Why Your Team's Communication Is Probably Terrible (And How to Fix It Without Another Bloody PowerPoint)

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Three weeks ago, I watched a perfectly capable project manager deliver what can only be described as verbal soup to a room full of increasingly confused engineers. Twenty minutes in, someone finally asked, "So... are we building the thing or not?" That's when it hit me: we've got an epidemic on our hands, and it's not what you think.

Everyone bangs on about "communication skills" like they're some mystical art form. Rubbish. Most workplace communication problems aren't about skills at all—they're about people being terrified of saying what they actually mean. We've created these bizarre corporate dance routines where everyone's so busy being diplomatic, nothing real gets communicated.

The Real Problem Isn't What They're Teaching You

Here's what drives me mental: most communication training focuses on the wrong bloody thing. They'll teach you about "active listening" and "non-verbal cues" until you're blue in the face, but nobody addresses the elephant in the room. People don't communicate poorly because they lack technique—they communicate poorly because they're scared.

Scared of being wrong. Scared of looking stupid. Scared of hurting someone's feelings. Scared of their boss. Scared of that person in accounting who always seems angry about something.

I've been running workplace training for fifteen years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: the biggest communication breakthrough happens when people stop trying to be perfect and start trying to be clear. Revolutionary concept, I know.

Take Sarah from that engineering firm in Perth. Brilliant woman, could solve complex problems in her sleep, but put her in front of a client and she'd tie herself in knots trying to explain things "professionally." We spent one session just getting her to explain her project like she was talking to her mate at the pub. Game changer.

Why Your Open Office Is Killing Real Communication

Open plan offices were supposed to improve communication. What a joke. You know what happens in open plan offices? People communicate less, not more. They're too worried about being overheard, too distracted by Brad's phone conversations about his weekend plans, too conscious of seeming like they don't know what they're doing.

I watched one team spend three days working on completely different versions of the same project because nobody wanted to interrupt anyone else to clarify the brief. Three days! In a traditional office, someone would've knocked on a door and sorted it out in five minutes.

The real kicker? Management keeps pushing "collaboration tools" as the solution. Slack, Teams, whatever the flavour of the month is. More noise, more confusion, more ways to avoid having an actual conversation.

The Two-Sentence Rule That Changed Everything

Here's something they don't teach in business school: most workplace communication problems can be solved with a simple rule. Every important message should be explainable in two sentences or less. If you can't explain it in two sentences, you don't understand it well enough to communicate it.

I learned this the hard way during a particularly disastrous client presentation in 2018. I'd prepared this elaborate explanation of our training methodology, complete with flowcharts and fancy terminology. Twenty minutes in, the client stopped me and said, "Mate, I just need to know if you can help my team talk to customers better."

That was my lightbulb moment. Now I make every client explain their problem in two sentences before we start. Works every time.

But here's where it gets interesting—and where most managers get it wrong. They think the two-sentence rule means being blunt or rude. Not at all. Some of the most diplomatic, relationship-building communication I've ever seen has been beautifully concise. It's about respect for people's time and mental energy.

The Melbourne Incident and Why Context Matters

Let me tell you about Melbourne. I was working with a retail chain—won't name names, but they're everywhere—and their customer service was getting absolutely hammered in reviews. The regional manager was convinced it was a training problem. "Our staff don't know how to communicate with customers," she said.

Spent two days observing their stores. Know what the real problem was? The staff were following the communication scripts perfectly. Too perfectly. They sounded like robots because head office had given them these rigid conversation frameworks that stripped out all personality.

We threw out the scripts. Gave them three simple principles instead: be helpful, be honest, be human. Customer satisfaction scores jumped 23% in six weeks. The communication training course we designed around those principles is still running today.

This is what drives me crazy about most workplace communication training—it focuses on techniques instead of mindset. You can teach someone to make eye contact and mirror body language, but if they don't genuinely want to help the person they're talking to, it's all performance.

The Generation Gap Is Real (But Not How You Think)

Everyone loves to blame communication problems on generational differences. "The young ones don't know how to have face-to-face conversations!" "The older staff don't understand digital communication!"

Bollocks to that.

I've seen 22-year-olds run circles around senior executives when it comes to clear, effective communication. I've also seen baby boomers master video conferencing better than millennials. The difference isn't age—it's attitude.

The people who communicate well are the ones who focus on outcomes instead of process. They don't care if the conversation happens via email, phone, carrier pigeon, or interpretive dance—they care about getting the right information to the right people at the right time.

Here's a controversial opinion: some of the best communicators I know are tradies. They don't have time for corporate speak or careful hedging. "The pipe's buggered, we need to replace it, it'll cost this much and take this long." Beautiful clarity.

Why 'Professional' Communication Is Often Unprofessional

The biggest myth in business communication? That being professional means being formal. What a load of rubbish.

Professional communication is communication that serves its purpose effectively. Sometimes that means being formal. Sometimes it means being casual. Sometimes it means being direct to the point of bluntness.

I worked with a law firm—proper white-shoe Sydney outfit—where the partners were spending hours crafting emails that said nothing. "Further to our conversation regarding the matter we discussed..." Just say what you bloody mean!

We introduced what I call "draft honesty." Before polishing any important communication, write one version that says exactly what you think in plain language. Then decide how much politeness you need to add back in. Usually, the answer is "not much."

The lawyers were skeptical at first. Lawyers always are. But their client feedback improved dramatically once they started communicating like humans instead of legal textbooks.

The Secret Sauce: Assume Good Intent

This might be the most important thing I'll tell you about workplace communication, so pay attention. Most communication breakdowns happen because people assume bad intent when good intent plus poor execution is far more likely.

Your colleague didn't explain that project requirement clearly because they're trying to make you look stupid—they explained it poorly because they were rushed, distracted, or didn't understand it themselves.

Your boss didn't give you vague feedback because they don't care about your development—they gave you vague feedback because they're uncomfortable with confrontation or don't know how to articulate what they're thinking.

When you assume good intent, you change the entire dynamic of the conversation. Instead of defending yourself, you start problem-solving together.

The Technology Trap

Here's where I probably lose some of you. Technology has made workplace communication worse, not better. There, I said it.

Don't get me wrong—I'm not some Luddite who thinks we should go back to carrier pigeons. But we've become so obsessed with having the right tools that we've forgotten how to use them effectively.

I see teams with seventeen different communication platforms who can't coordinate a bloody coffee run. The problem isn't the platform—it's that nobody's taught them when to use which tool for what purpose.

Email for documentation. Phone for negotiation. Face-to-face for difficult conversations. Team development training covers this extensively, but most managers just wing it.

Video calls for everything else? Absolutely not. Some things are better handled asynchronously. Some things need the bandwidth of in-person interaction. Figure out which is which.

The Adelaide Experiment

Last year, I tried something different with a client in Adelaide. Manufacturing company, about 200 employees, communication chaos at every level. Instead of traditional training, we implemented what I called "communication accountability partnerships."

Every employee was paired with someone from a different department. Their job? Check in weekly and ask one simple question: "What's one thing you're trying to communicate that isn't getting through?"

No formal process. No reporting requirements. Just human beings helping each other communicate better.

The results were incredible. Not just in terms of fewer misunderstandings—though that happened too—but in terms of relationships. People started seeing colleagues as allies instead of obstacles.

It's been eighteen months now, and they're still using the system. The best part? It cost almost nothing to implement. No fancy software, no expensive consultants (well, except me), just people talking to people.

Why Your Meeting Culture Is Broken

While we're on the topic of communication disasters, let's talk about meetings. Most workplace meetings aren't communication—they're performance anxiety disguised as collaboration.

You know the type. Twenty people in a room where three people do all the talking, fifteen people check their phones, and two people actually need to be there. The meeting could've been an email, but someone decided we needed to "touch base" and "align our thinking."

Here's a radical idea: ban meetings where more than half the attendees are there "just in case." If they're just in case, they don't need to be there. Send them the summary.

The best meeting I ever attended had four people and one agenda item. Thirty minutes, one decision, everyone knew what they were doing next. Contrast that with the three-hour "strategic planning session" where we spent two hours debating the definition of strategy and one hour wondering why we were there.

The Feedback Sandwich Needs to Die

Another sacred cow that needs slaughtering: the feedback sandwich. You know, say something nice, deliver the criticism, end with something positive. It's patronising, transparent, and ineffective.

People aren't idiots. They know when you're buttering them up for bad news. Just be direct: "I need to talk to you about X. Here's what's happening, here's why it's a problem, here's what needs to change."

The key is tone, not structure. You can be direct without being harsh. You can be honest without being cruel. But please, for the love of all that's holy, stop pretending that criticism surrounded by false praise is somehow kinder.

I learned this from a client in Brisbane who absolutely hated receiving feedback. Turns out it wasn't the feedback he hated—it was the condescending way it was delivered. Once his manager started being straightforward with him, their relationship improved dramatically.

What Actually Works

After fifteen years of watching communication succeed and fail in every type of workplace imaginable, here's what actually works:

Clarity over cleverness. Every time. Your brilliant wordplay means nothing if people don't understand what you're asking them to do.

Brevity over thoroughness. Most people can hold about three pieces of information in their heads at once. If you give them more, they'll forget the important bits.

Consistency over perfection. Regular, imperfect communication beats sporadic, polished communication every single time.

Purpose over process. Focus on what you're trying to achieve, not how you're supposed to say it.

The professional development training I run now focuses entirely on these principles. No fancy frameworks, no complicated models, just practical approaches that work in the real world.

The Bottom Line

Here's what nobody wants to admit: most workplace communication problems are easily fixable. We've just convinced ourselves they're complex because that feels more professional somehow.

Stop hiding behind corporate speak. Stop assuming people can read your mind. Stop pretending that being indirect is the same as being polite.

Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Check that people understood you. Move on.

It's not rocket science. It's just communication. And if your team's communication is terrible—which it probably is—you're not alone. The good news? It's fixable. The better news? It doesn't require another bloody PowerPoint presentation to fix it.

Just people talking to people like people. Revolutionary stuff, I know.