Three months ago I sat in a meeting with seven talented executives whom I’ve worked with on and off for five years. For the past two, there have been major undercurrents of friction between them during executive meetings. After attending a few of these, I noticed people were on their best “fake behavior” rather than having honest conversations about core problems such as miscommunication between departments, lack of accountability, and clear goals with precise timelines.

Even worse was the destructive finger-pointing that was happening between these capable people. The tension was high and had to be reduced, so I poked it with a stick and caused a meltdown by asking some point-blank questions. A lot happened in the ensuing two hours—from yelling and screaming to crying and honest dialogue.

I’ll provide the details in my next book, but for now I’ll focus on the core issue: poor communication. Let me rephrase that: The nucleus of the core issue was lazy and incompetent communication habits based on “theoretical efficiency and speed” rather than clarity and understanding.

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