The Broadcaster: Heard by Everyone, Understood by No One

Felix sends a lot of email. The Monday update, the Wednesday update, the Friday update that recaps the other 2. When the reorg was announced in September, he held an all-hands, then a follow-up all-hands, then 6 team meetings, then started a group chat that is still going. He posts in 4 channels. He forwards everything with FYI at the top. Ask anyone on his team whether Felix communicates and they will say yes, immediately, and a little tiredly. Then ask what the reorg means for their job, and watch them pause. Meet the Broadcaster.

The Broadcaster is not hiding anything. He read that leaders under-communicate during change, and he took it to heart. So he says everything, to everyone, as soon as he knows it, and then he says it again. What he has never done is decide which message matters. Every update arrives at the same volume: the parking change, the new reporting line, the thing that will decide whether half the team has the same job in January. All of it in the same tone, in the same inbox.

Look at what it costs. His team has stopped reading. Not out of disrespect. Out of survival. When everything is urgent, people build a filter, and the filter cannot tell which message was real. So the reporting line got the same glance as the parking memo, and 3 of his best people are working from a rumor that is about 60 percent right. Felix is exhausted, because broadcasting all day is work. And confused, because he did the one thing he was told to do, and the team still feels out of the loop.

Here is the reframe. Communication is not measured at the mouth. It is measured at the ear. The over-communication principle was never about volume. It is about one message, the one your team most needs right now, said 3 times in 3 places, then a question. The Broadcaster says 30 things once. The leader his team needs says one thing 3 times and then asks what they heard. Broadcasting is not the same as being heard.

2 moves. First, the three-point prep, before his next team meeting. He writes down the 3 things people must walk away understanding. Not 3 pages. 3 sentences, leading with the one that matters most. If he cannot get it to 3, he is not clear yet, and no volume will fix that. Second, the over-communication principle, done right. He picks the one message that matters most this week and says it 3 times in 3 places: in the meeting, in writing, and one on one. Then he ends with a real question, what are you hearing out there, and he stops talking and listens.

The point of communicating was never to prove you said it. It was to find out what they heard.

The Right Altitude. Available now. www.therightaltitudebook.com/the-book