The one complaint—the one problem—that nearly every company puts at (or very near) the top of its list of challenges is communication. George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish playwright, sets us straight on this when he said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

 What happens when information is not available when and as you need it? What happens when you discover (despite your fervent hopes and efforts to the contrary) that most of the information that is shared is unreliable. incomplete, late, or just plain wrong? What happens to you? What happens to us on the outside? What happens on the inside? What happens to a workforce that is faced with this as the rule, not the exception?

What happens is people get angry and combative—or numb and indifferent. We do! Instead of engaging in our work and developing ways to make a contribution, we do just the opposite: We disassociate from our company; we even disown it.

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