Breakdowns in Communication

When communications breakdown, it rarely looks like silence. Instead, breakdowns in communication usually manifest in an overabundance of communication that ends up crowding out all other activities--but with no tangible effect.

It's incredibly frustrating to be a part of this. Work stops being energizing and becomes a chore. All effort feels wasted. People often face burnout--not because of the amount of work, but from the sheer pointlessness of it all. Nothing seems to ever get done, despite the long hours everyone is putting in.

Communication has started crowding out all other activities.

At the organizational level, there are three primary causes to this crowding out effect:

1. Failure to develop relationships
2. Poor processes
3. Bad actors

Organizations have the benefit of having their members start with relationships based on their position in the org. Plus, each org member at least has a more direct relationship with their hiring manager (and hopefully a couple peers). That's enough for the basic, task-oriented communication of day-to-day work.

However, as the problems get larger, more complex, and less well-defined, there are bigger conversations that need to happen. The information transfer is more amorphous, and it starts to matter what the context is. When things go wrong, though, then the context really matters.

A simple statement like, "this process wasn't completed, what happened?" can be interpreted in multiple ways. It can be a matter of fact question. I can be an accusation. It can be a way to express sympathy.

Of course, non-verbal cues can provide information about how to interpret the question--but before that even comes into play, the context of the relationship dominates the way the question will be received.

Do you have a good working relationship with the person asking? Do you trust them to know you're doing your best under the circumstances? Do you trust them to help you find a better way to go forward? Or is it the opposite, where you don't expect any sympathy or support? Do you fear they'll see you as weak? Fire you?

It doesn't matter how sweetly I ask the question--if you and I haven't established a trusting relationship, that question is dangerous. The person hearing the question can interpret in multiple different ways, and a bad relationship or a lack of relationship can problems.

This has major consequences for the org. Bad outcomes may not be reported properly. Issues may not surface in time to be resolved. Conversations may become stunted, and the org may have trouble bringing different stakeholders together to have honest, open conversations about issues--as everyone feels that admitting to the real problem will lead to personal consequences as opposed to communal problem solving. In this way, a lack of relationships can then lead to a lack of communication where needed.

This unwillingness to discuss issues usually also leads to too much communication overall, rather than too little. No one is willing to make statements out in the open, so each conversation is limited to only a few people at once--and then must be repeated in various shades among every combination of people.

Fixing It

I generally hate advice that centers around "it's better to avoid a problem than to fix it after the fact". After all, if you could have done that--you would have. But in this case, it's often the only way forward.

There's a honeymoon period during the first few months of a working relationship. Everything can be burning down around you, but it's clear to everyone that you inherited these problems, not created them. You can come in with a positive, can-do attitude and get really far just by asking, "Hey, how'd we get here?" Especially if you come in trying to show you care more about finding next steps than laying blame, this tact is incredibly effective.

However, trying to fix your own untrusting relationships after you've been in the mix for a while can often prove to be a Herculean task. Old resentments and misunderstandings just seem to linger. While the slate can be wiped clean in theory, in practice it rarely is.

So if you find yourself in the middle of a company in crisis, surrounded by untrusting relationships--the best step may well be to just start over.

The alternative is to spend A LOT of effort trying to reset expectations and build that trust. This requires a ton of patience. Relationships take time to mend. The company will continue to suffer while that work is done--and few substantive changes will take place during this time to provide a sense of positive momentum.

In short, trying to work your way out of this situation sucks. If it's just one or two people at the nexus of these problems, replace them. If it's company-wide problem (and you're tied to the company), prepare for a lot of work with little in the way of tangible results (but hopefully resulting in a functional org that can finally move forward).

If a team has generally good, trusting relationships but is still facing major over-communication problems, it's probably because of a lack of process. When I start talking about business process, some people's eyes glaze over like I'm about to pull out a 100-slide PowerPoint deck and waste their next 3 hours with theoretical blather than doesn't in any way relate to their day-to-day work.

However, the goals of "process" are quite simple:

1. Reduce the amount of communication as much as possible
2. While ensuring that essential information never fails to be communicated in a timely manner

Goal #1 often strikes people as counter-intuitive. How can processes (which are all about coordination) be about reducing communication?

The problem is that, in the absence of good process, the only way to achieve goal #2 is literally paralyze the system with constant status update requests. Imagine you're on a road trip with your kids. They're impatient/excited--and all they do is ask "Are we there yet?" on an endless loop. It's infuriating and blocks you from thinking about anything else.

How do you solve this? You give the kids a way to get the answer to the question whenever they want, with however much detail they require, without having to talk to you, i.e. put a GPS running Google Maps in their hands. (I know, not really because the kids don't care for information, they're just bored and Netflix will work better--but work with me here.)

With GPS in hand, the kids' questions are answered, while simultaneously, you're free from the burden of answering them yourself. The car's soundscape would go from an endless annoying loop of repeated questions and answer to...blissful silence. You're communicating less, but nobody's needs are being ignored.

Good business process should work like that--and importantly, it needs to build confidence that the process itself is working.

Fixing It

When you're building a process, here are the questions that need to get answered:

• What information needs to be conveyed?
• From who?
• To whom?
• In what detail?
• How often?
• If something changes, what will trigger the proper updates to the previous information disseminated?
  • This is one place where communication breakdowns do look like too little communication, rather than too much
  • Without effective triggers, busy people will just forget to alert others
• How will all stakeholders be able to confirm that the process has been executed successfully?
• How will relevant stakeholders be alerted to instances where the process has broken down?
• Who owns the process design, iteration and quality assurance?

There are three failure modes here to worry about:

1. Non-existent processes (easy)
2. Inadequate information transfer (moderate)
3. Overly burdensome processes (hard)

Creating business processes is actually pretty easy, which makes the first problem simple to solve. It's nothing more than identifying the need, assigning an owner, and having them write something up. It'll probably start with a checklist and then go from there. Basic stuff.

Inadequate information transfer usually happens because certain stakeholders were left out of the process. That leads to people being in the dark or key pieces of information not being transferred despite the process being executed as designed. The answer here is again pretty simple--identify the breakdown and create a new version of the process.

That last problem is the real issue. After you've created and iterated processes, you'll find that some of them are so burdensome, they effectively shut down certain activities. The sheer effort required to execute the process ties up a team's bandwidth. It also takes so long, requests run through process have unacceptable latency for meeting the business requirements. People get really frustrated. This is the problem that gives "process" such a bad name.

This happens because the process is trying to transfer too much information between parties, given the requests being made. Either the request is too complex, too high frequency, or too low value.

The key to fixing this is to realize that the process is trying to solve an intractable problem being caused by the organizational design. There's some disconnect between teams, mismatch between capacity and demand, or poor design in areas of ownership that no process can fix.

Instead, you have to look at how the teams are organized to eliminate the need for so much information to be transferred by the process itself. Some of the fixes might be in the vein of creating "dedicated, nearby resources" as discussed in Fighting Latency.

Whatever the fix, though, the key is when your processes become too burdensome, don't try to fix it by modifying the process itself. Fix the org design.

Unfortunately, sometimes there's no clever trick or genius business strategy that can save you. If key players are non-responsive, actively withholding information, aggressive, or simply not up to the task at hand--this can have big ripples throughout the organization.

When I say "bad actors", the first thing to come to mind might be people acting to actively sabotage output. That's sometimes the case, but 99% of the time, the bad actor is simple not capable of fulfilling the role or not motivated to be more cooperative.

The roles these people hold become "blocked" in the sense that no one is performing them, and at the same time, no else can step in to cover. Every process that goes through the bad actor and every decision that they own becomes a quagmire. This is another instance where communication breakdowns can look like too little communication because the bad actor might be hiding facts to avoid consequences.

Getting things done requires heroic effort on the part of others, requiring lots of communication as the business is suddenly "rerouted" around the failed role. Coworkers often need support to deal with the bad actors (emotional and work-oriented). All this leads to more overall communication burden, though it may not be effective in offsetting the impact of the blocked role.

Fixing It

Andy Grove put it well in High Output Management. Step 1 is to figure out if you have a competency or motivation problem.

To do that, ask yourself--if I put a gun this person's head, could they actually do what I asked? Could they run a marathon in under 4 hours, code up an API integration, build the financial model, etc.? If the answer is no, you have a competency problem. If yes, then you have a motivation problem.

There's nothing to do about a competency problem other than replace the person as swiftly, respectfully, and compassionately as possible. No need to be mean about it--after all, it's actually on you (as the manager) that you've been asking this fish to climb a tree. But do it, and do it fast.

Motivation problems are different matter. I'm a firm believer that people aren't just jerks (though some can make it hard to hold on to my faith). Usually, there's something else going on, and you just have to get into their heads. Maybe they're having a hard time at home or stressed about money or just had a hard childhood (and the current situation is triggering them). It's important to give people the benefit of the doubt, in the form of direct feedback and an honest chance to correct their behavior.

Try to focus on their why's--how they see their situation, story, and behavior. It'll give you the best chance at finding a way to help. But never lose sight of the demands of the role. All the reasons in the world don't actually get your next feature shipped on time or your next CS ticket handled.

At some point (that you should be able to identify at the start), you have to move to protect the team, as a whole--and that means taking the loss (on all sides) and letting the bad actor go.