always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

B

There is a class of management….equivalent, say, to 2nd and 1st lieutenants. They have no real management authority. They often cannot even recommend. They are almost always promoted from the ranks. If not, that is their genealogy. They receive no management training… Or, if they do, it has little or nothing to do with their jobs. I say this is so for most managers…and so I call this class of management ‘most-management’.

Most-management has a distinct requirement to communicate. All management has that requirement (and all workers, too).

There are accepted tokens of communication that should occur in the job. They often don’t occur (or are completely implicit). This is disastrous. But let’s look at the accepted tokens:

Management makes statements of direction. They establish purpose and objectives.

Management makes requests of most-management and makes requests of workers. Some requests can be refused – although never cleanly. They can be refused for reasons. Or the response can be negotiated. Most requests have the force of orders.

Workers make requests of most-management. These are more arbitrarily refuse-able and always negotiable. They range in form from wishes to job-on-the-line demands.

Commitments are made in both directions (usually by accepting the requests/orders).

Most-managers must master all of these tokens of communication. But I say that another level of communication must be broached.

Often matters of communication that seem irrelevant to the job become extremely relevant to the relationship and, therefore, to future work. Most-management knows neither how to listen to such communication or to deliver such communication.

Certainly, in dealing with one’s own manager, most-managers have no idea how to deliver ‘nasty’ communications. Sometimes these communications have to do with what works and what doesn’t work… They are of the form: Why couldn’t we.. or why don’t you do it this way?... The key to success in those communications is to make a clear distinction between the thing that’s not working and the person doing that thing. Success occurs when you are clearly supporting the person even while you are attacking the position or the action.

It is always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

Bu

e accepted tokens of communication that should occur in the job. They often don’t occur (or are completely implicit). This is disastrous. But let’s look at the accepted tokens:

Management makes statements of direction. They establish purpose and objectives.

Management makes requests of most-management and makes requests of workers. Some requests can be refused – although never cleanly. They can be refused for reasons. Or the response can be negotiated. Most requests have the force of orders.

Workers make requests of most-management. These are more arbitrarily refuse-able and always negotiable. They range in form from wishes to job-on-the-line demands.

Commitments are made in both directions (usually by accepting the requests/orders).

Most-managers must master all of these tokens of communication. But I say that another level of communication must be broached.

Often matters of communication that seem irrelevant to the job become extremely relevant to the relationship and, therefore, to future work. Most-management knows neither how to listen to such communication or to deliver such communication.

Certainly, in dealing with one’s own manager, most-managers have no idea how to deliver ‘nasty’ communications. Sometimes these communications have to do with what works and what doesn’t work… They are of the form: Why couldn’t we.. or why don’t you do it this way?... The key to success in those communications is to make a clear distinction between the thing that’s not working and the person doing that thing. Success occurs when you are clearly supporting the person even while you are attacking the position or the action.

It is always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

B

e are more arbitrarily refuse-able and always negotiable. They range in form from wishes to job-on-the-line demands.

Commitments are made in both directions (usually by accepting the requests/orders).

Most-managers must master all of these tokens of communication. But I say that another level of communication must be broached.

Often matters of communication that seem irrelevant to the job become extremely relevant to the relationship and, therefore, to future work. Most-management knows neither how to listen to such communication or to deliver such communication.

Certainly, in dealing with one’s own manager, most-managers have no idea how to deliver ‘nasty’ communications. Sometimes these communications have to do with what works and what doesn’t work… They are of the form: Why couldn’t we.. or why don’t you do it this way?... The key to success in those communications is to make a clear distinction between the thing that’s not working and the person doing that thing. Success occurs when you are clearly supporting the person even while you are attacking the position or the action.

It is always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

B

such communication.

Certainly, in dealing with one’s own manager, most-managers have no idea how to deliver ‘nasty’ communications. Sometimes these communications have to do with what works and what doesn’t work… They are of the form: Why couldn’t we.. or why don’t you do it this way?... The key to success in those communications is to make a clear distinction between the thing that’s not working and the person doing that thing. Success occurs when you are clearly supporting the person even while you are attacking the position or the action.

It is always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

B

always risky to broach these communications. There is always a risk that they will backfire. They’re personal…They don’t necessarily have anything to do with the job. It seems to risk the relationship.

To me it’s very simple. There are essentially three variations. Don’t Communicate. Communicate and it achieves the results. Communicate and screw up.

So when you communicate, there’s a clear risk. It may work. It may not work. In practice, most-managers side with the negative probability. They won’t chance it…They don’t communicate it.

But what we don’t recognize is this: Lack of communications ALWAYS results in a lack of satisfaction. The circumstances never clear up by themselves; they always get worse

Communication that works is powerful. It opens doors in the future. A working partnership can be achieved even when the specific issue doesn’t end up the way you want.

Communication that doesn’t work results in one of the people leaving, perhaps sooner than you want…That’s the truth of it.

But never kid yourself as to the trade-off. Communication may precipitate leaving. Lack of communication always destroys job satisfaction.