Stop Pretending Your Team Actually Communicates: Why Most Workplace Communication Training Misses the Point

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Three weeks ago I watched a $2.8 million project collapse because Sarah from Marketing "thought" James from IT "understood" what she meant about the database requirements. They'd been through communication training twice. Both got certificates. Both failed spectacularly.

The problem isn't that people can't communicate—it's that most workplace communication training treats symptoms instead of the disease. And the disease? We've created workplaces where being direct is considered rude, where feedback is wrapped in so much bubble paper that the actual message gets lost, and where "let's circle back on that" has become corporate speak for "I wasn't listening."

After 17 years of training teams across Melbourne, Perth, and everywhere in between, I'm convinced that 80% of communication training is complete rubbish. There, I said it.

The Real Problem Nobody Wants to Address

Most communication courses focus on the mechanics: active listening techniques, proper email formatting, meeting etiquette. All fine and good, but they miss the elephant in the room—people are terrified of actually communicating.

In my experience working with everyone from mining companies in WA to tech startups in Sydney, the biggest communication barrier isn't lack of skill. It's fear. Fear of conflict. Fear of being wrong. Fear of hurting someone's feelings. Fear of looking stupid.

I once worked with a team at a Brisbane logistics company where nobody—and I mean nobody—would tell their manager that his "revolutionary" new dispatch system was causing delays. Six months of declining performance because everyone was too polite to speak up. The manager was a decent bloke, too. Just had no idea his baby was broken.

Traditional communication training tells people to use "I" statements and active listening. What they should be teaching is how to say "This isn't working" without everyone having a nervous breakdown.

Why Active Listening Is Overrated (Fight Me)

Here's an unpopular opinion: active listening is massively overrated. There, I said it.

Don't get me wrong—listening is crucial. But all this emphasis on parroting back what someone said ("So what I'm hearing is...") creates these weird, artificial conversations where people spend more energy performing good listening than actually understanding.

Real communication happens when people feel safe enough to be direct. When Jake from Accounting can say "That proposal has three major flaws" without prefacing it with ten minutes of diplomatic softening.

The best communicators I know? They listen by asking better questions, not by repeating everything back like trained parrots. They cut through the fluff and get to the point. They're comfortable with uncomfortable conversations.

I learned this the hard way during my early consulting days. Spent ages perfecting my active listening technique, nodding at all the right moments, using all the right phrases. Know what happened? Clients started booking follow-up sessions because they felt heard but hadn't actually solved anything.

Started being more direct. Started challenging their assumptions. Started saying "That doesn't make sense" when things didn't make sense. Guess what? Better results. Happier clients. Fewer follow-up sessions needed.

The Email Problem Everyone Ignores

Let's talk about email for a minute. The average office worker spends 2.6 hours per day on email. That's 13 hours per week. Nearly two full working days just... emailing.

Most workplace communication training teaches people to write longer, more polite emails. More context. More pleasantries. More "hope this finds you well" nonsense.

Wrong approach entirely.

The best communicators write shorter emails, not longer ones. They get to the point in the first sentence. They use bullet points instead of paragraphs. They pick up the phone when email gets complicated.

I've seen project teams exchange 47 emails about a simple scheduling conflict that could have been resolved with one five-minute phone call. But nobody wants to be seen as "interrupting" someone's workflow.

Here's a radical idea: interruption is sometimes exactly what's needed. Not everything requires an email trail. Sometimes you need to walk over to someone's desk and have an actual conversation.

Meeting Culture: Where Communication Goes to Die

Meetings. Oh, meetings. Where good communication goes to die a slow, painful death.

The average executive spends 23 hours per week in meetings. Middle managers spend even more. And what do we accomplish in all these meetings? Mostly, we schedule more meetings.

I worked with a Perth mining company where they had a weekly meeting to discuss what to discuss in the monthly planning meeting. The monthly planning meeting was to prepare for the quarterly review meeting. The quarterly review meeting was to plan the annual strategy meeting. It was meetings all the way down.

Know what solved their communication problems? Cancelling 60% of their meetings and replacing them with quick daily check-ins. Five minutes. Standing up. Three questions: What did you finish yesterday? What are you working on today? What's blocking you?

Suddenly, problems got solved instead of scheduled for discussion.

Most effective communication training focuses on how to run better meetings. Better agenda setting. Better facilitation techniques. All missing the point.

The real skill is knowing when NOT to have a meeting. When an email will do. When a phone call is better. When you need to actually see the problem with your own eyes instead of discussing it in a conference room.

The Feedback Sandwich Is Stale

Performance feedback. Another area where communication training has led us astray.

Everyone knows the feedback sandwich: positive comment, constructive criticism, positive comment. Supposed to soften the blow, make feedback easier to receive.

Absolute rubbish.

The feedback sandwich just confuses people. They remember the positive bits and tune out the important stuff in the middle. Or worse, they start dreading positive feedback because they know criticism is coming.

Direct feedback works better. "Your presentation yesterday was confusing. The data on slide 7 contradicted slide 3, and you lost the room during the technical section. Here's how to fix it for next time."

Clear. Specific. Actionable. No sugar coating needed.

I learned this from a brilliant manager in Adelaide—former Navy officer who'd transitioned to corporate life. She gave the most effective feedback I've ever received, and it was never wrapped in compliments. Just clear, direct observations about what was working and what wasn't.

Her team had the lowest turnover in the company. Why? Because people always knew where they stood. No guessing. No politics. No reading between the lines.

Technology: Helper or Hindrance?

Slack, Teams, WhatsApp, Discord—we've got more communication tools than ever. And somehow, communication has gotten worse.

Part of the problem is choice paralysis. Do I send a Slack message? An email? Schedule a meeting? Send a WhatsApp? The medium becomes the message, and the actual message gets lost.

But the bigger problem is that technology has made it easier to avoid difficult conversations. You can hide behind emoji and GIFs instead of dealing with conflict directly.

I've seen teams where serious project issues were discussed entirely through reaction emojis. Thumbs down for problems, question marks for confusion, party hat for approval. Like some kind of corporate hieroglyphics.

Technology should make communication faster and clearer, not more ambiguous. If you need more than three emoji to express your point, pick up the bloody phone.

What Actually Works: The Uncomfortable Truth

Real communication improvement happens when organisations get comfortable with discomfort. When they stop pretending that all conflict is bad and all feedback needs to be gentle.

The best-communicating teams I've worked with share a few characteristics:

They argue. Productively, but they argue. They challenge each other's ideas without taking it personally. They disagree and then grab lunch together.

They're direct without being rude. There's a difference between "Your idea won't work because..." and "You're wrong." Good communicators focus on ideas, not personalities.

They over-communicate the important stuff and under-communicate the trivial. They'll send three emails about a critical deadline but won't CC everyone on their lunch plans.

They admit when they don't understand something. "I have no idea what you just said" is a perfectly valid response to unclear communication.

They use the phone. Revolutionary concept, I know.

Training That Actually Changes Behaviour

So what does effective communication training look like? Not role-playing exercises about difficult conversations (though those have their place). Not more workshops about email etiquette.

Real communication training addresses the underlying issues: organisational culture, psychological safety, power dynamics, and yes—the fear of conflict.

It teaches people that disagreement isn't disrespect. That direct feedback isn't personal attack. That "I don't know" is often the smartest thing you can say.

The best professional development training I've seen combines practical skills with cultural change. You can't fix communication problems with technique alone—you need to fix the environment that created the problems.

The Australian Advantage (And Disadvantage)

Working across Australia, I've noticed some interesting cultural patterns. Australians are generally more direct than Americans, less formal than Brits, but we've got our own communication quirks.

We're masters of the understatement. "That's interesting" often means "That's completely wrong." "We might want to consider" usually means "We absolutely must do this immediately."

This indirect style works fine when everyone speaks the same cultural language, but it creates massive problems in diverse workplaces or international companies.

I worked with a Sydney tech company where the Australian managers kept saying things were "fine" when they meant "urgent action required." The international team members took them at face value and prioritised accordingly. Projects suffered because nobody wanted to be seen as overdramatic.

Sometimes you need to spell things out. Even for fellow Aussies.

The Cost of Poor Communication

Here's the thing that keeps me passionate about this work: poor communication has real costs. Not just hurt feelings or missed deadlines, but actual dollars.

A manufacturing company in South Australia calculated that communication failures were costing them $340,000 annually in rework, delays, and quality issues. One unclear specification led to 10,000 incorrectly machined parts. One misunderstood deadline meant missing a major contract.

But the human cost is higher. Stress, frustration, disengagement. People leaving good jobs because they can't stand the communication culture.

I've seen brilliant engineers quit because they couldn't get their safety concerns heard. Talented designers leave because feedback was always vague and unhelpful. Great managers burn out trying to decode what their executives actually wanted.

That's the real tragedy of poor workplace communication—it drives away exactly the people you most want to keep.

Moving Forward: Small Changes, Big Impact

The good news? Communication improvements compound quickly. Small changes in how teams interact can create massive shifts in productivity and morale.

Start with one meeting per week where interruptions are encouraged, not discouraged. Where people are expected to challenge ideas and ask stupid questions.

Try one project where email is banned for internal communication. Phone calls and face-to-face only. Watch how quickly decisions get made.

Implement a "feedback Friday" where everyone gives one piece of direct, specific feedback to someone they work with. No sandwiches required.

These aren't revolutionary concepts, but they're revolutionary in practice because most workplaces are too polite to try them.

Communication training that ignores organisational culture is like teaching swimming in a classroom. All the technique in the world won't help if you never get near the water.

The best communicators aren't those with the most training certificates on their wall. They're the ones who've learned to navigate the specific, messy, complicated dynamics of their particular workplace.

And sometimes, that means admitting that the emperor's new communication strategy isn't working.

Just like Sarah and James should have done three weeks ago.