The cost of poor communication in the workplace: what a last-minute workshop taught us
The cost of poor communication in the workplace goes well beyond a delay. We recently watched it play out in real time: a team was told about a workshop at the last minute, and the employees walked into the room frustrated.
We were there to work on communication with this team, so the lesson was hard to miss. A communication problem led straight to frustration, and the frustration shaped the first part of the session.
What happened when a team found out at the last minute
The employees arrived annoyed because they had not known they were supposed to come. They had been thrown into the workshop with no warning, and for the first part of the session they held a grudge.
Things only started to move when they began to let go of it with the coach. Then they could speak up and share what had bothered them when they walked in. Once they did, they saw the results of the workshop for themselves.
The coach made the difference. I think that with a less experienced facilitator, or in another context, you end up with a team that stays angry and does not speak up.
The Hostage Effect: people in the room, but not engaged
Engagement means people are willing to take part in the discussion. An employee who sits with arms crossed, thinking “I was forced to come, I am not here willingly, and I do not care what happens in this room”, is in a hostage situation. We call this the Hostage Effect.
It is the worst outcome a company can get from its employees. You are not getting the best out of that person. You are getting the worst, and sometimes active protest against whatever you are trying to do.
Where did the communication break down?
In this case, we do not know yet. There are many stakeholders, and we are still working out where the message got stuck. The goal is not to point fingers. It is to find the root cause kindly and address it so it does not happen again.
Two questions help:
Who owns the message to the team?
Who checks that it has landed?
Ownership and responsibility are usually where the answer is.
There is also a reason that is easy to understand. A manager can hold back the news to spare the team frustration, for example because the session asks people for extra time. We do not know if that is what happened here. But telling people late leaves no time for questions, so people get the frustration anyway, plus a surprise.
How to limit the cost of poor communication in the workplace
- Name one owner for every announcement that affects people’s time.
- Tell people early, even when the news is not welcome, and say why it matters.
- Leave room for questions before the day, not on it.
- Check that the message landed, for example by asking the team lead what people said back.
When a team hears news late, you can lose their goodwill before you start.
If a message to your team has ever landed late, you have seen what it does to the room.
At Intandid, we help teams in China and across APAC where communication has broken down: mediation when tension has already built up, facilitation and team coaching to find the root cause and agree who owns what, and training and coaching for managers.
In the case above, the coach helped the team let go of the grudge, speak up and see the value of the workshop. And move towards more communication and resolution as a team.
Contact us to talk about where communication gets stuck in your organization, without pointing fingers.
It goes beyond delays. Poor communication creates frustration and leads to bad results. In a client team that learned about a workshop at the last minute, people arrived frustrated and held a grudge through the first part of the session.
The Hostage Effect is what happens when employees take part because they have to, not because they want to. They are in the room but not engaged, so the company gets the worst of them instead of the best.
Report back on what changed, between one workshop and the next. Here, management told the workers about six weeks later what had been changed following their feedback, which gave workers confidence that speaking up leads to something.