Communication is Oxygen. If you feel bad, breathe. If a project is stuck in a rut – communicate. So if you see fire somewhere, you just pump more oxygen into it, right?
Oh, wait.
David Perell has recently shared a page from the CIA Sabotage Field Manual:
This document was created in 1944 to help incite enemy to
“make faulty decisions, to adopt a non-cooperative attitude, and to induce others to follow suit”
In my corporate experience, I have seen genuinely well-meaning employees act in any of these ways. The bigger the organization, the more of these behaviors become defaults. You default to committees to shift risk. You insist on proper channels to be a „Team Player.”
I will not explain why these behaviors are not conducive to innovation or, for that matter, even operating of a healthy organization. Have a look at the source document.
Open communication in a bigger organization encourages most of these behaviors and that is what I marked in red.
At Automattic, we kind of take the „Apple Opposite” approach. We are distributed in 75 countries, work without a spaceship HQ, and default to open communication whenever possible. I can snoop in on all internal projects and our VIP clients, see source code of upcoming releases and chime in on a product line strategy that has zero overlap with my responsibilities.
I found our instincts to be much closer to how Pixar operates and it makes me very proud:
A company’s communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure. Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
If there are people in your organization who feel they are not free to suggest ideas, you lose. Do not discount ideas from unexpected sources. Inspiration can, and does, come from anywhere.
„Creativity Inc.”
Unfortunately, everything in life has a downside and Open communication does as well. Every positive behavior can become a subterfuge tactic if overused:
| My intent | Subterfuge tactic I fall into |
| Async communication, by definition, can be read at any time. I don’t know what the context of the other party is, so I will make a long-winded explanation of my reasoning, so we can skip the back-and-forth | (2) Make „speeches”. Talk as frequently as possible at great length… |
| When I stumble upon a thread or conversation, I try to provide additional value by looping in knowledgeable people. Connecting people who talk to each other is great for creativity. | (3) When possible, defer all matters to committees for “further study and consideration” This one is particularly effective as subterfuge – people I loop in will reciprocate, ensuring exponential growth of a committee. |
| Sometimes I try to provide additional value by sharing ideas and concerns. Did you thought about X? Maybe they didn’t, and I just saved them a discovery in the future? | (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible Also known as Bikeshedding. Extremely powerful combined with the above (3). Random people looped into a conversation will feel compelled to provide value, sharing shallow unrelated concerns. Since Async communication does not really have the concept of the „meeting finished”, we can hit another tactic for bonus points if we „share our thoughts too late”: (6) Refer back to matters decided upon the last meeting, in an attempt to re-open the question (…) |
Hippocrates said, that everything to the excess is opposed to nature.
Excess communication can have detrimental effects. It introduces noise for everybody, but more importantly – piles on more work for people trying to solve a problem. I am not advocating for hiding the communication but cutting on self-serving comments.
Are you making that comment to:
- Show that you are smart? Pass.
- To prove that you have taken action, even it is contributing very little? Pass.
- Because you feel concerned, that „proper channels” were not used? Pass.
- Project shipped, but you feel compelled to share a concern that should be addressed earlier? Pass.
- You have helpful information, that will make them achieve goals faster? Go ahead.
- You are certain a major risk was overlooked? Go ahead.
- You have a genuine question and answer will help you or others in future pursuits? Go ahead.
Breathe and communicate. Within reason.
