{"id":681,"date":"2015-12-16T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-12-16T10:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/?p=681"},"modified":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T17:20:23","slug":"what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/what-we-have-here-is-a-failure-to-communicate\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhat we have here is a failure to communicate.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today we have more ways to communicate with one another than ever before.\u00a0 Of course, we have face-to-face spoken communication which we have had for thousands of years (although we seem to be doing that less and less).\u00a0 We also have old-fashioned written communications such as letters, newspapers, magazines, books, etc.\u00a0 These too we\u2019ve had for a very long time.\u00a0 But now we have a whole host of other communications tools available to us . . . radio and television, obviously, but also email, texting, and Skype.\u00a0 We can blog, we can tweet, and we can post all manner of stupid stuff on Facebook.\u00a0 We can host webinars.\u00a0 With cell phones, we can communicate with one another whenever and wherever we want to.\u00a0 Yet all these wonderful communication tools have nothing to do with the <\/span>quality<\/span><\/span><\/em> of our communications, only the <\/span>quantity and frequency<\/span><\/span><\/em> of them.\u00a0 Poor communication is still poor communication whether it arrives by email or by pony express.\u00a0 For those of us in business, that\u2019s important to remember because honest, complete, timely, effective communication is at the heart of sound leadership, building trust, accountability, and effective delegation.\u00a0 For more on this, please continue reading below.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have here is a failure to communicate.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

That is a famous quote from the movie Cool Hand Luke.\u00a0 While the movie was about a prison chain gang and had nothing at all to do with business, the quote itself is still instructive for us.<\/span>\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because when our plans don\u2019t quite unfold the way we want them to, when a project or a new initiative struggles to get on track, there is probably a \u201cfailure to communicate\u201d in the mix somewhere.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Effective communication is a starting point, of sorts.\u00a0 It\u2019s an essential tool for building trust, and if we can\u2019t build trust up, down, and across the organization, it will be very tough to get anything done.\u00a0 So honest clear communication builds trust, and trust allows strong leadership to flourish.\u00a0 After all, who\u2019s going to follow someone they can\u2019t trust.\u00a0 Strong leaders will bring accountability to the organization.\u00a0 They understand that if we can\u2019t hold one another accountable to honor our commitments, the trust that we worked so hard to establish starts to crumble.\u00a0 And finally, company leaders can delegate work confidently, knowing that the person to whom they have delegated the work will \u201cown\u201d it and will hold him or herself accountable for completing the work successfully.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we were to graph this sequence of events, it would look like:<\/span><\/p>\n

Good Communication \u2192 Trust \u2192 Strong Leadership \u2192 Accountability \u2192 Effective Delegation<\/span><\/p>\n

OK, so let\u2019s look at what distinguishes \u201cgood\u201d communication from communication that is less than optimal.<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It\u2019s well targeted.<\/strong>\u00a0 That is, it goes to everyone who needs to know.\u00a0 While that may seem obvious, this is the birthplace of \u201cunintended consequences.\u201d\u00a0 Somebody\u2019s ox gets unintentionally gored because that somebody should have been included in the communication loop . . . but wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 When in doubt, send it to everybody.<\/li>\n
  2. It\u2019s honest and complete.<\/strong>\u00a0 You may think it\u2019s a kindness to shield others from the unvarnished truth (particularly if the unvarnished truth is ugly), but it\u2019s not kind at all.\u00a0 Tell it like it is.\u00a0 Don\u2019t \u201cspin\u201d it, don\u2019t color it, don\u2019t make it unduly pessimistic or overly optimistic.\u00a0 Just tell it like it is.<\/li>\n
  3. It\u2019s clear and concise.\u00a0 <\/strong>There\u2019s a fine line between providing too much information and not enough.\u00a0 If your communication is too brief, your message may not be fully understood.\u00a0 If it\u2019s a \u201cbrain dump,\u201d your message may be lost in the details\u00a0 It\u2019s important to get this right, so if you doubt your ability hit the right balance between too much information and not enough, get help.<\/li>\n
  4. It\u2019s timely.<\/strong>\u00a0 Whatever the message, give your organization as much time as possible to digest it, to react to it, and to take appropriate action.\u00a0 If your people feel they are constantly being blind-sided by last-minute communications, they will be unnecessarily stressed and probably not as productive as they would otherwise be.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Effective communication is not complex, but it can be hard work and it can be time-consuming.\u00a0 Still, if the payoff is a culture of trust, strong leadership, and accountability, I\u2019d say that\u2019s a pretty good ROI.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Today we have more ways to communicate with one another than ever before.\u00a0 Of course, we have face-to-face spoken communication which we have had for thousands of years (although we seem to be doing that less and less).\u00a0 We also have old-fashioned written communications such as letters, newspapers, magazines, books, etc.\u00a0 These too we\u2019ve had<\/p>\n

    Read More\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,36,33,29,26,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":682,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rocksolidbizdevelopment.com\/ourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}