As leaders, activities like leading meetings, sending emails, making presentations, and checking on team members start early in the morning and extend throughout our day. To say that communication is a big part of our job would be an understatement. You would think by now, given all the practice that we get, we would all be experts in communicating with others, but our experience doesn’t bear that out. 

Communication is a consistent problem in nearly every team or organization, and we believe that most of the problems are inadvertent. For instance, communication issues sometimes arise because leaders are simply unaware of the gap between what’s in their minds and what’s in the minds of others. This gap occurs so commonly that researchers have labeled the behavior, “the curse of knowledge.” At other times, communication issues revolve around an inability to concentrate. Distracted by the next thing or surprised by an unexpected crisis, leaders roll out a half-baked or poorly communicated plan. Whatever the core problem is, and regardless of whether it is inadvertent, communication issues erode organizational trust and fuel tension. 

When discussing this topic, focus often turns to others and their communication shortcomings. Be honest, while reading this article did your mind drift to an individual or group that you believe could improve their communication (corporate, the executive team, the mid-level managers, that one team member, etc.)? It’s normal for our minds to go there, but if we really want to improve communication within our world, the solution starts with us. As we come into this week, let’s improve communication channels by following these steps. 

Decide to Be the Solution
Most of us are not entirely aware of how complicit we are in our organization’s communication quagmire. Unknowingly, we may expect others to do all the work of conveying information and improving communication. The first step in opening lines of communication within our sphere is to decide to be an active agent contributing to the solution, not the problem. 

Listen Before We Speak
Have you ever had the unpleasant experience of not feeling heard? One of the breakdowns in communicating clearly is that we’re not listening deeply. At work, our minds are often distracted, sometimes things as simple as thinking about our response gets in the way of listening well. Research has suggested that we can miss out on 50-75% of what someone is trying to communicate in moments like these. No wonder things sometimes things get missed. For most of us, improving our communication will start with improving our listening skills.

Externalize Our Thinking
The curse of knowledge touches everyone, including us. As a result, we often don’t communicate enough. What gaps lie between our understanding of a topic and that of our team? We need to stop assuming that people know what’s going on in our heads. We need to get our thoughts out of our own heads and into a venue where others can hear or read them.

Prioritize Simplicity and Clarity
In messaging, some of us can be all over the board. We open our mouth intending to speak on a topic, and by the time we’re done, we’ve covered several topics. In communication, simplicity and clarity should rule. 

Confirm Understanding
Communication hasn’t happened until the other person not only receives our words but also understands them. We can request a “read receipt” when we send a message, but wouldn’t it be great to get an “understand receipt”? We can do that by asking questions like “Is anything unclear about that?” or asking for team members to summarize what they heard and the action items they’re walking away with. 

Over-Communicate
Actually, we can’t over-communicate. At least not in our experience. As we’ve said before, people are both distracted and busy. They forget things they should remember—even things they want to remember. Communication should never be a one-and-done event. We communicate again and again and again.

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From Thought to Action: Imagine what it would be like to work in a place where healthy communication is a hallmark. How would it change the office experience if everyone is intentional, proactive, and clear in their communication? As a leader, what if you take responsibility for making that happen and find out?