One of my core beliefs is that success, both individually and as a group, begins and ends with communication. Communication is more than just sending emails. It is fundamentally about understanding. If I tell someone to “get the paperwork completed,” I may have told them clearly to do something but it is not a guarantee that I will get what I want. Do they know which paperwork needs to be done? Is there a particular reason I am giving the direction now? Is there some specific item that needs to be covered as part of the completion? Who does it go to next?
One of my rules for communication is that if an email chain reaches 3 back and forth responses without resolution, a phone call is now required. Confusion is the enemy of communication. If at some point, one party of the conversation is not understanding the other, the value of additional words is negative until the confusion is cleared up. The easiest way to clear up confusion is through direct, human-to-human conversation.
Another of my rules is never to have difficult, tense conversations in writing. This includes the obvious, but it also includes any conversation with high odds of confusion, disagreement, or misunderstanding. People have an interesting relationship with written communication versus verbal communication. Written communications tend to lead to either being ignored or overanalyzed. It is not the start of a conversation, it is viewed as the end. But verbal communication is often viewed as relationship based. Taking the time to get together creates a bond of sorts, even if it may be light and temporal.
Communication as a superpower comes down to understanding how to most quickly and effectively share and receive information with a minimum amount of difficulty. It is not a natural skill for most, it is something that must be taught, practiced, and implemented with intention. Success is not something that can be easily measured in a KPI, but it is something that impacts almost every other measurable thing that an individual or team does. In our current world, no one can be successful on their own. All of us require others to help us in some way. Communication is the connection between all relationships.