This week I've been thinking about what people are really asking for when they ask for more communication.
Every engagement survey says some version of the same thing. We want more transparency. More communication. More trust. We want to feel engaged. Leaders read those results and do the reasonable thing — they add. Another all-hands. A monthly update. A new channel. More words, sent more often, through more places.
And six months later, the survey says the same things.
Because "more communication" was never the actual request. It was the most acceptable way to say something harder. When people ask for transparency, most of the time they aren't asking for more information. They're asking to be oriented.
Listen to what's underneath.
Where are we, really? What's happening, and why? What's expected of me now? How does what's happening affect me — my work, my role, my place here?
Those aren't communication questions. They're orientation questions. And you can flood someone with updates and leave every one of them unanswered.
It's the same trap a leadership team falls into, just closer to the ground. We mistake the volume of information for clarity about where we stand. A person can read every email, attend every town hall, and still walk back to their desk with no idea where they actually are in the story — or whether they're still in it.
Because notice what that last question is really asking. How does this affect me? Underneath the operational version of it is a quieter, more human one: Do I still have a place here? Does anyone see me in this? When the ground is moving, people aren't only trying to understand the change. They're trying to learn whether they'll be carried through it or left behind by it. "More communication" is a safe way to ask something that doesn't feel safe to say out loud.
Which means the answer was never going to be more information. You can't resolve an existential question with a status update. What orients a person isn't the volume of what they're told — it's whether someone took the time to help them locate themselves in it.
Here's where we are. Here's why. Here's what it means for you, specifically. Here's what I'll need from you, and here's what you can count on from me.
Here's what that looks like in practice, and it's smaller than most leaders expect. The next time your team is unsettled, resist the urge to schedule another update. Instead, sit with one person and answer four questions plainly:
Where we are
Why
What it means for them specifically, and
What you need from them next
Not the polished version — the honest one. You'll notice something: it takes less time than the all-hands, and it does what the all-hands never could. Orientation doesn't scale the way broadcasting does.
It happens one person at a time, which is exactly why it works.