Thursday, April 2, 2009

Miscommunication in a Work Setting

I have been lifeguarding since I was 15. Through time I was able to work my way up through the ranks to headguard/assistant manager. Recently, as in this past summer, I was telling one of the guards that in 45 minutes it would be okay to move down from 3 lifeguards on duty to two. For whatever reason this was mistaken as 15 minutes. Following his next shift he told one of the guards that they were on break now and that we were going to two guards. Not ten minutes later a mother came to the lifeguard office complaining that there was not an adequate amount of guards on duty. Confused I looked out side and saw only two guards even though there was supposed to be three for another two shifts. Angry at first I asked the guard why he was not on chair and he said that I told the previous guard that we were to go to two. I am not sure where the miscommunication was in this situation. I guess it was as simple as someone mishearing someone else however heaven forbid if there had been an incident it would have been my fault. Sometimes miscommunications are unavoidable. Even if you tell someone something, have them write it down and write it down for them they may still not understand clearly and not do what is expected to be done. I think to avoid these situations as much as possible people need to make sure that they speak clearly and maybe even have the person that they are speaking to reiterate what they have just heard back to them. Like I said it is impossible to completely avoid every miscommunication however there are steps that can be taken to ensure that very few happen.

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