Improve office communication skills

These past few days have been an absolute whirlwind for me. Not everybody loves surprises, but I do – something my wife of six years knows all too well. I had a big milestone birthday last month, and she pulled out all the stops: a surprise party, surprise out of town visitors, surprise dinners, even a surprise getaway night! I was thrilled with all of the surprises, and thought it was the greatest birthday ever.

The only thing is, it turns out the surprises weren’t over quite yet.

This past Wednesday, my wife casually asks me what my work schedule for the next few days looks like. I told her it was the usual: planning and producing corporate entertainment and team building trivia events in Southern California, NY and nationwide, writing trivia questions, responding to event inquiries, putting together proposals, drafting contracts, calls with professional trivia hosts and event staff, and basic administrative duties. Nothing critical which I wasn’t expecting to get done before the weekend.

Then I noticed she was holding her smartphone with the camera facing my way. She was filming me.

“Uhh…what’s this all about?” I asked.

“You’re getting on a plane on Friday morning,” she calmly replied.

Stunned, I just looked at her with a dumbfounded expression on my face.

“I-I am?” was all I could stammer out.

“Yes,” she replied. “And that’s all you need to know. Get everything you need to get done, done. And do it before Friday.”

That was it. That was all the information I received. Both shocked and giddy, I dutifully did as I was told; I banged out all of the work I needed to do over the next 24 hours, then packed my suitcase Thursday night. “Open this envelope in the morning,” my wife said. Then she went to sleep. I kissed her goodnight, then kissed our kids goodnight and went to sleep.

I woke up at the crack of dawn, got dressed, ate breakfast, and opened the envelope. Inside were instructions to take an Uber from our home in Long Beach, California to LAX – upon arrival I was to open a second envelope. I did as I was told, hailed the Uber, and took the ride up to Los Angeles International Airport. Upon arrival, I opened the second envelope, and my jaw dropped.

Inside was a travel itinerary to Montreal – as well as my passport.

I boarded my plane, flew 3,000 miles, and touched down in Montreal six hours later, still not knowing where my final destination was or who I would be meeting. Inside my suitcase was a final envelope from my wife; the note inside it told me to take a cab to a hotel downtown, and check into the room under my name.

Into the taxi I went, my mind racing all the way as we drove into the city center. Once I arrived at the hotel, I went to the desk and announced my name, was promptly given a room key, and told to proceed upstairs. When I got out of the elevator and opened the door, I was overcome with joy to see two of my oldest and best friends waiting inside, saying “Happy Birthday!” The next two days and nights were just an absolute blast: exploring the city, enjoying the nightlife, and taking in the hotel’s amenities like a rooftop spa. The culminating experience was an epic meal at Au Pied De Cochon, one of the greatest restaurants in all of Canada and a destination for foodie travelers from across the globe. 

It was the most fantastic birthday surprise I’ve ever had, and required a phenomenal amount of work and secrecy to pull off. Which is what I’d like to address for the remainder of this blog post.

What made this surprise such a success? In a word, it was communication. Just think of the level of coordination which had to have transpired between my wife in Southern California, and my two friends from Brooklyn and Long Island, respectively, to make something like this possible. It had to have been in the works for MONTHS, all while keeping it out of view from Yours Truly. As I sit here thinking about it, I can only imagine the countless Emails back and forth, the text messages, the discreet phone calls, the dividing of roles and responsibilities such as researching and booking flights and hotel, making restaurant reservations, and dealing with lord knows how many hiccups which must have occurred along the way.

In short, it was because of effective communication that this “team” was able to achieve their overall goal: an absolutely fantastic experience, which was a complete and total surprise for me (follow this link for more on the importance of team communication). There is just no way that something of this magnitude could have been achieved without effective communication among not just all three of the principals involved in the planning, but their families as well; all of us are married with young children, and it’s not such a simple thing having the husbands go away for a weekend. In my wife’s case, she had arranged for a family member to come assist with taking our kids to school the morning I left, and spent part of the weekend with other family; my two friends’ wives had to arrange similar support as well. The number of people involved was WAY more than just three guys jetting off to Montreal.

To tie this all back, I want to conclude by stating that effective team communication is an essential workplace skill, one which can be taught. I’ve devoted my career to creating effective team building activities using trivia, and know from years of firsthand experience that team members who communicate effectively tend to get along better, be more efficient, more productive, and get the job done (click here for another article on communication tools). Granted my wife and two friends don’t work together, but they’ve all know each other for a long time, and really like each other; they respect one another, and all had a shared interest in giving me a birthday I’d never forget. But it was the way the communicated with one another – and NOT me – which ultimately let to them achieving success. 

For further reading, visit https://trivworks.com/trivworks-socal/