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Why Your Company's Communication Strategy is Confusing (And How to Fix It Without Another Consultant)

Three weeks ago, I watched a CEO deliver a 47-minute presentation about "strategic communication alignment" that nobody in the room understood. Including him. The PowerPoint had 73 slides, 12 different fonts, and more buzzwords than a startup pitch deck. When someone asked a clarifying question, he responded with, "Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about."

Classic case of communication confusion masquerading as sophistication.

After 18 years in workplace training and watching hundreds of companies tie themselves in communication knots, I've noticed something: the organisations that struggle most with clear communication are usually the ones talking about it the most. They've got communication strategies, communication frameworks, communication committees, and communication consultants. What they don't have is anyone actually communicating.

The Real Problem Isn't What You Think

Most business leaders assume their communication problems stem from inadequate tools or insufficient training. Wrong. The real issue is that modern workplace communication has become performative rather than functional. We're so busy demonstrating how strategic and professional we are that we've forgotten the point is to actually exchange information.

Take email. Please. The average business email I see now contains three paragraphs of throat-clearing before getting to the actual request. "I hope this finds you well in these challenging times. As we navigate the evolving landscape of our industry paradigm..." Just tell me what you need, Janet.

I once worked with a mining company in Perth where the safety briefings were so loaded with corporate speak that workers started missing critical hazard information. When effective communication training helped them strip back to plain English, incident reports dropped by 23% in six months. Correlation isn't causation, but I'll take those odds.

The truth about communication confusion is that it's often intentional. Not maliciously so, but psychologically. Complex communication makes people feel important. It creates the illusion of sophistication. It provides cover when things go wrong – "Well, if you'd understood the strategic framework..."

Why Australian Businesses Are Getting This Wrong

Here's something that'll get me unfriended at networking events: Australian business culture has an unfortunate tendency to import American corporate communication styles that don't suit our workplace culture at all. We're naturally direct people who've convinced ourselves we need to sound like Harvard Business Review articles.

I see this constantly in Melbourne and Sydney offices. Managers who would normally say "Can you fix this by Friday?" are instead crafting emails about "optimising deliverable timelines within agreed parameters." It's cultural cringe in corporate drag.

The Mining sector actually gets this right more often than tech companies. You know why? Because when you're operating heavy machinery, clarity isn't optional. "Move the dozer left" works better than "Please consider repositioning the earth-moving asset in a westward direction."

But here's where I might lose some readers: I actually think some formality in business communication is valuable. The problem isn't professional language per se – it's when professional language becomes a substitute for clear thinking rather than an expression of it.

The Hidden Cost of Communication Confusion

Most organisations measure communication success by inputs rather than outputs. They count training hours, email response times, and meeting frequency. They don't measure understanding, clarity, or actual behaviour change.

Here's a statistic that should worry you: 67% of employees report receiving conflicting instructions from different managers in the same week. That's not a training problem – that's a systems problem disguised as a communication problem.

I remember working with a logistics company where drivers were getting different loading instructions from dispatch, supervisors, and the warehouse manager. The company's solution? More team development training. My solution? Get the three managers in a room and make them write one set of instructions together. Revolutionary concept, apparently.

The real cost isn't just confusion – it's the time people spend managing the confusion. Conservative estimate: the average knowledge worker spends 4.2 hours per week clarifying, confirming, or correcting miscommunications. That's more than half a day per person, every week, just dealing with unclear messaging.

But here's the kicker. Most of this time is invisible to leadership because it happens in sidebar conversations, quick calls, and "just checking" emails. It doesn't show up in productivity metrics, but it absolutely shows up in stress levels and job satisfaction.

What Actually Works (Based on What I've Seen Work)

After nearly two decades of helping companies communicate better, here's what actually moves the needle: ruthless simplification paired with obsessive consistency.

Start with vocabulary audits. I'm serious. List every piece of jargon, acronym, and insider language your organisation uses. Then assume half your audience doesn't know what it means. Because they don't, and they're too embarrassed to ask.

Qantas does this brilliantly with their safety demonstrations. They could use aviation terminology, but instead they say "life jacket under your seat" not "personal flotation device beneath your assigned seating position." Clear, simple, actionable.

Next, standardise your communication formats ruthlessly. Every status update should follow the same structure. Every project brief should contain the same information in the same order. Every email should... actually, let me stop there before I sound like a consultant trying to sell you a communication template package.

The point is: consistency reduces cognitive load. When people know what to expect, they can focus on content rather than format.

Here's something I learned from watching emergency responders: they repeat critical information three times using slightly different words each time. "The deadline is Friday. We need this completed by end of week. Friday is our hard stop." Feels redundant? That's the point. Redundancy saves misunderstandings.

The Meeting Problem Nobody Wants to Discuss

Let's talk about meetings, because no discussion of communication confusion is complete without acknowledging that most meetings are communication disasters disguised as productivity.

The average meeting I observe has:

No clear agenda (or an agenda that's ignored)
At least three side conversations
One person who dominates discussion
Two people who say nothing
Multiple action items that aren't actually assigned to anyone
A vague commitment to "circle back" on everything important

Sound familiar? Of course it does. We've all been in these meetings. We've all complained about these meetings. And yet we keep scheduling them.

Here's my controversial take: most meetings are status theater. They exist to create the appearance of coordination rather than actually coordinate anything. The real work happens in the conversations after the meeting, when people finally figure out what they're supposed to do.

I worked with a construction company that cut their weekly project meetings from 90 minutes to 30 minutes by implementing one simple rule: you can't present a problem without proposing a solution. Meetings became problem-solving sessions instead of problem-sharing sessions. Amazing what happens when you require people to think before they speak.

Technology: Friend or Foe?

Every week I meet business owners convinced that new communication technology will solve their communication problems. Slack will fix everything. Teams will streamline collaboration. The latest project management platform will finally bring clarity.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: technology amplifies your existing communication patterns. If your communication is clear and purposeful, technology helps. If your communication is confused and meandering, technology just spreads the confusion faster and to more people.

I've seen companies with seven different communication platforms running simultaneously. Email, Slack, Teams, WhatsApp groups, project management tools, shared documents, and the occasional carrier pigeon. People spend more time figuring out where to find information than actually processing it.

The best-communicating organisations I work with typically use fewer tools, not more. They pick their platforms purposefully and train people to use them consistently.

BHP learned this lesson the hard way during their digital transformation. Too many communication channels led to information fragmentation. Now they're religious about channel discipline – certain types of communication happen in certain places, full stop.

Why Communication Training Usually Fails

Here's where I might upset my own industry: most communication training focuses on skills people already have rather than systems they actually need.

The typical corporate communication workshop teaches active listening, clear writing, and presentation skills. All valuable capabilities. But if your organisational communication system is fundamentally broken, teaching individuals to communicate better is like teaching people to swim while the pool is being drained.

I've seen teams complete expensive communication training on Friday and return to work Monday using the same confused, contradictory communication patterns because nothing about their environment changed.

Real communication improvement requires systemic thinking. Who needs what information, when, and in what format? How do decisions get communicated? What happens when priorities change? How do you ensure critical information reaches the right people?

These are design challenges, not training challenges.

The Australian Advantage We're Wasting

Australians have a natural communication advantage that we're systematically undermining with imported corporate speak. We're culturally inclined toward directness, informality, and cutting through BS. These are superpowers in the business world.

But somehow we've convinced ourselves that professional communication requires abandoning these strengths. We think we need to sound like American management consultants to be taken seriously.

Rubbish. Some of the most effective business communicators I know sound distinctly Australian. They use simple language, acknowledge when they don't know something, and get to the point quickly. They build trust through authenticity rather than authority through complexity.

The mining sector figured this out years ago. Resources companies communicate with remarkable clarity because the stakes are too high for confusion. Maybe it's time for the rest of Australian business to follow their lead.

The Simple Fix That Changes Everything

Want to improve your organisation's communication overnight? Implement the "So What?" test. Every piece of communication – every email, presentation, memo, or meeting – must answer three questions:

So what? (Why should people care?)
Now what? (What should people do?)
What if not? (What happens if they don't?)

If you can't answer these questions clearly, you're not ready to communicate yet. Go back and figure out what you're actually trying to achieve.

I started using this framework after watching too many people craft elaborate communications that failed to change anyone's behaviour. Turns out, most workplace communication is just expensive corporate therapy – making the sender feel productive without actually accomplishing anything.

The "So What?" test forces clarity of purpose. It eliminates communication for communication's sake. It makes every message justify its own existence.

Try it for a week. I guarantee you'll send fewer emails and attend fewer meetings. But the ones you do send and attend will actually matter.

After 18 years of helping organisations communicate better, this is what I've learned: clarity is kindness, simplicity is sophistication, and the best communication strategy is often just shutting up until you have something worth saying.

Your employees will thank you. Your customers will notice. And your next quarterly presentation might actually make sense.