The USS Indianapolis on July 10, 1945, off Mare Island. Mare Island (which is actually a peninsula), in California, was the site of a US Naval shipyard. On July 26, the Indianapolis delivered to a base on Tinian, parts of the bomb known as Little Boy, which would be used against Hiroshima. She then left for Guam, and after departing Guam, she was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine. She did send distress calls, three of which were received, but which were tragically ignored, because one commander was drunk, another had left orders not to be disturbed and a third thought the message was a Japanese prank. Over 300 of her crew of 1196 died in the attack, and of the 880 who went into the water, all but 317 were lost to sharks. For years after the sinking, the Navy maintained that no distress calls had been sent because the ship had been cruising in radio silence. Her commander, Captain Charles Butler McVay III, survived and was rescued, only to be court-martialed and convicted of "hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag." His sentence was remitted and he was returned to active duty, retiring in 1949. Still, disgraced, he committed suicide in 1968.
Even though the distress calls were received by three separate stations, all three failed to act on them properly. Redundancy as a strategy for maintaining communications reliability is not always adequate to the task. Photo courtesy U.S. Department of the Navy, U.S. Navy Naval History and Heritage Command.
When the closed-loop response time between you and a distant correspondent is a half-day or more, communication can feel like a frustrating hindrance to progress. But anticipating the little problems that arise in complex conversations can make discussions far more productive. In the long-loop environment, preventing problems in conversations takes a lot less effort than fixing them.
What must be anticipated is sometimes far from obvious. Here are some examples.
- Anticipate anxiety about message delivery
- Both recipients and senders can become anxious about delivery, especially when the messages travel in unreliable media such as the Internet. Moreover, in crisis environments, important messages can go unnoticed in the crush of other traffic.
- Establish protocols about acknowledging message arrival. Protocol tiers that depend on the level of urgency of the communication environment are especially helpful.
- Anticipate misunderstanding
- Long-loop conversations often cross cultural or linguistic boundaries, which enhances the risk of misunderstandings. But even within one culture and language, the long-loop environment limits not only the exchanges that focus on the immediate task, but also those intended to clarify ambiguity or complexity in the conversation itself.
- Assume that misunderstandings will occur. Be generous with detailed examples of the points made in your conversations. Avoid the little tactics we all use from time to time to conceal our own limited knowledge or understanding.
- When the message is urgent, go slow
- The probability When the conversation
is urgent, the only way
to communicate fast
is slowlyof misunderstanding escalates with the urgency of the conversation, because people tend to take less care in their communications. - When the conversation is urgent, the only way to communicate fast is slowly.
- Anticipate politics
- Organizational politics influences the ongoing work of most collaborations. Even though two organizations might be contractually bound to collaborate, opinions about the wisdom of the choice to collaborate can vary. Moreover, people often have conflicting commitments, and priorities do tend to change with time.
- Consider political phenomena when formulating risk plans. Politics can be destructive or constructive, but even when constructive, there can be costs, some of which might fall unevenly on different organizational efforts. The effects of organizational politics on your own effort will be less harmful if you remain alert to this possibility. Keep a clear head, free of anger and frustration, when political interference does occur.
Finally, and paradoxically, anticipate the unexpected mishap. Even though we can't know what specific unexpected mishap might occur, we can be fairly certain that some unexpected mishap will occur. When significant unexpected events happen, we usually feel that they happen at the worst time. In reality, significant unexpected mishaps do happen at all times, but we notice them only when resources are inadequate to address them. In the long-loop environment, communication, the one resource that's most important for dealing with unexpected mishaps, is almost always inadequate. 
First issue in this series 
Top 
Next Issue
Is your organization a participant in one or more global teams? Are you the owner/sponsor of a global team? Are you managing a global team? Is everything going well, or at least as well as any project goes? Probably not. Many of the troubles people encounter are traceable to the obstacles global teams face when building working professional relationships from afar. Read 303 Tips for Virtual and Global Teams to learn how to make your global and distributed teams sing. Order Now!
For more about the sinking of the Indianapolis see Charles Maier, "For the Good of the Navy," in Insight on the News, June 5, 2000.
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 Effective Communication at Work:
Mastering Q and A- The question-and-answer exchanges that occur during or after presentations rarely add much to the overall
effort. But how you deal with questions can be a decisive factor in how your audience evaluates you
and your message.
Presenting to Persuade- Successful, persuasive presentations involve a whole lot more than PowerPoint skills. What does it take
to present persuasively, with power?
Nasty Questions: II- In meetings, telemeetings, and email we sometimes ask questions that aren't intended to elicit information.
Rather, they're indirect attacks intended to advance the questioner's political agenda. Here's part
two of a catalog of some favorite tactics.
The Risks of Rehearsals- Rehearsing a conversation can be constructive. But when we're anxious about it, we can imagine how it
would unfold in ways that bias our perceptions. We risk deluding ourselves about possible outcomes,
and we might even experience stress unnecessarily.
Straw Man Variants- The Straw Man fallacy is a famous rhetorical fallacy. Using it distorts debate and can lead groups to
reach faulty conclusions. It's readily recognized, but it has some variants that are more difficult
to spot. When unnoticed, trouble looms.
See also Effective Communication at Work and Effective Communication at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming 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.
And on April 9: Defining Workplace Bullying- When we set out to control the incidence of workplace bullying, problem number one is defining bullying behavior. We know much more about bullying in children than we do about adult bullying, and more about adult bullying than we know about workplace bullying. Available here and by RSS on April 9.
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
My blog, Technical Debt for Policymakers, offers
resources, insights, and conversations of interest to policymakers who are concerned with managing
technical debt within their organizations. Get the millstone of technical debt off the neck of your
organization!
Bad boss, long commute, troubling ethical questions, hateful colleague? Learn what we can do when we
love the work but not the job.Learn how to make your virtual global team sing.Are you managing a change effort that faces rampant cynicism, passive non-cooperation, or
maybe even outright revolt?Learn how to make meetings more productive — and more rare.