The cost of confusion

/ 01 November 2009

Mixed up messages don't just cause frustration and tension among colleagues, they can also cost organisations millions and put people at risk. Steve Coomber looks at how to improve internal communications and prevent too many crossed wires

­At the Battle of Balaclava in 1854, Captain Louis Nolan handed a vaguely worded order from the British command to a senior officer, Lord Lucan. The order was meant to launch a cavalry advance against Russian soldiers who were attempting to remove captured cannons from the valley heights nearby. Unable to see these guns from his position, Lucan asked for clarification and Nolan, gesturing towards an entirely different set of cannons at the end of the valley, said: ‘There, my Lord, is your enemy; there are your guns.’

Shortly afterwards the Light Brigade, the elite of the British army, charged along the North Valley straight at the Russian heavy guns. Of the 673 men and officers who took part in the disastrous action, just over 300 were killed or wounded. All because of a simple misunderstanding.

High risk strategy

In the business world, the results of a misunderstanding are unlikely to be so devastating. However, research for Cognisco, the employee knowledge appraisal consultancy, found that there is a significant cost attached to organisational misunderstanding. This can be measured not only in financial loss and reduced productivity, but in areas such as job satisfaction, health and safety, and brand reputation.

Of the 400 companies surveyed, 100% said employee misunder-standing had placed other employees or the public at risk of injury in the last 12 months, and 99% said there had been a risk of loss of revenue and reduced customer satisfaction. The study also found that businesses with upwards of 100,000 employees were losing £31 million per year on average, and that nearly one in four employees did not understand at least one crucial aspect of their job.

‘The key factor in eliminating misunderstanding is first being able to identify it,’ says Mary Clarke, CEO at Cognisco. ‘If managers do not have a clear picture of what their employees understand and where the knowledge is, they will not be able to identify knowledge gaps.’

One solution, she suggests, is to reach out to employees with online assessment programmes that measure confidence, competencies and knowledge. ‘Assessments help employees pinpoint areas of the job or company policy that they do not properly understand,’ says Clarke. ‘After this evaluation is made, they can focus on the areas that need improvement or request additional explanation, training or mentoring.’

‘A lot of managers communicate poorly with their subordinates,’ says Julian Birkinshaw, professor of strategic and international management at the London Business School and a senior fellow of the Advanced Institute of Management Research.

‘It is a lack of self-awareness in terms of understanding how a manager’s style of working is understood and perceived by others. So decentering, attempting to see the world through the eyes of others, can be a good first step in terms of putting the message across in a way that the employee can understand it.

‘Some employees want to be told very explicitly what to do, while some people delight in being given a target and being allowed to figure out what to do. Some people like written instructions, some prefer verbal interaction or graphics. Some people like email, while others need to be dealt with in person. Everybody has a different style of listening, learning and taking instructions.’

Hidden agenda

Mark de Rond is a reader in strategy and organisation at Judge Business School, Cambridge University. He is also author of The Last Amateurs: To Hell and Back with the Cambridge Boat Race Crew, a book he researched by accompanying the crew through the selection process and training for the 2007 event.

As with many organisations, the rowers’ training camp was a highly competitive, high pressure environment where a simple mix-up could mean the difference between success or failure. De Rond witnessed at first hand the damage that could be caused as a result.

‘Misunderstanding can easily escalate into full scale conflict,’ he says. ‘I think that‘s because when you feel misunderstood, the default response for most people is to start questioning the intentions of others. Suspecting a hidden agenda, for example. So coaches feared that rowers might start to undermine their authority, while the rowers thought that coaches had already made the selection decisions and were just looking for the right data to firm up what they already wanted to happen.’

The reality, he says, is usually a lot less sinister than we think. ‘The problem is that many people cannot live with causal gaps. They need to develop causal chains about why things happen in the way that they do. If there is a gap, we tend to fill it up with bad stuff because we are inherently paranoid.’

It is often what is left unsaid that causes the problem – a matter of misinterpretation rather than misunderstanding. The employee knows what is happening, but not why. One way of avoiding this is to be very open in conversation, and for managers to resist the temptation to play their cards close to their chest.

Creating greater openness might include posting data or information about a team so there is complete transparency. In the rowing environment, for example, performance data, as well as information about individual strengths and weaknesses, was made available to the whole group.

Another important element in removing misunderstanding, for both those receiving and delivering messages, is listening more actively, says Gerry Griffin, founder of Skill-Pill M-Learning, a specialist in mobile learning and communications.

‘Inactive listening is the classic model where people jump to an early conclusion. Active listening tries to get behind the ostensible issues being raised, so that people do not just react to the symptoms but to the cause of the problem. It‘s a bit messier and takes more time, and therefore middle management does not really want to do it, but you have to do that if you really want to understand what is going on.’

Verbalising problems

In some situations, face to face communication is preferable, even essential. ‘There are many types of discussions, decisions and communications that are best not done through the internet, yet we often end up defaulting to email and making life more difficult for ourselves,’ says Birkinshaw. ‘If some sort of iterative process is required, face to face communication is best. And any time you want to give somebody bad news or negative feedback, the last method to use is email, because there is no way of communicating nuance by email.’

How bad news is broken is one of the litmus tests of good management. ‘A lot of managers don‘t have the tough conversations,’ says Penny de Valk, chief executive of the Institute of Leadership & Management. ‘Sometimes people are not aware that the behaviour they are demonstrating is having an adverse effect on other team members or customers. You might think it doesn‘t matter, but all the team will be aware that the tough conversation has not been had, and then they become cynical about the cultural norms, the values and vision, the boundaries that have been set.

‘I don‘t think you can overstate the importance of face to face communication. It seems slightly counterintuitive when chief executives are facing so many challenges, but being out there with their people is one of the most important things they can be doing.’

But sometimes this is just not possible, especially in larger organisations. With the latest communications technology, however, there is no excuse for failing to clarify the meaning or relevance of a particular message or piece of information. A selective use of new media is invaluable for reinforcing messages. ‘Email is no substitute for talking to people and building relationships,’ says de Valk, ‘but it is better than silence, because people will fill that silence with negative things.’

The interactive nature of modern communication technology is also helpful. ‘The more collaborative Web 2.0 approach is to invite people to participate in the message, rather than just receive it passively and nod in agreement, because that does not really imply full engagement,’ adds Griffin. ‘So it is moving towards a process of dialogue – a two-way or multi-way participative mode of communication.’

There will also be times when employees need guidance on a particular issue but do not have the time to get clarification when making a decision. This is where organisational culture, and the vision and values of the business, have an important role to play. ‘A good manager not only provides a clear sense of direction and support where required, but also boundaries, whether formally prescribed, cultural or moral,’ says Birkinshaw. ‘When joining an organisation you subscribe to a set of norms of behaviour; boundaries make sure that people keep within those norms.’

The assessment process outlined by Clarke can also be useful in providing direction in moments of confusion. ‘Employee assessment solutions help managers to identify which employees possess sufficiently complete and accurate knowledge to be considered a “knowledge custodian”. Once these custodians are identified, managers can utilise them as go-to people within their respective departments. They can act as resources for other employees when managers aren‘t around.’

Finally, it is worth leaders and managers considering just how prescriptive they need to be. Birkinshaw suggests that sometimes it is better to provide objectives but not give explicit instructions on how to reach those objectives. ‘When you look at the drivers of motivation – the ability to take ownership and demonstrate competence – a degree of autonomy is an intrinsic motivator,’ he says. ‘So make it quite clear what the parameters are, set direction, but don‘t tell people the micro details of how to get there.’

Meanwhile, anyone receiving an important message, or given a new role or task, should take a moment and ask themselves: Do I really understand the message? What do I need to do? How can I check? And for those delivering the message, consider how you can be sure the recipients have understood exactly what you mean. Something, no doubt, Captain Nolan wished he and his superiors had done as he galloped towards the Russian heavy artillery brandishing his sword.