3 inches from the mouth of the loaf of bread.
With your right hand make a pinching gesture using your pointer finger and thumb.
Open this gesture the thickness of the first piece of bread in the loaf.
With great care move your arm and hand toward the first slice of bread as such the first slice is inserted in the the space between your pointer finger and thumb; The orientation of the hand will be perpendicular to longest side of the bread so that the piece will fit into the gesture without compression or deformation.
You can easily notice the great level of detail between the 2 examples. Each time I communicate I try to nail down the appropriate level of detail for the audience in order to make certain they are on the same page as I am so we don’t have to double back to clarify things that should of been clear from the beginning.
