Communication Debt Mortgages your Mission

Up Front: Communication debt is the combined cost of all the ineffective communication practices in an organization. Unpaid, it’s a drag on efficiency, alignment, and resilience. A strategic, incremental approach to reducing it frees up resources to respond effectively to problems and move decisively when opportunity arises.

Moments after closing on my first house, after the initial relief of putting my days of renting from terrible landlords behind me, I slid into panic.  By signing my name on a handful of lines, I incurred an amount of debt that felt staggering.  Suddenly, the etymology of the word “mortgage” (hint: it shares an ancestor with words like “mortality” and “mortician”) seemed deeply significant.  In my first few months of home ownership, I thought about my mortgage constantly.

But over time, and much faster than I expected in the moment, my mortgage panic receded.  Now, living in another with a bigger mortgage, I barely think at all about the size of the loan at all.  I’m aware of the monthly payment, of course.  But when I see the statement showing the total of what I and my husband still owe, the amount – which is objectively ginormous – barely even registers at all. There’s a lesson here about communication debt.

How much communication debt are you carrying?

Communication debt is the combined cost of all the ineffective communication practices in an organization: the hard conversations that get avoided, the crucial feedback that goes undelivered, and the interpersonal dynamics that silence and exclude.  And like the outstanding balance on my mortgage, communication can be easy to forget in the day-to-day rhythms of our work, even as it is silently accruing interest and eating away at our most valuable resources. 

Communication is crucial organizational infrastructure, and communication debt undermines it.  People don’t get the information they need to do their jobs well.  Skills go underutilized because colleagues don’t know what their peers have to offer.  Work gets duplicated because no one shares what they’re doing.  Important messages get skimmed or left unread because there’s no distinction between signal and noise.  Underperformers keep underperforming because no one tells them that anything is amiss.  High performers start to wonder if anyone is paying attention.  Unnecessary conflicts arise because misunderstanding is the norm, while teams avoid necessary hard conversations because they lack trust in one another. 

All of this adds up to inefficiency, disconnection, and misalignment. 

Communication debts are less tangible than financial debts (no one is sending you a monthly statement tallying your organization’s communication debts).  But they are no less real, and they also have a lot in common with financial debts.

Communication debts arise from a mismatch between resources and output

Communication debts result from a mismatch between resources and output; if people are working faster than they can think or recharge, they’re more likely to take communication shortcuts.  Communication debts often begin with impulsive actions, quick-fix solutions, or “just this once” rationalizations.  Sometimes, like financial debts, they begin in an emergency, when an organization doesn’t have strong enough communication practices to meet a sudden need.  And communication debts compound over time, often without anyone noticing; they may eventually seem so unfixable that no one even bothers to try. 

It doesn’t have to be this way.  Rather than normalizing communication debt, or taking its dysfunctional symptoms for granted, leaders can take concrete steps to reduce and eventually eliminate their organization’s communication debts.

A strategic, incremental approach to reducing communication debt

Don’t panic.  Start by getting a complete picture of how communication is, and is not, working in your organization.  An outside perspective can help with this.  Inventory your resources and strengths.  Use what’s already working as your starting point.  Be transparent with your team.  Tell them you’re working to improve communication, and invite their input in the process.

Don’t normalize it or go back to ignoring it.  Sometimes, leaders identify a communication debt but downplay its significance because the organization still seems to be functioning despite it.  This is a very temporary solution.  Communication debts always have consequences and they never magically disappear. 

Make a realistic plan for reducing communication debt.  Financial debt reduction plans that begin with “win the lottery” or “turn to highly profitable life of crime” are unlikely to succeed.  The same goes for communication plans that begin with grand gestures or complete overhauls.  Focus on small, concrete steps that will build momentum over time. 

Start with easy wins.  Identify one specific factor undermining your team’s communication and address it.  For example, if you notice that people are missing the most important messages from senior leadership, resend those messages with guidance on what to read and why it matters. 

Communicate about your communication.  When you implement a change, tell your team what you’re doing and why.  Decide on a trial period – usually a few weeks to a few months, depending on complexity.  At the end of the trial period, ask your team to share feedback about whether this change is helping.

Capture your resources.  As your easy wins start working, take advantage of the resources you’ve freed up: time, energy, and focus.  Channel these into higher-value projects. 

Then focus on more complex problems.  These include the communication debt-reduction initiatives focused on changing organizational culture.  For instance, many teams carry communication debts related to feedback: supervisors are hesitant to give it and employees struggle to understand and apply it.  You can address communication debts like this with leadership development training for supervisors and professional communication training for their direct reports.

Recognize that reducing communication debt will take time.  Look for small signs of progress and focus on steady, incremental improvement.  Choose success metrics that will tell you what’s working.  Because no one is sending those monthly statements about communication debt, you’ll have to create some version of this yourself, so you can track and share the improvements that you see. 

What could your team accomplish if they weren’t so indebted?

Why bother working to reduce your communication debt?  Your team, and your organization, will work better.  They’ll produce higher quality work faster and with less effort.  And they’ll derive more satisfaction from the process.

Organizations without communication debt are more resilient.  They have the communication infrastructure to respond effectively to problems.  And they have the resources to move fast and decisively when opportunity arises. 

When we’re heavily indebted, we don’t have the resources to respond to changing circumstances.  Challenges turn into crises and potential goes unrealized.  Negative consequences compound.  Eventually, we run out of credit and hit a hard limit. 

Communication debts are easy to overlook until they aren’t.  Take a moment and consider the communication habits of your team: what ginormous communication debt have you stopped seeing because you’ve looked at it so long?  And what small payment can you make today as a first step toward making it disappear?