Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work

5Communication and Action

All business problems are communications problems. In my years working as a business consultant and educational psychologist, I have seen conflicts of all kinds play out between internal units, between supervisor and subordinate, between customer and supplier, between alliance partners, and between business entities and regulators. As varied as they may be, they all have one factor in common: they started as communication issues.

Courses in effective communications all make attempts at improving this apparently difficult thing to do—to communicate. Each of us has probably heard the drill: listen first, speak second; paraphrase before adding your own thoughts; don’t interrupt. And precious little of this makes any apparent ...