Advice

Why Your Company's Communication Strategy is Confusing (And What I Learned After 18 Years of Fixing It)

Three weeks ago, I watched a perfectly intelligent CEO spend forty-seven minutes explaining a "streamlined communication framework" that somehow made internal messaging more complex than filing tax returns. The irony wasn't lost on anyone in that Brisbane boardroom, except apparently him.

This happens more than you'd think. I've been consulting on workplace communication for eighteen years now, and I reckon 84% of companies are sabotaging themselves with strategies that sound brilliant on PowerPoint but crumble faster than a Tim Tam in hot tea when applied to real humans.

The Problem Isn't What You Think

Most executives assume communication breakdowns happen because employees don't listen properly or middle management drops the ball. Wrong. Dead wrong.

The real culprit? Your communication strategy is trying to solve seventeen different problems at once while addressing none of them properly. It's like using a Swiss Army knife to perform heart surgery – technically you've got tools, but they're completely inappropriate for the job.

I learned this the hard way back in 2009 when I convinced a Perth mining company to implement what I thought was a revolutionary "multi-channel feedback loop system." Sounded fantastic. Cost them $180,000 to roll out. Failed spectacularly within six months because nobody could figure out which channel to use for what type of message.

That failure taught me something crucial: complexity is the enemy of clarity, even when the complexity is well-intentioned.

Why Simple Beats Sophisticated Every Time

Here's where I'll probably lose half the consultants reading this – sophisticated communication frameworks are usually just expensive ways to avoid making hard decisions about priorities.

Take Atlassian, for example. Their internal communication is brilliantly simple: they assume their people are smart enough to figure out context without seventeen different message categories and approval workflows. Result? They're consistently rated as one of Australia's best workplaces for internal communication satisfaction.

Compare that to unnamed corporations I've worked with who've got communication matrices so complex they need training sessions just to send an announcement about the Christmas party. Effective communication training shouldn't require a PhD to understand.

The truth is, most communication confusion stems from organisations trying to control every possible misinterpretation instead of trusting their people to engage thoughtfully with clear, direct messages.

The Five-Minute Rule That Changes Everything

Want to know if your communication strategy is too complicated? Time yourself explaining it to a new hire. If it takes longer than five minutes, you've already lost.

Good communication strategy answers three questions:

Who needs to know what?
How will they find out?
What happens if they don't?

That's it. Everything else is noise.

I've seen companies spend months developing "communication journey maps" and "stakeholder engagement matrices" when their actual problem was that the CEO sent mixed messages about priorities and nobody wanted to admit it. No amount of strategic frameworks fixes inconsistent leadership messaging.

The Australian Advantage (And Why We're Wasting It)

Australians have a natural communication advantage – we're generally direct, we don't over-complicate things, and we're comfortable with informal interactions that get stuff done quickly.

Yet somehow, our corporate communication strategies often mirror American or European models that assume high context, formal hierarchies, and elaborate approval processes. It's like importing snow gear to Darwin – theoretically functional but completely inappropriate for the environment.

The most successful Australian companies I work with embrace our cultural preference for straightforward communication. They use plain English, they encourage questions, and they don't pretend that adding buzzwords makes messages more professional.

Where Most Strategies Go Wrong (The Dirty Dozen)

After nearly two decades of untangling communication disasters, I've identified twelve recurring mistakes that torpedo otherwise sensible strategies:

The Tool Obsession. Buying Slack or Microsoft Teams doesn't fix poor communication habits – it just makes them faster and more visible. I've seen teams with seventeen different communication platforms who still rely on hallway conversations for important decisions.

The Everything-Is-Urgent Syndrome. When everything's marked "high priority," nothing actually is. Companies that haven't established clear criteria for urgency end up training their people to ignore most communications entirely.

The Assumption of Context. This one's huge. Leaders often communicate as if everyone has the same background knowledge they do. Result? Messages that make perfect sense to senior management but leave everyone else confused about why they should care.

The Committee Approach. Communications written by committee usually sound like they were written by committee – bland, safe, and forgettable. Sometimes one person with clear writing skills beats five people with diverse perspectives.

The Platform Proliferation Problem. Email for announcements, Slack for quick questions, Teams for meetings, SharePoint for documents, and the intranet for... nobody's quite sure what. People spend more time figuring out where to communicate than actually communicating.

Actually, let me pause here because that last point deserves more attention.

The Great Platform Confusion of 2023

Last year, I worked with a Melbourne tech company that had literally nine different communication platforms running simultaneously. Nine! Their managing customer service training was being delivered through three different systems depending on which department organised it.

When I asked employees how they decided which platform to use, I got seventeen different answers from twenty people. Two people admitted they'd given up trying to follow official channels and just texted their manager directly for everything.

The solution wasn't more training on proper platform usage – it was consolidating to three platforms maximum and clearly defining what each one was for. Radical simplification, not better coordination of complexity.

What Actually Works (The Uncomfortable Truth)

Here's what most communication consultants won't tell you: the best strategies are often boring. They're not innovative or sophisticated. They don't win awards for creativity.

They work because they're predictable, consistent, and respect people's time.

Single Source of Truth. Pick one place for official announcements and train everyone to check it. Not five places that sometimes have the same information.

Default to Open. Share information unless there's a specific reason not to, rather than restricting access unless there's a specific reason to share. Most "confidential" information isn't actually confidential – it's just habit.

Regular Rhythm. Weekly updates on Tuesdays, monthly reports on the first Friday, quarterly planning sessions in the last week of each quarter. Predictable patterns reduce anxiety and increase attention.

Clear Escalation. Everyone should know exactly how to get urgent information to the right people quickly. Not "send an email and hope someone sees it."

Feedback Loops That Actually Close. If you ask for input, report back on what you heard and what you're doing about it. Always. Even if the answer is "thanks for the feedback, we're not changing anything right now."

The Perth Mining Company Redemption Story

Remember that failed multi-channel system I mentioned earlier? Three years later, that same company asked me back. They'd simplified their entire communication approach to three channels: daily safety briefings, weekly operational updates, and monthly leadership forums.

That's it. Three channels, clear purposes, consistent timing.

Their employee engagement scores jumped 31% in the first year. Incidents related to communication failures dropped by half. The CFO calculated they saved roughly $340,000 annually just in reduced meeting time because people actually knew what was happening.

Sometimes the best strategy is admitting your previous strategy was overcomplicated nonsense and starting fresh with basic principles.

The Reality Check Most Companies Need

If your communication strategy requires a consultant to explain it, it's probably too complex for your people to use effectively.

If your people regularly work around your official communication channels, your strategy isn't working regardless of how elegant it looks on paper.

If senior leadership frequently discovers important information through informal channels rather than official ones, your strategy has failed at its primary purpose.

The goal isn't to create the most sophisticated communication framework possible. It's to ensure the right information reaches the right people at the right time with minimal friction and maximum clarity.

Most companies would dramatically improve their communication effectiveness by doing less, not more. Fewer platforms, fewer meetings, fewer approval layers, fewer people involved in crafting messages that could be written by one person in ten minutes.

The Simple Test That Reveals Everything

Want to know if your communication strategy actually works? Ask five random employees to explain how they find out about important company news. If you get five different answers, your strategy exists on paper but not in practice.

Then ask them what they do when they need to share important information with their team. If the process takes longer than sending a text message, you've identified why people work around your official channels.

Finally, ask middle managers what percentage of their time is spent clarifying, re-explaining, or following up on official communications. If it's more than 10%, your messages aren't clear enough the first time.

The best communication strategies are invisible to users because they work intuitively. People don't think about the system – they just know how to use it effectively.

After eighteen years of fixing broken communication systems, I've concluded that most companies would benefit more from simplifying what they're already doing than adding new layers of sophistication.

But that's probably not what your leadership team wants to hear in next week's strategy presentation.

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