Async Communication and Why It’s Critical for Any Crypto-Finance Work Environment.

[oluwasen16]

Async Communication and Why It’s Critical for Any Crypto-Finance Work Environment. Recently with the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve all had to work remotely. This translates to a lot of calls, emails, messages, and constantly juggling between two zoom shirts. A few days ago, something hit me. I realized that a large chunk of my work hours is actually spent communicating, asynchronously.
This leads me to ask; when you hear about async communication, what comes to mind? One guess is that your train of thought wanders towards remote work and how this has become some sort of glue that holds a team together. Although this is indeed correct, async communication goes beyond just communicating and getting things done within a team. And that’s what I’d like to talk about in this piece. The entirety of asynchronous communication and how it has become a vital flow for any productive work environment.
What is Async Communication? Before blabbing away, async which is short for asynchronous communication is any form of intermittent communication. What this means is that people communicate without being available at the same time. A great example is an email. One party sends and the other response to the message subsequently. Now, there’s communication between these parties but it isn’t synchronous like a real-time Google Meet.
While this might seem that messaging is purely asynchronous, in reality sometimes they might not. This is because when you respond to a message immediately it gets to you, it becomes synchronous. So messaging apps like Slack, Messenger, and Outlook are just ways to effectively communicate both synchronously and asynchronously. It all depends on how they are utilized in the workplace.
What’s wrong with being synchronous? Picture yourself writing a script or running a program and then a call comes in. The jolt you get from the call alone mentally distracts you from completing the task at hand. Now imagine this consistently running for the entire day. Synchronous communication causes lots of distractions that can hinder the productivity level of each member. At the end of the day, you realize you have spent so
much time on calls and real-time messaging compared to the time you had to execute earlier planned tasks. Also, what happens when you have to make a decision or give feedback? When put on the spot, you may not have all the right answers because you haven’t thought it through. This means you might not be giving suboptimal ideas that defeat the whole purpose of creating a solution on demand. And if you realize this, you might have to come back to it at a later time. If everyone cannot share their ideas or debate over a particular topic because they haven’t time to properly evaluate the elements of the discussion, it stifles objectivity and team inclusion.
Let’s see an example, let’s say a team of six members needs to discuss an upcoming project. If ideas are bounced around and each member gives input on every element of the project, that’ll be a long conversation. And let’s face it, no one wants to be on a long call or spend the entire day replying to messages. So the best bet would be to not let everyone speak. Doesn’t sound so inclusive now, does it?
The sad part with communicating when synchronous communication is the norm is that you constantly have to be on alert so you don’t miss out on an important detail. Not only are you stressed, but there’s also an additional pressure to meet up with your initial task while at it. Now that’s just a burnout waiting to happen. And with the constant interruptions, you don’t even have a clearly defined work schedule that can make you plan around it. Async communication as a critical solution Seeing how synchronous communication can be detrimental to a productive work environment, the solution isn’t reducing the number of people who can give input on a specific topic. It isn’t having a day off from communication. It is adopting a more asynchronous communication method. When we communicate asynchronously, you have control over your own day. So you create a work schedule that perfectly fits in with other responsibilities as simple as mowing your lawn. When team members are in control of their day, they are happier and everyone knows how productive you can get when you’re happy and at peace. If the amount of time spent being on top of each call or message is reduced, that time will be channeled into doing the actual work. Without having to constantly respond to each message, efficiency becomes the new norm. There’ll be efficient solutions and prompt actions will be taken as soon as they are needed. Perhaps what I love the most about async communication is that it creates automatic documentation for each event. And not just any kind, but an easily retrievable one that can be referenced when the need arises.
Finally, there won’t be a need to constantly limit our personnel resource pool. By going all out, we can collaborate without the confines of location or time-zone. In the long run, we’d grow from just being internal to creating worldwide communities that come together to develop solutions to real-life problems. In conclusion, although, synchronous communication is still essential for networking and building personal connections, asynchronous communication creates the perfect blend between productive work and real-life results.