Common modes of communication failure

For almost everyone, a big part of your professional life will be communicating ideas to others. Your ability to communicate those ideas to others will be directly correlated with your success. I’ve noticed, over many years of trying to communicate ideas, that there are several common failure modes in communication. These failure mores are easy to spot, easy to call out and easy to avoid. At least once you know about them. They wont fix everything but they’ve saved me enough times that I figure they’re worth sharing.

Here they are, in no particular order.

Having different names for the same thing.

The first mode of failure is calling the same thing by different names. In my world, this often comes up when discussing product features that we should either build or promote. I’ll have a name for it in my head, whoever I’m talking to will mean the same thing but call it something else.

When we talk, we end up arguing over which of the two features is more important. This is the classic Tomato-Tomato situation. I’ll leave your inner monologue to pronounce those two words differently.

To combat this, be very deliberate when you give things a name. If you call the system “quotes management” and I call it “bookings management” we might assume we’re at odds with one another. If we take a quick moment to align on what we’re referring to we’ll no longer be combatants.

This can also show up as differing definitions on the size or scope of something. You might describe this one as the opposite, having the same name for different things.

Lets assume for the moment that you’ve aligned on names, you’ll now need to determine what is and isn’t included into the category. If its a product feature, to build on the previous example, failure happens when there is a misalignment on what is include in the scope.

In this case, you might have differing ideas on what is and isn’t going to be included in your sales playbook, even though you both refer to it as such. I see this one most often when things have broad names ‘sales playbook’, ‘onboarding’ etc can all encompass a wide variety of things and in this case it is important to be clear on what is and isn’t part of the named thing.

Overall, the fix here is to spend time on clear definitions and shared documents outlining scope. It can feel like a waste of time putting together all these definition documents but they pay off in the long run.

Differing opinions about timelines.

The next common failure mode relates to timelines. This shows up just as often as the others but can be more subtle. It often ties back to what kind of ‘mode’ you’re in and how you’re thinking about an idea.

As with the other failure modes, this one causes the most issues when discussions are about priorities. Usually in the form of what we should do now or next.

Lets say you have a feature you want to build that will be high impact but may take years to come to fruition. It’s important, no doubt, but it isn’t something you’re able to devote resources to right now. In this scenario you’re internal idea of timelines is ‘now’.

In this theoretical example, imagine you’re talking to your boss or your investors. They’ve been thinking about five or ten year plans. Their mind isn’t in the day to day, they assume you have that covered. They want to talk about longer term vision and where things are headed.

Now imagine the conversation. Your investor is insisting that this new feature is the highest priority for the company. You counter that other things, perhaps it’s prerequisites, are more important.

To your investor, you’re prioritising smaller things, you seem less ambitious. In your mind, your investor doesn’t understand your product, they have pipe dream ideas of what it can and can’t do.

In reality, you’re misaligned on timelines. This one takes some practice to spot but when you spot it then its an easy fix. Just ask ‘What time frame are we talking about here?’ and you’ll quickly align. Yes, on a five year time scale this is priority number one, and yes, right now we need to solve a few prerequisite issues before we can get started in earnest.

Speaking in riddles.

This one I sometimes call the ‘Downton Abbey’ effect. Named that way because it reminds me of the dressed up language you’d see in the show. Lots of words being used to communicate very little.

I find this one happens the most when there’s a power difference between the two people talking. You’re the one here that’s lower on the ladder.

For whatever reason you start to lose confidence and comfort. The things you say go from plan and clear to overly formal. You talk around things, try and covey things with wit and metaphor rather than just saying the thing.

This one is hard to see if you’re on the lower rung of the ladder. You’re probably already somewhat flustered and there’s likely not much that’ll help other than practice. There’s plenty you can do on the other side though.

If you notice someone behaving this way, do what you can to make them feel comfortable. Avoid dwelling on how strange they might seem talking in convoluted circles and see if you can get to the core of what they’re trying to say.

The big risk in this scenario is not cutting through the dressing and getting to the core of what is being said. If you don’t you may end up agreeing (or disagreeing) to something completely different to what the other person is trying to communicate.

There’s a lot of overlap between these failure modes, they often blend together in some way. You won’t fix them all and might find you see some more often with certain people. Being aware of them however, can help minimise or correct for them.