Poor communication produces problems. It can even leave bad feelings between maintenance and other departments or between people within the maintenance department.
You don't need to be an English major to be understood, but you do need to be aware of how you use words to express yourself. Here are some tips:
- Avoid using pronouns. Say “Jim Smith told me” instead of “They told me.”
- Call things by their correct names. Don't refer to “conduit” if you mean EMT.
- Avoid absolutes. “This machine always acts up” probably isn't true.
- When discussing a problem, keep the discussion on the problem and not on the other person. Rather than “You have this set wrong,” say “Can you please check the settings? They don't look right to me.”
- Be careful with modifiers, such as the word “only.” Where you use it in a sentence can completely change the meaning; what you say and what the listener hears may differ starkly.