Why Your Company's Communication is Failing (And It's Not What You Think)

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Three months ago, I watched a perfectly competent project manager deliver what should have been a straightforward budget update to our leadership team. Fifteen minutes in, half the room was checking their phones, two executives had physically turned their chairs away, and our CEO was making that face you make when you accidentally bite into a lemon.

The information was accurate. The presentation was well-formatted. The data was comprehensive.

And it was the most spectacularly failed communication I'd witnessed in twenty-two years of consulting.

The Real Problem Isn't What Anyone's Teaching You

Everyone bangs on about "clear communication" and "active listening" like they're revolutionary concepts. Mate, we've been hearing this stuff since the Howard government. The workshops haven't changed, the PowerPoints haven't evolved, and frankly, neither have the results.

Here's what nobody wants to admit: most corporate communication fails because we're solving the wrong bloody problem.

We treat communication like it's a technical skill - like learning Excel or operating a forklift. Send people to a two-day course, tick the box, job done. But communication isn't technical. It's emotional, contextual, and deeply personal.

I learned this the hard way in 2019 when I completely botched a client presentation for a Melbourne-based manufacturing firm. Spent three weeks perfecting my slides, rehearsing my timing, getting every statistic laser-accurate. Twenty minutes into what I thought was a masterpiece, the managing director stopped me mid-sentence.

"Mate," he said, "I don't need a documentary. I need to know if we're making money or losing it."

The Three Communication Sins Nobody Talks About

Sin Number One: We're optimising for the wrong audience.

Most business communication is designed to impress the person delivering it, not help the person receiving it. That project manager I mentioned? His presentation was a love letter to his own thoroughness. Every chart, every appendix, every carefully crafted transition was screaming "look how hard I worked on this."

The executives? They needed three numbers and a recommendation. Everything else was just showing off.

I see this constantly in training sessions. People think good communication means comprehensive emotional intelligence programs or elaborate presentation skills. Sometimes. But more often, it means knowing when to shut up.

Sin Number Two: We confuse information with communication.

There's a dangerous assumption floating around Australian businesses that more information equals better communication. It doesn't. It never has.

Information is data. Communication is what happens when that data creates understanding, changes behaviour, or builds relationships. You can dump forty-seven metrics into an email and call it communication, but if nobody acts on it, you've just created expensive digital clutter.

The best communicators I know - and I'm talking about people who consistently get stuff done, not just people who sound smart in meetings - they ruthlessly edit themselves. They ask "what does this person need to know, and what do they need to do about it?"

Everything else is noise.

Sin Number Three: We ignore the unspoken rules.

Every organisation has two communication systems. There's the official one (emails, meetings, formal updates) and the real one (hallway conversations, who gets CC'd on what, which Slack channels actually matter).

Most communication training completely ignores the second system. But here's the thing - that informal network is where the actual decisions get made. You can perfect your presentation skills all you want, but if you don't understand the politics, the personalities, and the unwritten protocols, you're basically shouting into the void.

What Actually Works (From the Trenches)

After two decades of watching communications succeed and fail spectacularly, I've noticed the patterns. The organisations that actually communicate well - and by that I mean they make decisions quickly, avoid misunderstandings, and keep their people engaged - they do three things differently.

They design communication around outcomes, not processes. Before anyone opens their mouth or types an email, they're crystal clear about what they want to happen next. Not "I want people to be informed," but "I want Sarah to approve the budget by Friday" or "I want the warehouse team to change how they process returns."

This sounds obvious until you realise how rarely it happens. Most business communication has no specific purpose beyond "keeping everyone in the loop." That's not communication; that's CYA documentation.

They match the message to the medium. I've seen brilliant strategic insights buried in forty-point email chains, and I've watched urgent operational updates delivered in hour-long presentations.

The medium shapes the message more than most people realise. Slack is for quick decisions and status updates. Email is for creating records and covering complex topics. Meetings are for building consensus and handling conflict. Phone calls are for urgent issues and relationship building.

Getting this wrong doesn't just waste time - it actively undermines your message.

They invest in the relationship, not just the transaction. Here's something that would've saved me years of frustration: people buy into messages from people they trust. All the clever framing and persuasive techniques in the world won't help if your audience thinks you're a tosser.

This is why some managers can announce major changes via a two-line email and get complete buy-in, while others deliver carefully crafted presentations to rooms full of sceptical faces. It's not about the communication skills - it's about the relationship foundation.

The Uncomfortable Truth About Modern Workplaces

We're communicating more than ever and understanding each other less. The average office worker sends and receives 126 emails per day. We're in constant Slack conversations, weekly team meetings, monthly all-hands, quarterly reviews. We've got communication protocols for everything.

And yet, survey after survey shows that employees feel disconnected, managers feel misunderstood, and executives feel like they're operating in an information vacuum.

Part of this is technological. We've replaced a lot of face-to-face communication with digital alternatives that strip out tone, context, and nuance. But that's not the whole story.

The bigger issue is that we've professionalised communication to death. Everything has to be documented, tracked, and measured. We've turned human connection into a compliance exercise.

I'm not suggesting we go back to the days of handshake deals and verbal agreements. But somewhere between those casual conversations and our current system of rigorous documentation, we lost the art of simply talking to each other like humans.

What This Means for Your Business

If your organisation struggles with communication - and let's be honest, most do - the solution probably isn't another training program or a new collaboration platform. Those might help around the edges, but they won't fix the fundamental issues.

Start by auditing your current communication for purpose. For one week, every time someone sends an email, schedules a meeting, or makes an announcement, ask them to write down what specific outcome they're hoping for. You'll be amazed how often the answer is "I don't know" or "it's just what we always do."

Next, map your real communication networks. Who actually talks to whom? Where do the important conversations happen? Which formal channels get ignored, and which informal ones drive decisions? You might discover that your carefully designed communication hierarchy bears no resemblance to how information actually flows.

Finally, give people permission to communicate poorly. I mean it. Some of the most effective communicators I know are grammatically questionable, structurally chaotic, and completely unconcerned with corporate polish. But they're authentic, they're clear about what they want, and people trust them.

Perfect communication is the enemy of effective communication.

The Bottom Line

Most communication problems aren't communication problems - they're relationship problems, process problems, or clarity problems disguised as communication problems. You can teach someone to structure a presentation or write a better email, but you can't train your way out of unclear objectives, broken processes, or dysfunctional relationships.

Fix those first. The communication will sort itself out.

And for crying out loud, stop making everything so bloody complicated. Sometimes the best communication strategy is just picking up the phone.