Digital Headhouse

In the last staff meeting our dean said, “We will not use staff cuts to balance the budget.” Hooray! I breathlessly reported back to my supervisor who said, “Yeah, she announced that in a directors meeting.”

How is it this choice piece of information had not trickled down to me? It’s not my boss’s fault. It’s communication paralysis and it’s an organization’s natural state. The following observations were made not at my current job but a previous stint at Macy’s North. Talk about an organization under stress! Good communication is difficult in the best conditions. Add tight budgets and looming job loss and communication virtually shuts down. Here’s why:

• Las Vegas Effect – tendency to think what happens in a meeting stays in a meeting. High level discussions cover topics both public and confidential and it’s not always clear which is which. The leader assumes information flows to the lower ranks via managers. But managers, believing discretion is a virtue, keep mum.
• Fight Club Rule – the first rule of bad news is you do not talk about bad news. The second rule of bad news is… you know the rest. Macy’s North was going down. Who could blame leaders reluctant to talk about layoffs? People like me would freak. Sure we would, but ultimately we’re adults. We understand business needs more than we’re credited. We resent learning later we were spared information that might upset us.
• Newsletter Defense – belief that telling people stuff constitutes communication. The very nature of the word implies an exchange. Newsletters, email blasts, big meetings, while important, are lopsided. Sure, employees are encouraged to respond to emails and speak up in meetings but more powerful forces keep us quiet.
• News You Can Use – notion that people only need information that pertains to their job. You can’t predict what information will be useful. Free flowing information allows for happy accidents.
• Need-to-Know Basis – tendency to distribute information only to those immediately involved. No doubt, sensitive information deserves this treatment. The problem arises when benign information is classified by default. I’m introducing “nice-to-know” as need-to-know’s amiable cousin.
• Minnesota Syndrome – doubt that anyone is interested in your day-to-day. You may think your job is boring, but if you’re traveling, meeting with newsmakers, making progress on huge initiatives, it’s way more interesting than my cube walls. Share it.
• Nature Abhors a Vacuum – belief that withholding information keeps people from forming opinions. Employees need to make sense of their world. When leaders fail to contextualize decisions, employees posit their own theories which tend to skew darker than reality.
• Open Door Policy – overconfidence that employees will take you up on entreaties to drop in. I admit it, I’m intimidated. I respect my supervisor and don’t want him to think I’m going over his head. I don’t believe you welcome the intrusion. You’re really busy and I don’t want to hold you up. I don’t want to be seen as cheeky. It makes others suspicious, “what are they talking about?”
• Mechanically Challenged – absence of good mechanisms for exchanging ideas and information. Email, voicemail, meetings all have their limitations. The title of this post hints at a solution. I’ll break it down in part 2.