Communication is very important in a world where technology plays a huge role in our daily business. For this reason, every business needs strong relationships and communication mechanisms in place if it is to succeed, meet deadlines, and surpass goals. For your business, a lack of communication can cause issues such as stress, unmet expectations, relationship disintegration, low morale, disgruntled clients, and others. Knowledge about the consequences of poor communication might help you recognize the warning signs and improve your communication.
In this article, I will take you through how a lack of communication can hurt or hamper your business from a personal perspective. Together, we will also learn the best course of action to take to strengthen weak communication abilities and accomplish your goals.
Key Points:
- Lack of communication can lead to expensive repercussions for your business.
- Employees in such environments can suffer from low self-esteem and low productivity.
- There is a 50% chance of losing top staff members through a lack of communication.
- Lack of communication skills creates conflicts and misunderstandings in the workplace.
- Feedback is an important element in battling a lack of communication.
What Is Lack of Communication?
Lack of communication happens when someone finds it difficult to clearly express their needs and expectations. It can also lead to a breakdown in communication that occurs when there is a mismatch or misunderstanding between what is stated and what is understood. This lack of mutual understanding can occur within an organization or between coworkers on an interpersonal level.
Furthermore, lack of communication also refers to leaving out important details or not expressing yourself fully. It may have an impact on relationships at work, mental health, and employee productivity.
Note that it can be detrimental to both individuals and your business as a whole, even if some may be more obvious than others.
What Is The Main Cause Of The Lack Of Communication?
I have noticed that in most business settings, people take communication for granted, however, it is dangerous to overlook such an important element in your business. From my experience, here are the eight causes of a lack of communication:
#1. Poor Business Culture
In a toxic work culture, it is simply impossible for communication to flourish in a culture that lacks team spirit. Your business management can create these poor work environments when they discourage criticism, make unwelcoming remarks, tolerate low attendance at meetings, and lack effort to integrate multicultural staff. Therefore, if your business settings do not support proper work ethics, there will be no open communication.
#2. Lack of Communication Skills Training
Effective communication makes sure that everyone is aware of their responsibilities and what is expected of them. If not, it may lead to problems with communication later on.
I once worked for a business venture where I didn’t get enough information during the onboarding process. I was forced to receive information from the wrong sources or not at all. This led to poor deliveries and the inability to meet targets by myself and my team. It affected the output of the whole organization at large.
#3. Lack of Employee Engagement in the Business.
Employee engagement increases productivity and facilitates easier team communication. However, some employees do not participate in team meetings, remain mute during one-on-one conversations with their manager, and communicate poorly overall.
From my experience, if this pattern of non-participation in discussions and meetings persists, it may negatively affect interdepartmental communications and cascade throughout the team.
#4. Poor Management Style
On a team, management style has a big impact. However, your employees may communicate poorly with one another or with customers if the manager lacks effective communication skills.
Furthermore, your workers may experience frustration, disengagement, and a clear lack of inter-team contact if they do not understand how their work fits into the business overall.
Therefore, I look to hire managers with open and honest communication skills to promote effective communication in the workplace.
#5. Bad Grammar
One of the causes of communication issues is errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. These result in misconceptions that may be avoided otherwise and impair team collaboration. An absent comma alone has the power to completely confuse workers. For example, let’s look at it from John’s perspective:
- Please help, John. (Assistance is needed.)
- Please help John. (John needs your assistance.)
You can see how one comma makes the entire message different. Therefore, you need to train your staff with a high-quality online grammar tool that can help you and them write better.
#6. Refusing to Ask Questions
I noticed that when employees do not want to speak about their concerns or ask for clarification, the issue gets worse. It can cause them to show signs of poor self-worth, disengagement, and lower output. It takes two-way communication to assess how well staff members understand important details and goals.
Therefore, you must create an open-door policy between managers and employees so they can feel free to voice concerns and offer suggestions.
#7. Making Use of Jargon.
When you share information, you must also make sure that the person you are speaking with understands what you are saying. However, speaking with employees using jargon leads to confusion.
Even though you can use jargon when speaking with colleagues in the same department, most people will respond more favorably to simple language.
For example, in a general meeting involving other departments, I have had coworkers who use difficult terms and phrases just to look cool. It seemed to me that they believed their use of those words gave them credibility. Note that using this jargon left everyone in the meeting looking confused and the aim of the meeting was never met.
Clients who don’t understand what they’re being told can misuse the product or leave bad reviews of the services online.
#8. Using Digital Communication Too Much
If you run a remote business, you may only reach out to your employees digitally through emails, text messages, and direct messages. However, if it is done incorrectly, it can cause a complete breakdown in communication.
Therefore, I recommend that you make use of video conferencing or virtual meetings to prevent the overall dearth of communication at work.
Read the following articles on communication:
What Are the Dangers of A Lack of Communication?
For businesses, a lack of communication can lead to some expensive and preventable issues. Here I will take you through some instances of negative outcomes:
#1. It Can Lead To Low Morale.
When your employee does not receive clear instructions, guidance, and responses, this will lead to low output, subpar output, unsatisfactory job satisfaction, and issues with staff retention.
#2. It Can Cause A Stressful Work Environment.
Most businesses do not give their employees clear targets and objectives, which can cause them to be stressed out. This is because they may feel like untrained jugglers trying to do everything at once. This can also affect their health and cause problems with work-life balance.
#3. Lack Of Communication Leads To Poor Employee Retention.
When your business is able to retain its best staff, it shows that it is prospering. This is because hiring new employees can be very expensive.
Note that businesses that do communicate well have a 50% chance of losing their employees over time.
#4. Poor Customer Service
Lack of communication will affect your business in two ways:
First of all, your workers will lack the knowledge to do high-quality work, which can be quite harmful to the customer service department.
Secondly, when your customer service lacks good communication skills, they may have bad encounters with customers, which will give your business poor reviews and a bad impression. Many customers have complained online about how rudely the customer service personnel spoke with them, and this went on to affect the productivity of the business.
#5. Lack Of Communication Reduces Employee Productivity.
In my experience, a lack of communication at work results in lower productivity because workers lack the drive to perform well and lack access to the people, information, and resources that support them in doing their jobs.
#6. It Increases The Chances Of An Incident Or Injury.
Lack of communication is risky, as it can lead to greater rates of injury and death. Additionally, it shows that businesses do not care about the safety of their employees or their well-being.
For example, in April 2010, British Petroleum faced a severe crisis following the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig. A report on the White House commission listed “poor communications” and a failure “to share important information” as two of the major contributing reasons to the catastrophe.
#7. Lack Of Communication Leads To Conflicts.
In the workplace, poor communication can breed animosity and conflict, reduce output, and eventually hurt profits.
Check out these crisis management and communication templates for your business.
How Can We Fix The Lack Of Communication?
#1. Listen To Your Team Members
People in leadership roles need to realize that they don’t always have to speak first. Managers should actively listen to employees and ask for their thoughts and comments. Your business can benefit from having an open-door policy, which makes it simple for employees at all levels to voice their opinions and concerns.
2. It Creates A Communication-Friendly Environment.
A communication-friendly environment is an environment that supports and fosters effective communication. I always make sure that my staff is not afraid of voicing their opinions.
You can create this culture of open communication in the workplace by promoting relationships and engagement among staff members and letting them know they are always welcome to speak with one another.
#3. Always Ask For Feedback.
Another way to promote communication in your business is by allowing your staff members to voice their worries or opinions on particular topics. You can get their feedback in different ways. For instance, some may prefer to provide feedback via email or surveys, and others might prefer to have a face-to-face conversation.
Read Also: How To Get Speaking Engagements: Best Tips
#4. Arrange Games For Team Building.
In addition to being enjoyable, team-building activities allow workers to interact with management and other employees, which makes them the ideal tool for fostering connections at work.
Some of the team-building games I recommend are:
- Two truths and a lie
- Office trivia
- A penny for your thoughts
- What do we have in common?
- Lost on a desert island
- Birthday lineup
- Play board games. (Ludo, Checkers, and Chess)
- Creative activities
- Sales pitch
- A compliment circle
- Memory wall
- Guess who
- Murder-mystery games
#5. Work To Become A Trusted Leader.
Every team needs a leader to succeed. I observe that many teams lack a clear leader and exhibit a lack of focus and direction. There is competition for status and power instead of working on becoming a dependable leader.
A good leader is one in whom others have faith in their ability to guide the group to success. People feel they have an option to join the team when they trust the leader. Additionally, the leader may provide precise guidance, problem-solving skills, and decision-making.
#6. Be Receptive To Receiving Mentoring.
Experienced team members should be willing to share their knowledge. For new personnel, having a mentor can reduce the learning curve by decades. As a new hire, I used to look up to those who had been there for a while to guide me in my activities.
#7. Observe Nonverbal Communication.
Nonverbal communication is made up of other people’s actions and facial expressions while you’re speaking. This indicator will help you know if someone understands you or not.
For example, when my team members start to yawn during a meeting, I know that they are either hungry or the meeting is getting too long and boring. This signals that it’s time to reschedule or end the meeting.
#8. Use The Right Communication Channels.
If you choose the wrong channels for communication, your message may not reach all the staff or may arrive too late. For example, when a pressing matter comes up, I give my team members a call to make sure that they hear about it right away.
Making frequent channel changes can also encourage inadequate communication.
#9. Set Communication Boundaries.
Establishing boundaries helps staff members understand when, how, and through which channels to connect with you. For example, I make sure that my team never sends work-related issues to my text message. I also make sure they send work-related emails only during business hours.
Businesses that create these boundaries inspire other staff members to develop their communication skills.
What Are the Seven Cs of Communication?
The seven Cs of communication are:
- Clarity
- Conciseness
- Concreteness
- Correctness
- Coherence
- Completeness
- Courtesy
Why Do People Struggle To Communicate?
People with poor social skills struggle to communicate properly. They may be unaware of the unwritten social norms around conversation. Additionally, it may be that they are not aware of the tone and body language of others. This makes it difficult to gauge how someone thinks about anything said by someone else.
Is A Lack of Communication A Problem?
Lack of communication is a problem that leads to conflicts, committing errors or failing to finish assignments correctly, experiencing emotional distress, starting conflicts, or withdrawing from other people.
Conclusion: Addressing Lack of Communication in the Workplace
Various employees may have different communication preferences. For instance, you might like talking on the phone, whereas others may prefer sending messages through email. Therefore, you must respect each person’s method of communication in your workplace.
Furthermore, promoting someone’s strengths and avoiding their flaws is a way to accommodate their communication preferences. For example, you could allow a staff member who is scared of speaking in front of others to make the presentation slides rather than taking the stage when the team is presenting a project.
Related Articles:
The Role of a Communications Officer: Responsibilities, Skills, & How To Become One
Is Communications a Good Major? All You Need to Know
CRISIS COMMUNICATION: Definition and Best Strategies
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