One-Way Tender (Mis)Communication

A provincial highway department put out a detailed tender for the re-construction of a highway which passed through several small towns. Part of the job involved installing two large culverts to replace an aging bridge where the road passed over a creek. The tender documents allowed the contractor to bypass traffic around the culverts onto other existing roads. Bypassing, or detours, saves the contractor a lot of money and hassles since they don't have to deal with continuing traffic while they do the roadwork.

The winning contractor, with the lowest bid, immediately proceeded to reroute traffic onto bypass roads for the entire length of the thirty-mile project, including the parts that ran through the towns. Their interpretation of the tender document was that they could bypass traffic around "culverts", not just the two large culverts. Since there were small culverts at every crossroad along the route, they argued successfully that they could bypass all along the route.

The tender process focuses on one-way communication - me creating a document for you to read, you asking questions when you don't understand. There is usually no back-and-forth; no catch-ball; no open discussion for clarification. A basic understanding of communication theory tells us that miscommunication is highly likely with this method, as communication requires feedback, requires us to close the loop.

The cost, in this case, was mostly in the form of inconvenience for everyone except the contractor. What are the costs of one-way (mis)communication in your organization?