Failure to communicate

I'm noticing a distressing trend, it feels like we are living in a novella where people are misunderstanding each other in ways that make the audience (me) both frustrated and sad.

And no, I'm not talking about politics, that is outside my emotional scope right now.

I'm talking about the widening gap between what business leaders are thinking and saying and what workers are wanting and needing. If I had to give a leadership report card for this dimension of the ambiguity age it would not be good.

A few examples

• Work Disruption - About 53 minutes into this episode of the Hard Fork podcast there were few meaty discussions that left me very dissatisfied.

  • First question (who is responsible to "fix" the pending work disruption from AI).

    • Meg's inside voice  - This isn't how businesses work - businesses (and their investors) are not incentivized to reduce momentum or revenue and in the US there is very little political support for social safety nets. I am all for hoping that these things change, but it is far from practical to expect that they will.

  • Second question (Corporate AI mandates going badly) - the difference between what companies believe they are tracking and promoting when they push AI and what workers are actually doing.

    • Meg's inside voice - It's frustrating to see executive leaders in the intersection of good intentions and the unique lack of understanding for how work happens. This is a special type of Dunning-Kruger.

  • Third question (midsize company leader needs workers to evolve and they are pushing back/dragging their feet)

    • Meg's inside voice  - I have heard this story in so many times - in both small and big companies, we need to talk about this more. I think there are some real insights in the book Switch to bring to this conversation.

• Lack of Communication - You don't have to look far to hear people articulate their dissatisfaction with leadership communication. Workers want clarity, but leaders often fail to provide it. Or, when they try, it backfires badly because they accidentally say the quiet part out loud, leaving workers frazzled and defeated.

Where do we go from here?

I believe we need two things. First, we need to invest more in building understanding of how business works. Business can and should care about employees, be run ethically, and ultimately avoid being evil. But for any of that to work, they generally need to be making money.

The reality is that businesses thrive when they are growing (revenue up) and when the input cost structures (typically labor) are improving (costs down). Now don't get me wrong, I do care deeply about employees thriving and the connection between employee engagement and company health, but it is important that we avoid getting high on our own supply. When cost structures change, it becomes impossible for most businesses to ignore that reality and expect to survive.

I had ChatGPT build me a labor productivity chart - caveat emptor

Second, we need to be more realistic in what we expect from each other. The reality is that no one knows what happens next, and everyone is just doing the best they can to figure it out. If dissatisfaction is measured as the gap between reality and expectations, I think the biggest impact can come from shifting our expectations (of ourselves and of others).

If we want [need] to stop wallowing, it's on us to take the first step. We must move away from our expectations of "higher-ups" and our lack of empathy for "workers," and begin to appreciate the unique opportunity to re-create long-held systems and beliefs together. We have to entertain the awkward truth that we know less than we should and are probably wrong about much of what we think we know.

A few practical ideas

The great thing about where we are is that we are not alone. We are all participating in this massive human–technology–business shift together, and many smart people are experimenting and sharing what they learn. Here is my attempt to break down some good ideas with my transformation experience to help us move more quickly toward solving for both constituent groups at the same time. Of course, this is also my first life, so I could be doing it wrong.

Step 1: Communicate the most important business needs

One of the reasons we are seeing backlash on AI experiments is that many were not well grounded in real business value. I’ve seen this story repeat itself so many times that I’ve learned a few tricks worth sharing.

• Business data transparency – Many leaders are reluctant to share information due to real concerns about governance or competition. This often creates challenges in running the business efficiently and can make it difficult for people to contribute effectively. If there are legitimate business needs that require less data visibility, then building sufficient planning data sets must be part of the practice (e.g., using aggregated data sets or prior quarter data). Building business literacy and embedding financial metrics across the organization is essential.

• Avoid spending millions to save thousands (in time or currency) – Get someone in finance (or finance-adjacent) involved early in the ideation process. Most solution innovators struggle to understand the scale of their solutions—the problems they see as trivial are often the most strategic, while the ones that excite them may fail to move the needle. This can lead to challenges beyond just wasted capacity.

• Executive team alignment – Be clear about what a win looks like for the executive team before analyzing individual operational functions. This helps avoid redundancy and prevents mis-signaling to the broader organization. It's also a valuable opportunity to galvanize aligned action, don’t miss it. Every group should role model collective intelligence in action, and all communication on the topic should aim to build enthusiasm, not anxiety.

Step 2: Get curious on blind spots

• Employ a multi-channel listening tour – Just like when starting a new leadership position, begin with a listening tour. Find out what people are thinking and feeling. Learn where the emotion lives and where people are eager to contribute. Use the opportunity to understand how work happens across different parts of the organization, and identify pain points and bottlenecks. Leverage all available feedback tools—virtual suggestion boxes, “Ask Me Anything” forums, small group meetings, and large group Q&As, etc.

• Find transformational leaders – Recognize that leadership for AI innovation requires a unique skill set, don’t expect it to emerge from traditional leadership pipelines. Be open to skip-level and nontraditional leaders and voices. Identify them from a diverse range of backgrounds, experience levels, and functional areas. Broadcast your need for these types of leaders and invite them to self-nominate. Keep the roles short-term and be intentional about making them professional launch points for those who take them.

Step 3: Co-create the solutions

• Bring together cross-functional groups + well-quantified problems, and give them space for self-organizing and co-creation. Here is a great example of what that looks like in practice. Leverage initiatives like hackathons and contests. Use your quantification work from the beginning, and set aside some value-sharing budget for those who execute. Be creative—and very clear—about the “what’s in it for me” for each participant, but also make sure it’s clear that the real value for everyone is the profitable business growth.

A learn-it-all mindset

Go on in, the water's fine

At the end of the day, we are building a learn-it-all mindset. Learning to role model intellectual humility and communicate a path forward without needing to be certain of the destination. Having conviction about the direction of travel while entertaining the reality that we might be wrong .

Investing in our own skill building understanding that the most durable skill we are building is our own ability to learn. Wouldn't we rather spend our time together developing marketable skills and doing everything in our power to invent a better future?

We all want someone else to fix this for us, but the truth is it’s not fixable, the only way forward is through this awkward middle bit. So here is to embracing the awkward, learning some new things and together surviving this growth opportunity.