Posts
The Communication Crisis: Why Most Leadership Training is Complete Rubbish and What Actually Works
Related Reading:
Let me tell you something that's going to ruffle some feathers: 87% of corporate communication training is about as useful as a chocolate teapot. I've sat through more "active listening" workshops than I care to count, and frankly, most of them miss the point entirely.
Here's what happened last month that made me realise we're doing this all wrong. I was consulting for a mid-sized Brisbane firm – lovely people, terrible communicators. The CEO had just spent $15,000 on a two-day communication workshop for the leadership team. Day one was all about "mirroring body language" and "using the sandwich method for feedback."
Complete waste of time.
By lunch on day two, half the executives were checking emails, and the other half looked like they'd rather be getting root canal surgery. The facilitator was still banging on about "I statements" while the sales director was literally falling asleep.
The Real Problem Nobody Talks About
The issue isn't that people don't know how to communicate. Most professionals have the basic skills. What they lack is the courage to have real conversations.
I've worked with hundreds of managers over the years, from Perth mining companies to Sydney tech startups. The pattern is always the same: they'd rather send seventeen passive-aggressive emails than pick up the phone and sort out a problem in five minutes.
Take performance management. Traditional training tells you to "sandwich negative feedback between positive comments." Absolute rubbish. What actually happens? Your employee walks away confused about whether they're doing well or poorly. They remember the praise and forget the improvement needed.
What Actually Works (And Why Nobody Teaches It)
Real communication training should start with one simple principle: most workplace problems aren't communication problems – they're clarity problems.
When someone says "we need better communication," what they usually mean is "I don't understand what's expected of me" or "nobody tells me what's actually happening around here."
I learned this the hard way about eight years ago. Had a client in Adelaide whose team was constantly complaining about poor communication. Spent weeks analysing their email patterns, meeting structures, the whole nine yards. Turns out the real issue was that the business owner kept changing priorities without telling anyone.
Simple fix: weekly priority updates. Problem solved.
But here's why this approach doesn't get taught in corporate training programs – it's not sexy enough. There's no fancy methodology to sell. No certification program. Just common sense applied consistently.
The Australian Context Makes It Worse
We Australians have this cultural thing where we're supposed to be direct and straightforward. "Tell it like it is," we say. But in practice? We're some of the most indirect communicators I've ever worked with.
I see it constantly in Melbourne offices. Someone will say "I'm not sure that's going to work" when they mean "that's the stupidest idea I've heard all week." Or they'll go with "we might want to consider other options" instead of "absolutely not."
This cultural contradiction creates a weird communication dynamic where everyone thinks they're being direct, but nobody's actually saying what they mean.
The Americans, for all their faults, are much better at this. They'll tell you straight up if something's not working. Sure, they might wrap it in corporate speak, but the message gets through.
The Three Things That Actually Improve Workplace Communication
After fifteen years of watching companies throw money at communication consultants, I've identified exactly three interventions that work:
First: Regular one-on-ones between managers and team members. Not performance reviews. Not project updates. Actual conversations about how things are going. Weekly if possible, fortnightly at minimum.
Most managers hate this because it takes time and feels unproductive. But here's the thing – those fifteen-minute conversations prevent the three-hour crisis meetings later.
Second: Document decisions and share them widely. I cannot tell you how many workplace conflicts I've seen that boiled down to "I thought we agreed on X" versus "No, we definitely said Y."
Write it down. Send it around. Save everyone the headache.
Third: Train managers to ask better questions instead of giving better presentations. The best communicators I know are excellent listeners who ask specific, targeted questions.
Instead of "How are things going?" try "What's the biggest obstacle you're facing this week?" Instead of "Any questions?" ask "What part of this plan concerns you most?"
The Uncomfortable Truth About Communication Training
Here's something the training industry won't tell you: most communication problems in the workplace aren't skill problems – they're relationship problems.
You can teach someone all the active listening techniques in the world, but if they fundamentally don't trust their colleagues or don't feel safe speaking up, none of it matters.
I worked with a company last year where the team described their boss as "impossible to talk to." Spent a fortune on communication workshops. Didn't change a thing. The real issue? The boss had a habit of shooting down ideas in meetings and then taking credit for the good ones later.
No amount of "I statements" was going to fix that trust deficit.
Where We Go Wrong With Difficult Conversations
Traditional training focuses on scripts and frameworks for difficult conversations. "Start with appreciation, state the facts, explain the impact, ask for change."
Sounds good in theory. Feels robotic in practice.
Real difficult conversations are messy. They go off-script. People get emotional. That's human nature, and trying to turn it into a corporate process just makes everything feel fake.
Better approach: prepare for the conversation by getting clear on what outcome you want, then adapt based on how the other person responds. Sometimes you'll need to be more direct. Sometimes more supportive. Sometimes you'll need to reschedule because it's just not the right moment.
The key is staying flexible while keeping focused on resolution, not just following a predetermined script.
The Technology Trap
Every second company I work with thinks their communication problems will be solved by better technology. Slack will fix everything. Or Microsoft Teams. Or whatever the latest collaboration platform is.
Here's a reality check: I've seen teams that communicate brilliantly using nothing but email and phone calls. I've also seen teams with every communication tool imaginable who still can't coordinate a lunch order.
Technology amplifies your existing communication patterns. If you're bad at communicating face-to-face, you'll be bad at communicating digitally too.
Focus on the fundamentals first. Then add technology to support what already works.
What Actually Changes Behaviour
The dirty secret of corporate training is that most of it doesn't stick. People go back to their desks, get caught up in daily firefighting, and forget everything they learned.
Behaviour change happens through practice and accountability, not knowledge transfer.
If you want to improve communication in your workplace, pick one specific thing and focus on it for three months. Maybe it's eliminating meeting-after-the-meeting conversations. Maybe it's giving feedback within 24 hours instead of saving it for performance reviews.
One thing. Done consistently. With regular check-ins to see how it's going.
That's how real change happens, not through two-day workshops that everyone forgets about by Friday.
The truth is, most workplaces already know what their communication problems are. They just lack the discipline to address them systematically. Stop looking for silver bullets and start doing the boring work of building better habits.
And if you're still convinced you need formal training, at least make sure it's practical, specific to your context, and includes follow-up support. Otherwise, you're just burning money on feel-good sessions that change nothing.
Our Favourite Blogs: