Communication Can Make or Break Your Week

Why taking 10 minutes to think about what your team or stakeholders need—and then messaging them with that info—will buy back time and lessen conflict

One of the worst days of my professional life ended with me lying on the carpet, blaring Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy really, really loudly. Creating my own retro rock soundbath to buffer between complete depletion and any new path forward. Communication was shot. I was disillusioned and disheartened.

If you know me personally, you might be surprised by that choice. But I have an older brother who introduced me to classic rock legends and a husband who makes sure our girls appreciate groups like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd.

This was before all that, though. This was my first response when I was crushed by the load of expectations, depleted from the near-constant string of crises, and lost from the communication breakdowns rippling throughout the teams and community.

Now, in 2025, as I work with leaders in vastly different contexts and systems, I see the same thing:

"I just don't think this job is sustainable."

"I wish they would just do what we talked about instead of my having to re-do all the work they bring to me."

"I am spending all of my time in meetings and then when am I supposed to get all of this done?"

"I spent my weekend wading through the paperwork and emails."

"Why is all that comes to me complaints and venting? I don't know if I can take it."

The Missing Piece: Proactive Communication

This all happens when there is systems-change needed, but not yet supported. And when system change is needed (even on a small scale), you follow the three pillars of systems change:

1. Mapping out the cause and effect of actions (visualizing the systems),

2. Deep diving into the data (root cause analysis and metrics), and,

3. Assessing what people need to know and when they need to know it (communication and capacity).

When you get ahead of communication, you start to influence the actions of others, reduce the friction of change, and gain back time.

A Real-World Example: Getting Ahead of the Chaos

Take a principal looking to support teachers in moving smoothly through the year. At the start of each school year, parents and students want to know what the year will hold. Given that our U.S. school system (public and private) is designed to allow wide variety across classrooms—this teacher can accept late work without penalty while another teacher gives a zero if it's not submitted before the bell—parents and students highly anticipate this information.

Everyone wants to know:

• What we'll learn and how we'll know it
• Will my teacher be understanding or harsh?
• What do I do when I have a question?
• How are grades determined?
• What is there to look forward to this year?

Communication solution: Provide all of your teachers with a template that covers these details to complete and share via their welcome email. The template should include both the operational parts (like course syllabus and assignment types) and the relational part (what's my teacher's personality and what is there to look forward to?).

What's the benefit to the teacher? These are the topics that cause the most friction between home and school. One leader I work with has a teacher who, eight weeks into the school year, has never communicated any information about a course to the families enrolled. Tests are given, grades are about to be issued, and this teacher is going to face a mountain of emails, meeting requests, and concerns—all of which could have been avoided by proactive communication at the start of the year.

This leader is now working with this very experienced teacher (over 30 years) on communication that will make their life better and give students and families what they deserve. But at this moment, the demand is at least 10x what it would have been with the right communication.

If the teacher steps aside from the flurry of emails coming their way and compiles a communication that addresses the points above and sends it now, they will get the benefit of cleared-up misunderstandings, fewer meeting requests, and a better working relationship with the parents of their students.

Even after the pain of communication breakdown hits, you can get the benefit of communication that lays out a path forward.

Three Steps to Buy Back Your Time and Free Up Tension

Want to see if unclear or missing communication can help you reclaim hours in your week? Here's where to start:

1. Do a 5-Minute Message Audit

Scan the messages coming your way—complaints, requests for clarification, or meeting requests—and sort out the topics. This should be a quick scan that only takes 5 minutes. You're just looking for big trends.

Then choose one of these responses:

Write a short explainer for those topics that you can email to people as a quick response, or

Record a succinct video message using your laptop or camera phone (or do a screencast if you're explaining a document or guiding through a website). Your personal touch—your face and voice—can yield amazing results for communication, or

Create an FAQ (this can be a Google Doc) with links to where people can learn more about the topic, see timelines or previous communications, or even access additional resources (videos, resource pages). Creating this one time frees up hours as the year unfolds because you can respond to requests for information, continually update it, and close the communication loop in 3 minutes or less.

2. Survey Your Stakeholders

Send a focused survey to the group you are hearing from the most (your team, certain roles, larger stakeholder group). Ask them on a scale of 1-5 if they have questions about the following topics (list the topics that are coming up most often). Then include an open-ended question where they can provide more information about what they'd like to hear about.

3. Clear Up Miscommunications Directly

Just like the principal and teacher described above, sometimes there are genuine issues of communication that just need to get resolved. Regardless of pride or the fact that you did cover that already, write a newsletter, convene a meeting, or have the 1:1 conversation and start with: "I'm sorry there's been miscommunication and I want to clear that up and move forward."

How I Bounced Back

How did I bounce back after my own worst day ever? A combination of all three approaches above, which included a fair amount of humility and leadership. But it has shaped how I have approached communication every day since then.

Getting ahead of communication breakdown—even on topics over which you have no control—keeps things moving and frees up your inbox and your calendar.

What are your most effective communication tips?