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? rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.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 Workplace Politics:
Don't Rebuild the Chrysler Building
- When we undertake change, we're usually surprised at the effort and cost required. Much of this effort
and cost is necessary because of the nature of the processes we're changing. What can we do differently
to make change easier in the future?
About Workplace Hugs
- In the past twenty years in the United States, we've changed from a relatively hug-free workplace culture
to one that, in some quarters, seems to be experiencing a hugging tsunami. Knowing how to deal with
hugging is now a valuable skill.
A Review of Performance Reviews: Blindsiding
- Ever learn of a complaint about you for the first time at your performance review? If so, you were blindsided.
Reviews can be painful. Here are some guidelines for making them a little fairer.
Holding Back: I
- When members of teams or groups hold back their efforts toward achieving group goals, schedule and budget
problems can arise, along with frustration and destructive intra-group conflict. What causes this behavior?
Covert Obstruction in Teams: I
- Some organizational initiatives are funded and progressing, despite opposition. They continue to confront
attempts to deprive them of resources or to limit their progress. When team members covertly obstruct
progress, what techniques do they use?
See also Workplace Politics and Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming March 26: Seven Ways to Support Word-of-Mouth About Your Content
- Whether you're making a presentation or writing an article or a book, making your material more memorable is a desirable objective. After the talk, or after the reader sets down your work, what you have to offer will be accessible only if the auditor or reader remembers something about it. Available here and by RSS on March 26.
And on April 2: Mitigating the Trauma of Being Laid Off
- Trauma is an emotional response to horrible events — accidents, crimes, disasters, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gross injustices — and layoffs. Layoff trauma is real. Employers know how to execute layoffs with compassion, but some act out of cruelty. Know how to defend yourself. Available here and by RSS on April 2.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.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
rbrentSgXnAlNVWlhxNIJner@ChacAtZoEYrrmofzZnjPoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
