So to speak

From June 2022-23, in addition to being a product manager I served as Chief of Staff for the Microsoft Education Product team, and drove business rhythm and reporting for the cross-discipline marketing, sales, and product leadership team. This post is part of a series of reflections on my learning from that experience.

In business literature and self-help books, much has been said about the significance of communication. As Chief of Staff, I had the opportunity to witness communication in many forms - written, spoken, unstated, opinionated, persuasive, defensive and then some.

As someone who likes to take it all in, I comfortably took notes about what was being said, and how it was being said, listening for what lay between the lines. Over time, my notes got more pointed, they distilled what really mattered, and I noticed a pattern, a pattern of effective communication. Still, I could not quite capture what effective communication looked like, not till I came across this distillation from none other than Rumi. I am restating it slightly -- 

Before you speak (or write), let your words pass through three gates:

At the first gate, ask yourself, "Is it true?"

At the second gate, ask yourself, "Is it necessary?"

At the third gate ask yourself, "Is it kind?"

On a recent trip, I found myself conversing with the chef of a tiny, and perhaps the best Indian restaurant in Tokyo. While stirring curries, he espoused wisdom he had gathered from far flung travelers. Pausing from stirring a tikka sauce, he leaned over and said, "There are two places in the human body where you won't find the hardness of bones. There is a reason why the tongue and the heart are not made of hard bones."

May that third gate be upheld just a little higher than the other two.