Should you send that message in a DM or a group channel?

Transcript

Christine Dela Rosa:
Welcome to Work Check, an original podcast from Atlassian where we take everyday workplace practices and debate if they're actually working for us. Today, we're debating whether teams should forget direct messaging and default to communicating in open channels. I'm your host, Christine Dela Rosa, who asks herself this question on a daily basis. To DM or not DM. Should I post my joke in an open channel? Will people laugh? Thank you so much, so kind. But my own inner dialogue aside, let's bring in the debaters. We have Kelvin Yap, arguing in favor of defaulting to open channels.

Kelvin Yap:
And I want to share this openly with you all. I look forward to debating you, Eli.

Eli Mishkin:
Okay.

Christine Dela Rosa:
And debating Kelvin today, we have Eli Mishkin. Eli's arguing that teams should not default to communicating in open channels.

Eli Mishkin:
In the great parlance of our time, bring it on.

Kelvin Yap:
Fighting words. I love it. I love it.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Googling parlance...Okay. Okay, I'm with you. Before we dive in, let's all get on the same page. For the three of us here, Slack is our go-to chat platform, but the convo is open to all communication tools: Yammer, Discord, Google Chat, all that stuff. And by open channels, we mean channels where anyone can see the channel, join and contribute. Of course, we all know that DM's can be more appropriate for communicating personal or private matters – things like HR, mental health, employment specifics, et cetera. But when it comes to general team communication, where should we have those conversations? That's what we're talking about today. So Kelvin, since you're arguing in favor, why don't you start us off? Why should teams default to communicating in open channels?

Kelvin Yap:
Sure. So I'd like to start by asking you both a question.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Okay.

Kelvin Yap:
What's faster, asking five people via DM's who on the team has a certain piece of information? Or just asking a whole channel in one swing?

Christine Dela Rosa:
The latter.

Eli Mishkin:
Yeah. It seems like you're answering the question before you ask it.

Kelvin Yap:
This is my first point. Come on.

Christine Dela Rosa:
I like it. I like it.

Kelvin Yap:
Right. Right. It's often faster to default to using open channels. When it comes to project work, communicating in open channels is simply more efficient. And there are many reasons for this. So let me break it down. Firstly, open channels create shared context for a project. Anybody working on or even interested in that project can just scroll to the top of the channel and catch up, read through the why's behind how decisions are made, the questions asked, and find the files that have been shared with one another.

Kelvin Yap:
And from there they can ask specific follow up questions to fill in their gaps. They don't have to spend time wondering who should I DM about the origins of this idea? What other initial ideas were on the table? Why weren't they chosen? What were the reasons behind that? When working towards a shared goal, an open channel is a necessary, unified reference point.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Sure.

Kelvin Yap:
And we all know it's easier to get on the same page with your colleagues when you're in the same physical space. You might have short conversations as you're walking down the hallways or over some lunch about a project that you're working on. Or just being in the room at the time your colleagues are hashing something out. In a remote world, you kind of don't have that anymore. And so shared channels replace some of those conversations that you would normally have in an office. This is a great time to bring in my guest, Matt Abrahams. Matt is a lecturer at Stanford's graduate school of business, where he teaches strategic communication. We spoke about why open channels should be the default.

Matt Abrahams:
My whole take on this is, the work needs to be done. The question is, are you going to do that work upfront, or are you going to end up cleaning up the mess on the back end? And if you don't spend the time upfront, you end up spending that time or more on the backend in individual communication and re-syncing up and correcting misunderstandings. So it might feel upfront burdensome, but in the backend it can be much, much more difficult.

Matt Abrahams:
There are a number of examples I could point to. There is a networking hardware manufacturer that I have done a lot of work with over the years. And they were planning an internal conference. And I was able to help them over the course of two years. In the first year, the communication was very siloed. Only individuals who were thought to need to get this information received the information. And we spent a tremendous amount of time re-syncing up, restarting, reorganizing because people who really should have been included up front weren't. So the subsequent year we made sure we included more people in the initial conversations, and things ran so much more smoothly.

Kelvin Yap:
So, lessons I learned there from Matt, it's better to include more people in the communications about a project from the start, and to keep everyone on the same page. It ultimately means not clearing up the mess at the end of the project when you find out that the right people weren't actually involved from the get-go. And honestly, it gets harder as companies grow.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah.

Kelvin Yap:
At Atlassian we've grown so much, and it's way harder to actually understand who needs to be involved because there are just so many more people to actually have to talk to and deal with.

Christine Dela Rosa:
No, I get it. Eli, what do you have to say to that?

Eli Mishkin:
Kelvin, I think it's really interesting and telling that you bring up efficiency right off the bat because there's this myth that open channels are more efficient. I'd like to challenge that myth right here, right now.

Kelvin Yap:
Okay.

Eli Mishkin:
In my opinion, too many cooks in the kitchen can actually slow down decision-making, and it keeps projects from moving forward. For example, let's say I post a link to a document in a shared channel. Most of the time I'm really just hoping to get feedback from a couple of key people in that channel. But now anyone in that channel can comment on my document. You see where I'm going with this? I think we've all experienced seagulling, right?

Christine Dela Rosa:
Oh yeah.

Kelvin Yap:
Oh yes I have.

Eli Mishkin:
So for most office workers who don't turn animal names into verbs, seagulling is basically when someone who isn't heavily involved in a project swoops in and metaphorically poops all over the work with irrelevant feedback. We've all been metaphorically pooped on. Don't get me wrong, their intentions are often good, like wanting to help a colleague by sharing thoughts. That's a good thing.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah.

Eli Mishkin:
But I think it can just be as often a hindrance and slow things down. Aside from seagulling within the document, back and forth chatter or endless threads in an open channel can draw out decision-making. Especially when there aren't clear guidelines as to who the key decision-maker is or clear timelines about when decisions need to get made. DM's are more direct and to the point. In my experience, I get answers way faster when I DM with a single colleague or even a small group of colleagues. And that applies to when I'm the question-asker, and when I'm the person replying to a question sent via DM. With DM's, there's this sense of personalization that makes me pay close attention, like I know this DM needs my input and my response. And in shared channels, even if I'm tagged in a message, it can kind of just wash over me, especially when the channel is super active all the time and message after message just pours in. Seagulls all the way down.

Kelvin Yap:
I like that. I like that. I think for me, the point that you raise about setting boundaries and goals and guidelines on when to get feedback and who the decision-makers are, are vitally important. And if you don't get that right, things can go pretty pear-shaped pretty quickly.

Christine Dela Rosa:
This is so great to hear that you're finding middle ground and compromising on both sides, but that is not what this debate is about. Let's reset and get into round two. And tell us Kelvin, tell us why open channels should be the default.

Kelvin Yap:
Okay. Okay. Thank you for keeping us down the straight and narrow. I agree with the Eli, that seagulling is a risk. Definitely been pooped on before, and it kind of sucks.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Is that a seagull?

Eli Mishkin:
I couldn't resist.

Kelvin Yap:
That's fantastic. But I think open channels are a great opportunity to learn from our colleagues. And this is especially true for newer ones, which I'll get to in a minute. But oftentimes we don't know enough about our colleagues area of expertise to begin with. I've been in this situation myself. So I'm a product marketer. I look after one of our products called Compass. There have been times when I've kicked off a new campaign and created my planning page. Then I go and share it in an open channel thinking "yeah, why not? What the heck. And before you know it, I've had people commenting on that page and having discussions in that channel suggesting improvements, or there was one time one of our designers had worked on a different project. And they said, "Look, this strategy actually worked for this product over here. Maybe we should try it for Compass and see if it works as well."

Kelvin Yap:
Without that kind of knowledge or experience from someone whose discipline wasn't in that marketing realm, I would've never had the opportunity to understand that this was even possible, let alone that it would work. So we can learn a lot from our colleagues by communicating and sharing work in open channels. Good ideas can come from anywhere. And at the risk of seagulling, it's better to gather ideas from as wide a group as possible, than it is to kind of start narrow. An intern or a person with an outside perspective for example, may end up sharing the best idea that a channel has seen all week. So I want to bring back my guest, Matt. He talked about what's lost when we limit who gives input based on our own biases, and what happens when we use open channels to learn from each other's different perspectives.

Matt Abrahams:
When we choose to communicate, we by definition limit who is included and who isn't. And therefore we build in biases. The people we invite come with certain expectations and experiences that they share, but by definition, we're leaving other people out. And we're not getting their input, we're not getting their insight into what we could do. And that creates blind spots for us. I worked for a company, and they were tremendously siloed. And what ended up happening is they were making decisions that were being reinforced by the viewpoints and experiences only the limited people who were included. Once they opened up and got input from others, the decisions they ended up making were very different. They were more strategic and actually were more effective. So we have to be thinking about the people we include or exclude, and what we lose by not having them as part of the conversation.

Kelvin Yap:
Lastly, on this learning point, I think open channels are a great opportunity for newer people to learn not just new information, but also their colleagues' communication styles.

Christine Dela Rosa:
I've experienced that, even if at the time I didn't clock it.

Kelvin Yap:
Exactly. Think about when a new team is formed or a new person joins an existing team. Where does that person go to get caught up? Likely it's an open channel, right?

Christine Dela Rosa:
Probably.

Kelvin Yap:
Yeah. And they have access to that shared context I mentioned earlier. And when you can see all communication laid out in front of you, it shows you a colleague's communication style or that culture of that team for the odd time you do need to DM them. Like for example, if they come off as curd or succinct, you know from that open channel, that's probably just how they talk. Now I totally acknowledge that this has the potential to be overwhelming. Open channels can create a lot of noise. And then it's sort of like drinking from a fire hose. But if I put myself in my shoes 10 years ago when I first joined Atlassian, I actually appreciated having access to more information, not less. I felt empowered to read through communication and decision-making in open channels, and inform myself as much as I could.

Christine Dela Rosa:
I don't think you meant to do this Kelvin, but you're speaking directly to my learning style. I'm a bit of a lurker. I like to kind of hover around and skim through past conversations or documents and then say, "okay, this is how this team rolls. This is how they talk to each other. This is what's most important." And then I kind of jump in. And I think without that lurking time, I don't have the confidence to say what I want to say because I don't know what to expect.

Eli Mishkin:
Yeah. I appreciate the lurking style. That lands with me. And so does the idea of open channels as learning opportunities. But Kelvin, I don't know that I fully buy into the argument that you make about new employees because I'm a fairly new employee. And from my experience, learning just isn't possible when you're drowning in information, and then asked to communicate on top of that. When I started at Atlassian seven months ago, I loved it. Still do, but I also experienced a sort of vortex of information overload. It was this incredibly overwhelming experience to suddenly be dropped in so many shared channels all at once.

Christine Dela Rosa:
I remember that time.

Eli Mishkin:
My previous work experiences were highly collaborative, but we didn't default to open channels. We mostly did meetings and direct messages to communicate between teammates and clients. So when I joined Atlassian and everything was open, it suddenly felt like I was drinking from, like you said, Kelvin, an information fire hose. I'd log on to Slack and see hundreds of notifications, and hundreds more would pile up every day. I had this anxiety bubble up.

Eli Mishkin:
And I get that's on me. I could have developed better habits and guardrails for processing all of this information, but I was a new employee and I wanted to learn. Plus I wanted to keep up because that's part of my nature to be on the ball. But I couldn't. Also part of my nature? To avoid bombarding people with unnecessary messages, especially without a lot of thought put into what I'm saying. So I had anxiety two different ways, from the sender side and the recipient side. This brings me to my real second point. And maybe it's the most important point. Defaulting to open channels can be incredibly overwhelming, even if you're not a new employee. So Christine and Kelvin, neither of you are new employees. How many shared channels are you in?

Christine Dela Rosa:
I wouldn't even be able to tell you. So many.

Kelvin Yap:
I couldn't tell you either. A lot.

Eli Mishkin:
Fair enough. So right before recording, I counted mine because I knew I was going to ask that question, and it was 57. 57 open and shared channels and no joke, two more were just added before we started recording this. So I have 59 open channels. To be fair, not all of them are mission-critical or even about day-to-day work. The musician channel I'm in is where we geek out about guitar amps and stuff. But most of the channels are about projects, teams, company-wide announcements and active, daily work. Do either of you feel overwhelmed by the number of notifications you get from these channels?

Kelvin Yap:
Definitely. Yeah.

Christine Dela Rosa:
I'm probably unique in this. I don't because I'm very custom with my notifications, but I do remember the time when I didn't control them. And yes, Eli, to your point, I was overwhelmed.

Eli Mishkin:
Yes. You know the feeling, right?

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah.

Eli Mishkin:
So I was curious to hear from experts on this feeling of divided attention, of being pulled in a million different directions via shared channels. So I want to bring in Linda Stone. Linda's a former tech executive at Apple and Microsoft who coined the term "continuous partial attention." Now I want to make clear that Linda thinks there's an appropriate time to use open channels at work. And I agree with her, but she also has some very interesting things to say when it comes to defaulting to open channels, and the impact to our cognition and attention.

Linda Stone:
Continuous partial attention really describes how we use our attention today. And this is different from multitasking. When we multitask, we're doing one thing that requires cognition, and another thing that might be more automatic. Eating lunch while we read email or read a newspaper. To pay continuous partial attention though, that's to continuously pay partial attention to multiple activities that require cognition. We're continuously scanning in an effort to stay on top of multiple streams. Continuous partial attention might look like answering a phone call and talking on the phone at the same time as we're doing email, or texting and driving. With an open channel experience, we're constantly monitoring. We're constantly giving our attention away to something else that's on the screen because we don't want to miss anything. And this only works if someone has superpowers to selectively ignore, and to stay focused on the task at hand.

Eli Mishkin:
This continuous partial attention really resonates with me. Our brains are working too hard to pay attention. And there are tangible, physical impacts here.

Linda Stone:
Our attention and our breathing become compromised. Our stress level increases. And that means that stress hormones start to flood the body. We start having repeating thoughts like, I can't get everything done. I have too much to do. I'll never get this done. Like multiple mosquitoes pecking away at us.

Eli Mishkin:
Linda also coined the term "email apnea." We literally hold our breath when checking our emails and notifications. This is lizard brain stuff, right? In our line of work, attention is powerful. It's important. We need our brains to work optimally.

Linda Stone:
The most powerful tool that we have at any given time in our lives is our attention, our sense of presence. Where we decide to use it, how we decide to use it. And that informs our quality of life.

Eli Mishkin:
Continuous partial attention and even simpler multitasking can be negative. There are stats to show how all this multitasking comes at a cost. For example, there was a study from Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Lab, and their study found that during test-taking, the students who were interrupted via instant message performed 20% worse on the test versus members of the control group.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Whoa.

Eli Mishkin:
Yeah. And not only does it lower the quality of our work in the moment, it also erodes our ability to focus longterm. I want to let that sit. Our ability to think deeply and pay attention is being degraded, rewiring our brains and changing the way that we're able to engage with anything else because of doing too much in the moment. That's not exactly what we're after with open communication, is it?

Kelvin Yap:
That's really interesting. And I love the science and psychology there around the concept of continuous partial attention. I think I definitely suffer from being distracted from too many notifications, and involving myself in too many other channels that distract me from what I need to be doing, which is my work. But, and there's a "but" here.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Nice.

Eli Mishkin:
Always a "but."

Kelvin Yap:
But I do feel people can engage with those open channels appropriately. This concept there that you need superpowers to help you maintain focus and to prevent the distraction of multitasking, we have tools and processes that we can use to kind of help us there. Like Christine, you said managing notification settings or blocking off time for deep work when our colleagues know they can't communicate with us at all. The effort doesn't have to be on us alone.

Eli Mishkin:
I could use those tips and tricks. Is there an open channel you can point me to?

Christine Dela Rosa:
There is actually, Eli.

Kelvin Yap:
There actually is.

Eli Mishkin:
See what I did there?

Kelvin Yap:
But this brings me to my third and final argument. What's more important than a distraction-free work environment, is one that values transparency and openness. And open channels are a way to live these values. I strongly believe that this is healthy for team culture. Yes, transparency and openness are pretty buzzy words, but they are actually really important to the health of any team. So why transparency, and why should we work openly in these shared channels? Well, everyone has skin in the game. When I'm in the loop about how decisions are made, even if my input isn't ultimately incorporated, I have a greater sense of belonging at work, and that I've had some part to play in the eventual outcome. I know that I have the option to input in a shared channel, but only if I want to. But that doesn't happen if things are done in the shadows, AKA defaulting to DMs. Open channels can also foster empathy in the workplace.

Kelvin Yap:
When people use open channels to communicate their challenges or struggles, I can better support them. For example, when people post in our team channel about what's going on, what's on their plate, it gives me extra insight into what my colleagues are going through. This is all a lot more difficult when DM's are the default. If your managers or teammates give you work via DM's, it's not communicated openly somewhere. And so nobody knows how much work you've been asked to accomplish. Sometimes in a work-from-home environment, I feel like my coworkers are like little people that live in Zoom on my screen every day.

Eli Mishkin:
They might be.

Kelvin Yap:
And when I'm done with work, I close the laptop and that's it. I never see them again. They no longer exist. So working remotely, I find open channels are even more crucial to make me feel connected to my coworkers. As teammates, but also as people. I'm in channels like #CoffeeEnthusiasts and #SocialCycling, and I can connect with my coworkers over shared hobbies. As an extrovert, I thrive off of interacting with my colleagues, and oftentimes shared channels are the only place to really be together now. And there's research to back up the importance of social connection at work.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Can't wait.

Kelvin Yap:
Gallup authored a report called "The State of the American Workplace," which found that strong social connections at the office can make you more productive, and even feel more passionate about your work. Plus, less likely to quit. Of course it was easier in an office, and it's incredibly hard now in a remote world, but virtual interactions and shared channels can definitely help bridge that gap. Open communication is essential for a healthy workplace. It creates a sense of belonging, makes for a more empathetic workplace and tears down those social silos that have come from working remotely.

Christine Dela Rosa:
No, I definitely feel that connection. But Eli, how do you respond to that?

Eli Mishkin:
Yeah, I agree. Those open shared channels at work can help you feel more connected to coworkers. No doubt. But that only happens when there's psychological safety, right? There needs to be a preexisting sense of trust for people to engage with open channels in that way. That's not always a given, especially for newer employees, or those who want to connect with colleagues in more verbal ways, like meetings and calls. From my experience, what makes me feel even more connected to colleagues is building authentic relationships – which is what I would argue happens more easily in DMs. It's just a natural part of communicating one-to-one. In DMs, my conversations feel personal because they are personal. I'm way more likely to share kudos with a single colleague via DM. "Hey, you rock the presentation." Or, "Congrats on your new role." So to me, this really comes down to the question of if you want to have a lot of surface level touch points with colleagues, or if you want to foster deeper connections. I know what I'd rather have.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Oh, we know.

Eli Mishkin:
But moving on to my final point. So Kelvin, it's all well and good to tout openness and transparency when you have zero fear of communicating to larger groups of people, right? But that's definitely not the case for everyone. You mentioned you're definitely an extrovert, right?

Kelvin Yap:
Correct.

Eli Mishkin:
I'm extroverted too. And I don't mind talking off the cuff, but let's inhabit empathy for a bit. Imagine you're introverted.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Oh, that's me. No need to imagine.

Eli Mishkin:
Empathy for you indeed. And so I'd argue for all the introverts out there that open channels aren't that welcoming to all types of people, and all ranges of communication styles.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah. Not all the time.

Eli Mishkin:
Not everyone feels comfortable working this way in the open. So in doing some research, I came across a Reddit post from an engineer. It speaks to the anxiety of communicating via Slack. So here's the quote. "I started to get very self conscious about what I write in Slack and anything I post. Sometimes I go back days later and remove posts because I can't decide if my questions sound stupid or not. In between, I think about it and read things over repeatedly. I wish we would just ask questions verbally like we used to, and not have everything online forever and ever, especially because I'm a newer engineer. And I know my questions are very basic. Anyone else feel this way?" This person says to the void of the internet.

Christine Dela Rosa:
If not for that engineer role part, I was like, did you just read my post Eli?

Eli Mishkin:
Right? It speaks to kind of a fundamental feeling I think we might all have posting to open channels.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah.

Eli Mishkin:
So I've got a spicy angle here. Open channels actually encourage communication as performance. The more you communicate in a project channel, the more it appears like you're working hard or contributing to a project.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Yeah.

Eli Mishkin:
That's not necessarily always true, right? It's a false proxy for productivity.

Kelvin Yap:
Interesting.

Eli Mishkin:
I think defaulting to open channels puts emphasis on how communication is perceived versus how effective that communication truly is.

Eli Mishkin:
You know the Michael Pollan mantra on food?

Kelvin Yap:
Remind me about that.

Eli Mishkin:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. So here's a mantra for our debate. Open [channel communication] is fine. Not too much. Mostly DM's.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Oh, how quotable.

Kelvin Yap:
I like how you started with, open there. Almost like it's by default. So, I agree with that statement.

Christine Dela Rosa:
But seriously, seriously, this last point, really coming straight for me on that one, Eli. But more than any of our other debates, these points you both brought up, they really summon the organizer and the driver in me. I love using DMs to get answers quickly, and checkbox a lot of items every day. But when I zoom out into a longer time horizon, I do think it's better for team health to communicate openly in shared channels. So the winner of today's debate...is Kelvin!

Kelvin Yap:
Hey!

Eli Mishkin:
(Caw) That's me flying away from this debate.

Christine Dela Rosa:
Okay. Well in keeping with that open communication theme, you'll find references that Kelvin and Eli used today, the transcript, links to our guests for this debate, and all of our episodes actually on atlassian.com/workcheck. If you've stuck around for this long in our season, we appreciate you and want to let you know there is a surprise on the way. Check back in two weeks. Until next time folks, this is Work Check, an original podcast from Atlassian.