5 Communication Errors That Kill Performance—and How to Fix Them | Episode 364 | Scott McCarthy

Scott McCarthy [00:00:01]:
Communication is the thing as human beings we do the most. However, it is always the number one complaint I hear about teams and organizations. We just don’t communicate enough. There is no communication amongst the team, etc. Well, today we’re going to break down the 5 most common communication errors and how to fix them. Are you ready for this? All right, let’s do it.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:43]:
Welcome one, welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the three domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian Army officer with world-class guests to bring you the most complete podcast on leadership going. And for more, feel free to check out our website at movingforwardleadership.com. And with that, let’s get to the show.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:31]:
Yes, welcome one, welcome all. It is your Chief Leadership Officer, Scott McCarthy. It’s so good to have you here back behind the microphone again, um, after a little bit of a break there due to travel and holiday schedule and all those good things. And just if you’ve just recently joined us, just know, you know, I do this podcast out of my love and passion for the topic while trying to juggle many of life’s priorities, such as family life and working a full-time job as a senior Canadian Army officer. So nonetheless, back here and looking to, you know, talk to you more. And today we’re going to be talking about communication, communication breakdown, which is, you know, probably one of the topics we talk about the most, ironically, because everyone says there’s no communication here with the team. I’m sure you’ve heard that in your circles, and, you know, I’ve heard it in mine too. Now, before we dive into today’s content, I do want to remind you My book, You Don’t Know Shit About Leadership and Neither Do I, is live now.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:47]:
Um, it is out there. You can grab it on Amazon, you can grab it on Kindle, you can grab it on Google Play Books and iBooks and basically every platform you can imagine. And if you want a direct link to check it out It’s leaddontbossbook.com, and there it’s the book’s website. You can check it all out and why I wrote the book and what you’re going to find inside of it, and of course where you can grab your own copy. Again, that’s leaddontbossbook.com, and check it out. Grab your copy today because lots of people, so many good comments, uh, even people at my work yesterday, one of the guys walked by me and made a, you know, kind of like a diversion to come over, see me, and slap me on the back and say, hey, this is great, loving what I’m reading so far. So again, check it out, grab your own copy, leaddontbossbook.com, and you know, enjoy, absolutely enjoy. All right, so let’s dive into the topic au jour, shall we, in communication and communication breakdowns.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:05]:
And, you know, I’ve highlighted 5 key ones here for you, and no doubt you will notice some of these right away. I am certain that if you could say your team or your organization has communication issues, you’ll notice some of these right away. And the one I find which is super common It’s one-way communication and no feedback loops. And we see it all the time. You know, top-level managers, leaders, just pushing information down, pushing requirements, pushing updates, what have you. But there’s no mechanism for basically information to flow upwards. Okay, so what happens is, is, you know, these leaders, they think they’re doing the right thing. You know, I’m going to push all this information down, down, down, give as much direction as I can.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:09]:
It’s all in good, you know, for good reasons, but they don’t enable that, you know, other information to come up. And then what happens is there becomes a disconnect because you know, the floor per se, and the management team. Frontline people, they end up feeling unheard because they’re not being heard, uh, and then there’s this growing disconnect because, you know, what management believes to be reality is most likely not reality because they’re not hearing what the actual reality is. So what are some of the impacts from this issue. You know, it basically takes longer, as I’d mentioned, for actual problems to, one, be identified, two, have solutions, uh, developed for them, and three, to be implemented. So you basically get slower course correction. You have an increase in blind spots because as a leader, you’re not fully aware of everything that you ought to be aware of. And then finally, basically who you’re serving, pain points for them ultimately get ignored because you’re unaware of them.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:29]:
Again, this is tied to the blind spots. All right, so how do we fix this? How do we fix this one-way communication issue? And it’s simple. It’s install bidirectional loops, right? You know, make sure you establish again that culture of psychological safety where people feel heard, feel enabled, sorry, to bring information forward. Don’t shoot the messenger, shoot the problem. Okay. Install, you know, another thing would be maybe a weekly pulse check, for example, um, where you ask 3 questions. All right, you know, what’s one thing I’m missing? What’s one thing which we could be doing better? And what’s one thing we’re doing great right now? And that enables people to, um, basically reflect and bring up information that you may be unaware of. Okay, so think about how you might implement that.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:46]:
Another tactic would be use the Frontline First rule. You know, start briefings and insights from their perspective before giving yours. May work for you, may not. And then basically the final thing which you ought to go after is normalizing, you know, the question of what are we not seeing. And again, that goes back to establishing psychological safety and enabling people to bring their ideas, their thoughts up. And this is what you’re just trying to do. You’re just trying to create the forum to enable people to bring these issues forward in a safe manner. That’s it.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:36]:
That’s all. Okay. So let’s move on to number 2, shall we? All right. So the second communication error, which we’re going to hit on today is encoding versus decoding. So basically, you know, you’re talking. They’re not understanding or hearing. And you’re going to notice this because what you’re saying is, you know, clear in your head. You can see it.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:07]:
Why can’t they? Okay, and the problem with that is the cause of it is, is that you’re communicating in the style that works for you, not necessarily your audience. So you need to rework how you actually communicate that across, and you can just do that by a quick check. All right, intent, message, reception. Okay, intent: what outcome do I need? Message: what will they actually hear? And then reception, how will I verify understanding? If you have key messages that you want to make sure are well passed, use that framework: intent, message, reception. So, you know, what outcome do I need? What is it that I’m trying to get them to understand? The message part is how are they actually going to hear it? What will they hear? And a lot of this one, from your audience perspective, is going to be driven by fear, especially if we’re talking about change management. Again, is it going to be driven by fear? You know, for example, if you’re running a big modernization project, you know, like, this is going to save us so many hours, the audience is message, what they’re actually going to hear in that is, you know, we’re going to be able to cut positions and therefore I’m going to likely lose my job. That’s what they’re going to hear. But your intent actually isn’t going to be like, oh, we’re going to cut people, but no, we’re going to actually be able to expand operations and grow bigger because We’ll be able to do more with the same amount of people we have.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:09]:
And then there’ll be bonuses and pay raises and all this other stuff. In your mind, it’s just so much great things, but to them, they’re just hearing, you know, the likelihood of them losing their job. So that’s where you want to make sure you think of things from their perspective. And then how do you verify? The mirroring technique is super good in small groups, especially one-to-one. There you go. All right, you know what, can you explain what I just said in your own words to make sure I— again, place it in terms of you making sure that you’ve fully explained it, not that they understood it. Because if you put it in terms of them understanding it, What you’re doing is basically making them feel like they’re the problem, vice versa, your communication. So again, use the mirroring method, like, hey, in your own words, just to make sure that I properly explain this and I didn’t leave anything out, can you explain, you know, what we’ve talked about? And get them to do it, okay, in your own words.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:26]:
So that is the encoding decoding. I talk a bit about this in my book under the communication when we talk about communication loops and how to ensure that we have a full communication loop. So, you know, this is one of the key ones. I find this is one, especially when we’re talking, um, either big things like the modernization project that I talked about Or actually the opposite of small one-to-ones where I’m saying one thing and the other person’s hearing another thing and there’s just huge gap between us and both of us don’t realize it’s there and we end up frustrated. So, you know, keep an eye on that. Use the mirroring technique in smaller groups. Larger groups, you can use that by, you know, following up Okay, you can do follow-up surveys, you can do follow-up smaller, you know, talks with smaller groups to make sure that you are— your message is clear. But never forget: intent, message, reception.

Scott McCarthy [00:13:34]:
All right, let’s move on to number 3, shall we? Number 3 is a super common one. And people mistake it. They don’t see it as a communication error, but actually is, and that is activity over clarity. So you see this through, you know, basically busy teams, priorities, everything is a priority. And you know, you’re missing handoffs, you’re missing projects, deadlines, et cetera. And the root cause of this is vague direction and no, uh, there’s no who does what by when. Okay. And ultimately this is one of those times when what you see in teams is, oh, everything’s a priority.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:28]:
Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if everything is a priority, that means nothing is a priority. Prioritization is literally saying one thing is more important than another. We need to do this first because that’s the most important thing. The other thing, we’ll get to it when we get to it after the thing that’s the priority is actually done. And so many leaders out there have a hard time accepting that. I don’t know if it’s because we’ve grown up in the area where everyone is equal, which is super right, like Absolutely. Um, everyone gets their fair share. Love it.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:04]:
But when it comes to task management and running teams and things that you need to do, there are no equals. There are priorities. That’s it. That’s all. So let’s get on with it. Okay. We’re not helping anybody by not assigning priorities. And how are you going to notice this? You’re going to notice this through low morale with the team because they’re just being pulled in so many directions.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:31]:
Initiatives are going to stall because again, no one knows what to work on. They’re constantly chasing tail. And then, you know, there’s cross-functional friction between multiple teams because one team is going one direction, the other team is going another, another, and they rely on each other to get things done. So how do we fix this? We fix this by the 3×3 brief. Okay. 3×3. So it’s purpose, priorities, and parameters. You want to explain for purpose why this matters now.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:05]:
Why is this, whatever it is, important? Priorities, you’re going to set the top 3 for the week, for the quarter, for the project, what have you. And parameters, what’s in, what’s out, what are you doing, what are you not doing. This is the key. Because everyone expects to do everything, which is impossible. And then who holds decision rights? Who can make decisions on certain things? And I’ve talked about this at length, about delegation, and this is where delegation comes in, where you give the authority for people to make decisions and you explain who has decision rights on certain things and when it has to come up to your level. All right, and go with that 3×3. Again, the purpose, the top 3 priorities, and the parameters within them. And what you’re going to find is, is that people will act more directly now because they know exactly what they’re going after.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:16]:
And a quick check You know, tying back to our previous, you know, encoding decoding issue is before you leave, you know, these meetings where you sign these things, you know, get people to understand. Again, this is gonna be a form of mirroring, like, hey, all right guys, who owns what here? What’s the deliverable and when do we need it? And it’s just making sure everyone’s on the same page. So many people out there just take this as being authoritative or or super directive, but the reality is you’re just looking to make sure we’re all on the same page. So again, use your 3×3 brief model. Make sure priorities are established. Make sure people understand why those things are priority and ensure people know what you’re doing and what you’re not doing and who has decision-making authority. And what you’re going to see is your team just simply flourish. All right, error number 4, we’re getting there, folks.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:17]:
2 to go. Number 4, we replace meetings for leadership. So I’m certain you’ve experienced this long drawn-ass meetings out that simply could have been an email, that nothing really gets solved, and ultimately people feel like they’ve wasted their time. Don’t even try to tell me you’ve never experienced that because I would call you out and say you’re lying. We’ve all experienced that and we’ve all been guilty of it, myself included. I’ve done this in the past. Okay. And ultimately this becomes, you know, this becomes, it’s a cause of, um, you know, ultimately weak listening, low vulnerability.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:06]:
And, you know, just enabling debates and stuff. So what happens is decisions slow down, people get defensive, and people basically align to make— showing that they’re being, you know, doing things. But the reality is, is we’re just not aligned as a team together. So what you want to do is make sure you practice deep listening techniques, right? Listen for to understand, reflect back before responding. Keep, you know, being vulnerable, like, I might be wrong. Let’s poke some holes in this. Okay, kill either-or arguments. You know, ask, okay, well, what are we missing here? If there’s one thing or the other thing, go, well, what are we missing? And ultimately what you’re trying to do is make sure that you enter a meeting with purpose and you exit it with decisions and direction.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:04]:
If you’re simply there talking to talk, that doesn’t achieve that whatsoever. I’ve sat in I don’t know how many of these where people just talk to talk. That’s it. And in the end, there’s no direction, no decisions made. We’ve all talked, we all feel better, but we can’t answer the question. What are we doing about it? Just can’t. And ultimately, those things drive me nuts, and they drive your team nuts too. So let’s avoid that.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:40]:
You know, as a leader, you should only, you know, you want to look at the 80/20 talk ratio for you. So you should be talking less and your team talking more. And that’s where you have to develop skills such as asking those open-ended questions. All right, and as your team talks, again, use the mirroring technique to replay back to make sure you understand. And you can literally say, let me replay back what I heard. Did I get it right? What did I miss? And in between those things, you add in what you heard. Okay, and what that’s going to enable is meetings to get more direct, get better outcomes, be more focused. And ultimately, when you achieve those things, duration goes down.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:38]:
Who doesn’t love less meetings? Like, let’s be honest. I’m not saying meetings aren’t important. Super important. Absolutely got to have them. But if we can shrink the duration down, By making them focused, now we’re giving time back to people. And when people have more time to achieve things, they feel so empowered. All right, so keep that in mind. And the final error, but of course, you know, there’s so many more up there.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:06]:
I just picked 5 today. You can go and say, oh, there’s this one and that one. And yeah, I would totally agree with you, but these are my 5. And the fifth one today is the cascade failure. So basically misalignment at the top with mixed messaging. So each level, you’re going to notice this because each level is going to be saying something slightly different. Cross-functional teams are going to be saying different things. And ultimately the root cause of this is that leadership team itself is not aligned and there’s no consistent cascade plan, i.e., how is the messaging going to filter down? So you as a leader, you and your peers need to make sure that you’re on the same page.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:50]:
You need to make sure that you’re moving in the same direction. So how do we fix that? We align the leadership narrative. We talk about the why. We talk about the priorities. We talk about the non-negotiables. And what that does is it removes those individual biases that comes out of your individual lanes or functions, per se. We can— if you are the top leader, then you can have or build a simple cascade kit, i.e., a kit that you give to your supported leaders so that they make sure they pass on same message that you want everyone to pass on. And then there could be a one-pager talking points in plain language.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:36]:
You could have FAQs for predictable pushback. You could have visual priorities, visuals of things you’re deciding you’re not doing, okay, to make sure everyone is literally on the same page here. Okay, ultimately what you could say is something to the effect of, here’s what’s changing, why now, what stays the same, and how we’re going to measure it. So, and then you can spot check. You as a senior leader, you’re out on the floor, you’re working, you know, you see your team and time has passed, enough time has passed, you can spot check. Okay, what are you working on? What’s our priority right now? Why? And you can literally ask those questions to see how things are filtering down, and that will give you the kind of litmus test of how things are being communicated with your teams. All right folks, that’s the top 5. Again, a quick recap of them.

Scott McCarthy [00:24:38]:
You know, loops, you know, make sure you have those communication loops. Clarity beats activity, you know, the 3×3 brief. Verify, you know, making sure you’re encoding and decoding you know, synced so that people are actually understanding or actually hearing what the message that you want to hear. Okay, uh, lead with listening and real candor, align at the top, cascade with discipline. All right, so those are communication errors that are super common. I’d love to know what ones I’ve missed, so if you have some that you missed, feel free to reach out to me. And then finally Again, as always, you know, reminder, the book is out there, Amazon, soon hopefully on, you know, things like Barnes Noble, Indigo, and stuff like that. More to follow there as we work towards getting that on bookshelves, bookstore shelves, I should say.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:40]:
But nonetheless, you can grab your copy today at leaddontbossbook.com. And I would love to hear what you have to say about it. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, lead, don’t boss, and take care now.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:56]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:04]:
But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast?

Scott McCarthy [00:26:06]:
And no, that’s not leaving a rating and review. It’s simply helping a friend, and that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and help them elevate their performance level, whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me, help a friend, win-win all around. And hey, you look like a great friend at the same time. So just hit that little share button on your app and then Feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it. Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:57]:
So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via movingforwardleadership.com/subscribe. Subscribe. Until next time, lead, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.