Within organizations there are always people who are very quick to demand better communication. When you hear them make this statement, you might understandably believe that they wanted more information out on the table for discussion. One could take this to mean that their intent was to come to a group concensus.  And, for some people this is the case.

But for others, the word “communication” is a kind of code word. It means something like this- “YOU need to disclose this information so I can make the call on what is going to happen”. It is about control, and in most organizations much of the day to day conflict that arises has to do with control over some kind of resource. It is the root cause of much bad behaviour by grownup persons who should know better. When you think about it, power is about the the ability to allocate resources.

Many people who bark about communication are vocal about receiving it, but are poor at reciprocating.  That is, they are an information black hole, or a kind of WOM-  Write Only Memory. Such folks are great at demanding information, but somehow can’t be as diligent about it themselves.

If you have a leadership role where these kind of conflicts are occuring, the best thing to do is to bring conflicting parties together and mediate or facilitate the communication between them.  If you are not in a leadershop role, the best thing to do is to be guilty of generosity with information.  Send information by email and save copies of the correspondence for CYA.