Further Resources

Why Your Company's Communication Strategy is Confusing

Three weeks ago, I watched a CEO spend forty-five minutes explaining a "simple" policy change to his leadership team. By the end, nobody knew if they were supposed to report quarterly or monthly, whether the policy applied to contractors, or even when it bloody well started. The poor bloke had created a communication disaster whilst trying to communicate clearly.

That's when it hit me: most companies aren't failing at communication because they don't communicate enough. They're failing because their communication strategy is a dogs breakfast of mixed messages, unclear channels, and enough corporate jargon to choke a wombat.

The Myth of Over-Communication

Here's something that'll ruffle some feathers: the idea that you can't over-communicate is complete rubbish. You absolutely can, and most companies do it daily.

I've worked with organisations that send seventeen different types of updates about the same project. Email updates, Slack notifications, team meetings, department briefings, executive summaries, and project dashboards all saying essentially the same thing in slightly different ways. Meanwhile, the actual decision-makers are drowning in noise and missing the critical stuff.

The real problem isn't under-communication or over-communication. It's unfocused communication.

Why Australian Workplaces Get This Wrong

In my fifteen years consulting across Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane offices, I've noticed we Aussies have a particular way of making communication unnecessarily complex. We'll spend ages being diplomatic and "considering all perspectives" when what people actually need is someone to make a clear decision and stick to it.

Take performance reviews. I've seen companies create elaborate 360-degree feedback systems with peer input, manager assessments, self-evaluations, and development planning sessions. Meanwhile, employees are sitting there thinking, "Just tell me if I'm doing a good job or not."

Sometimes our desire to be inclusive and consultative creates the exact opposite of clarity.

The Channel Chaos Problem

Here's where most communication strategies completely fall apart: channel proliferation without purpose.

Your average office worker today needs to monitor email, Teams or Slack, maybe WhatsApp groups for urgent stuff, plus attend face-to-face meetings, check company intranets, read newsletters, and somehow keep track of project management platforms. Each channel has different expectations for response times, formality levels, and urgency.

I worked with a manufacturing company in Adelaide where urgent safety updates were coming through email whilst birthday announcements got broadcast over the PA system. Backwards priorities, completely backwards.

The solution isn't fewer channels – sometimes you need multiple touchpoints. The solution is intentional communication training that teaches people which channel serves which purpose and why.

The Jargon Trap (And Why Everyone Falls Into It)

Corporate speak isn't just annoying – it's actively harmful to understanding. When you say "we need to circle back and touch base about optimising our deliverables," you've used twenty-three syllables to say "let's meet about the project."

But here's the thing I learned the hard way: jargon often develops because people are afraid of being too direct. In Australian culture, we've got this weird thing where being straightforward can seem rude, so we wrap everything in unnecessary politeness and corporate fluff.

I used to do this myself. I'd write emails saying "I wanted to reach out and see if we might be able to explore the possibility of potentially scheduling a brief conversation." Absolute word salad. Now I write: "Can we talk Tuesday at 2pm?" Response rates went up, confusion went down.

The Meeting Multiplication Disaster

Every communication strategy document I've ever seen mentions "regular check-ins" and "status updates." What they create is meeting madness.

I've tracked this with clients: the average manager spends 67% of their week in meetings about work instead of actually doing work. And most of those meetings exist because the communication strategy demands them, not because anyone particularly wants them.

Here's a radical thought: what if instead of weekly team meetings, you had monthly ones that actually mattered? What if instead of daily stand-ups, you had a shared document that people updated when they had something worth sharing?

Some companies have tried "no meeting Wednesdays" or "async Fridays." The smart ones realise this isn't about scheduling – it's about questioning whether half these meetings needed to exist in the first place.

Cultural Communication Gaps

Working across different Australian cities, you notice regional communication preferences pretty quickly. Sydney offices tend toward faster, more direct exchanges. Melbourne companies often prefer more structured, planned communications. Brisbane workplaces typically have a more relaxed, conversational style.

But most company communication strategies are designed as if everyone communicates the same way. They're not accounting for generational differences either. Your 25-year-old graphic designer and your 55-year-old operations manager probably prefer completely different communication styles, frequencies, and formalities.

I once worked with a tech startup where the founder (typical Silicon Valley wannabe) insisted on daily video check-ins for "connection and alignment." Half his team found it energising; the other half found it exhausting and intrusive. Rather than force everyone into the same mould, they created options: video calls for the extroverts, written updates for the introverts, and flexibility for everyone else.

The Feedback Loop Failure

Most communication strategies are designed to push information down from leadership to staff. They're terrible at creating genuine feedback loops back up.

Employee surveys once a year aren't feedback loops. They're archaeological digs into ancient grievances. By the time you're reading about problems from six months ago, you've missed fifteen opportunities to actually address them.

The companies getting this right have informal feedback happening constantly. Not through formal systems or structured communication processes, but through genuine relationships where people feel safe saying "this isn't working" without worrying about career consequences.

Technology: The Solution That Created New Problems

Every communication platform promises to solve your problems. Slack will make collaboration seamless! Teams will integrate everything! Project management tools will create transparency!

Reality check: I've seen companies with eight different communication platforms trying to solve problems that were fundamentally about culture, not technology.

The problem isn't usually the tools. It's that people implement new communication technology without changing the underlying habits and expectations. You end up with high-tech versions of the same communication dysfunctions you had before.

Microsoft Teams is brilliant when your team understands channel etiquette, notification management, and purposeful messaging. It's chaos when people treat it like email with more features.

What Actually Works: The Practical Stuff

After watching dozens of companies struggle with this, here's what separates the successful communication strategies from the disasters:

Clear decision-making authority. Everyone knows who makes what decisions and how those decisions get communicated. No committee-based wishy-washy "we'll consider all input" nonsense.

Default to transparency with specific exceptions. Instead of deciding what to share, decide what NOT to share. Most information should be accessible to anyone who needs it.

Response time expectations that make sense. Email within 24 hours, Slack within a few hours, phone calls for genuine urgency. Stop treating everything like it's urgent when it's not.

Regular communication audits. Every six months, ask people what communication they find valuable and what they'd happily never receive again. Then actually stop sending the useless stuff.

The Australian Context

There's something uniquely Australian about our communication challenges. We value egalitarianism, which makes hierarchy-based communication feel awkward. We're generally pretty direct, but we also don't want to seem aggressive. We like efficiency, but we also value relationships.

Most imported communication strategies don't account for these cultural nuances. They're designed for American corporate cultures or European formality levels that just don't translate to Australian workplaces.

The best Australian companies I've worked with embrace these contradictions rather than fighting them. They create communication cultures that are simultaneously direct and respectful, efficient and relationship-focused.

Where Most Companies Go Wrong

The biggest mistake I see is treating communication strategy like a technical problem when it's actually a cultural one. You can't engineer your way out of poor communication habits, unclear authority structures, or lack of trust between management and staff.

Communication strategies fail when they focus on systems instead of relationships, processes instead of purposes, and compliance instead of connection.

The Reality Check

Look, perfect communication doesn't exist. Even the best companies have miscommunications, unclear messages, and the occasional disaster where important information doesn't reach the right people at the right time.

The goal isn't perfection. It's creating communication cultures where problems get identified and fixed quickly, where people feel heard and informed, and where the organisation can actually function without drowning in noise.

Your communication strategy is probably more confusing than you think it is. But that's fixable, as long as you're willing to prioritise clarity over complexity and purpose over process.

Because at the end of the day, communication isn't about having sophisticated systems. It's about actual humans understanding what they need to know to do their jobs well. Everything else is just noise.

Looking to improve your workplace communication? Check out professional development opportunities or explore communication skills training courses designed for Australian professionals.