What We've Got Here is a Failure to Communicate

Why do our organizations get off track? Why do our projects go off the rails? Are the reasons technical - problems with the actual mechanics of doing the work - or is something else going on?

Looking at projects with themes as diverse as software implementation, change management, time management, business development, strategic planning, efficiency, and retention, a little digging reveals that "what we've got here is a failure to communicate" - Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Five examples:

1. Management of a 200-person service organization regularly issued a newsletter to employees, and considered this adequate notification of important strategy and policy changes. The reality was that less than 30% of staff actually read the lengthy newsletter, and the writing style was long-winded and hard-to-understand. Uptake of key messages was only running around 10% of personnel, so very few staff knew what was going on and morale was very low. Still, management ranked themselves "very good" at communicating with their staff.
2. The new CEO of a non-profit hired a consultant to help with strategic planning, and invited the board of directors to the facilitated sessions. The chair of the board aggressively disrupted the first session saying "Why are you wasting our time? We already have a strategic plan!". The CEO was shocked - he had been trying to find the organization's plan continually since being hired a few months earlier, without success.
3. Very high turnover in a 30-person technology company was concerning management, and they decided to review their wage policy since competitors were "obviously poaching [their] best employees." Retroactive exit interviews revealed that several people had left because they were convinced that the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Rumours had circulated months earlier about some significant financial troubles. The rumours had actually been true, but the company had since restructured their debt and essentially eliminated their cash flow problem. There was no open communication with employees about "shareholder issues". With no communication, the rumours escalated, and contributed to several key people leaving.
4. Leaders of a transportation company held focus groups to gather employee input on an upcoming technology change. When the change was actually implemented, none of the employee suggestions had been incorporated. Morale plummeted and, despite management's well-intentioned attempt, the consensus among employees was that "They never listen to us. They ask us for our suggestions, but then they just shove [their original #%$^&* plan] down our throats."
5. The relationship between a sales agent and the manufacturer she represented went septic, and accusations flew wildly back and forth. The manufacturer accused the sales agent of not adequately representing them, and decided to withhold commissions on numerous accounts. The sales agent felt cheated by this apparent breach of contract by the manufacturer, and ended up starting legal action against the manufacturer after discussions failed. One key factor that emerged was that the sales agent did not do any reporting of her considerable business activity to the manufacturer, so the manufacturer had no idea how much work she was actually doing. Another factor was a product weakness that had affected most of the reference accounts to whom the company routinely referred new prospects. The company and the agent were both unaware of these problems. So, the reference accounts were giving poor reviews, weakening the agent's ability to sell.

More and more, I'm seeing problems resulting from failures in communication, rather than failures of a technical nature. And, many of the technical failures seem to have communication failures as their root causes as well.

I'm not saying that technical problems don't happen, but I'm clearly seeing the value of investing considerable time and effort in thorough, relentless, two-way communication and clarification.