Telling someone to "communicate better" doesn't work because it's too vague. Employees need specifics: how often, what level of detail, which conversations went wrong. Without concrete examples, they can't change anything.
Alright, if you're a leader, pay attention to this for a second because this is a common problem. Giving somebody feedback that sounds like this is useless. Hey, you know, I really need you to communicate better. That is the worst type of feedback that any of us can give as leaders. And I know this because I've given the same type of feedback. I've seen others give this type of feedback and I've seen it in annual or quarterly reviews. Now the question is, why is that the worst possible feedback? Feedback we can give to somebody because it's ambiguous. There's no clarity on what that means. So when I say the term, I want you to communicate better, what does that mean? Does that mean I need you to communicate 3 times a week? Does that mean when you do communicate, I need more detail? And here's what the detail actually looks like. What does it mean? So many leaders, and I've been in this situation myself so many times and didn't realize it, we, we what we think is great feedback, but all it does is create more question. It creates more ambiguity, and then we get upset at the other person when they're not communicating the way we want them to. In essence, we're saying behave a certain way, but we're not giving them that certain way. If you're going to give feedback, and you should, be clear, be explicit on exactly what that means so they can try to Get it right.
