Trish felt they'd been waiting too long for the elevator, and there were now so many people waiting that the ride would be crowded. She turned to George. "Stairs?" He nodded and off they went.

Ancient stairs at ruins in Cambodia.
Photo by Bill Kirksey.
In the empty stairwell, walking down the three floors to the coffee shop, George asked, "What do you think he meant by 'I hope everyone gets their projections in on time.'?"
"Probably Marigold was late again," Trish answered. "Or maybe Diamond. Somebody."
George grew concerned. "Yeah, there'll be real trouble for anybody who's late this time. How does it look for us?"
"Not good," Trish said. She stopped on the landing. "We'll have to rearrange things if we want to avoid trouble."
George and Trish are reordering priorities to avoid a problem that might exist, if they're parsing their director's words correctly. Maybe they're right, but their conclusion is based on their guess that the director is communicating indirectly, and that the real message is cloaked in innocent-sounding language.
Indirect communication
causes problems that
increase costs, create
confusion, and
cause delaysThis kind of possibly unnecessary adjustment adds delays to our projects, costs to our operations, suspicion to the atmosphere, conflict to our relationships and stress to our lives. Indirectness can often be a tool in destructive conflict, and it can be dangerous even when its user means well. Here are some of the ways indirect communication can cause problems that increase costs and time to market.
- Muddying the message
- To make messages indirect, we often disguise them. For instance, we might want to say, "Jim, if your report is late again this week, we might lose funding for this project." To avoid confrontation, we might instead say, "I hope everyone gets their reports in on time." When we think we're receiving an indirect message, we often need additional information to be certain of the real message.
- Leaving room for the imagination
- When we receive ambiguous or incomplete information, we tend to make up what we don't know. By compelling people to guess, we enhance the risk that people might choose incorrect interpretations.
- Increased costs
- Because of the ambiguity of indirectness, recipients have choices. They might ignore a message thinking it wasn't intended for them; or they might miss it altogether; or they might interpret it in novel ways. All of these possibilities can increase costs through rework, unnecessary work, confusion, more and longer meetings, increased interpersonal and organizational conflict and delay.
- Setting expectations
- Once a pattern of indirectness is established, people expect ambiguity. They search for multiple meanings because they don't want to be surprised. And when they search, they find. This leads to what some call "over-interpretation" or "reading too much into it." Once people find alternate interpretations, they raise questions to resolve their confusion. And senders tend to view these questions with suspicion, which leads them to ever-increasing indirectness.
Indirectness might avoid conflict today, but it often spreads conflict tomorrow. A better approach is to resolve today's conflict, rather than avoiding it through indirectness. Still, indirectness does have its place, as we'll see next time. Top
Next Issue
Are you fed up with tense, explosive meetings? Are you or a colleague the target of a bully? Destructive conflict can ruin organizations. But if we believe that all conflict is destructive, and that we can somehow eliminate conflict, or that conflict is an enemy of productivity, then we're in conflict with Conflict itself. Read 101 Tips for Managing Conflict to learn how to make peace with conflict and make it an organizational asset. Order Now!
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrenubcqSvusyBsQaEDwner@ChacfhuriyFKgDguTpuYoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and
found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
Games for Meetings: IV
- We spend a lot of time and emotional energy in meetings, much of it engaged in any of dozens of ritualized
games. Here's Part IV of a little catalog of some of our favorites, and what we could do about them.
Recovering Time: II
- Where do the days go? How can it be that we spend eight, ten, or twelve hours at work each day and get
so little done? To find more time, focus on strategy.
How to Reject Expert Opinion: I
- When groups of decision makers confront complex problems, they sometimes choose not to consult experts
or to reject their advice. How do groups come to make these choices?
Nine Brainstorming Demotivators: II
- Brainstorming sessions produce output of notoriously variable quality, but understanding what compromises
quality can help elevate it. Here's Part II of a set of nine phenomena that can limit the quality of
contributions to brainstorming sessions.
Six Traps in Email or Text: I
- Most of us invest significant effort in communicating by email or any of the various forms of text messaging.
Much of the effort is spent correcting confusions caused, in part, by a few traps. Knowing what those
traps are can save much trouble.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming June 4: White-Collar Contractor Sabotage
- Modern firms in competitive, dynamic markets draw on many types of employer/employee relationships, including contractors. By providing privileges and perks preferentially among these different types, they risk creating a caldron of resentments that can reduce organizational effectiveness. Available here and by RSS on June 4.
And on June 11: More Things I've Learned Along the Way: VI
- When I gain an important insight, or when I learn a lesson, I make a note. Example: If you're interested in changing how a social construct operates, knowing how it came to be the way it is can be much less useful than knowing what keeps it the way it is. Available here and by RSS on June 11.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenubcqSvusyBsQaEDwner@ChacfhuriyFKgDguTpuYoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrenubcqSvusyBsQaEDwner@ChacfhuriyFKgDguTpuYoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
