I hear this all the time.
“Nicole, my team just doesn’t communicate.”
And honestly? I don’t think that’s usually true.
They’re communicating all day long. They’re talking in the hallway after the meeting. They’re texting each other. They’re venting to the person they trust. They’re replaying conversations in their heads on the drive home.
The problem isn’t that communication isn’t happening.
It’s that the conversations that actually matter aren’t.
- The feedback that never gets shared.
- The assumption that never gets clarified.
- The “Hey, that really bothered me” that gets swallowed because it feels easier to stay quiet.
Those are the conversations teams avoid.
I’ve worked with teams that have meetings every day. Slack messages never stop. Emails fly back and forth. Everyone is talking. Yet somehow, no one feels heard.
More communication doesn’t automatically mean better communication. Sometimes it just means more noise.
I think we blame communication when the real problem is trust.
Think about someone in your life that you trust completely. You don’t overthink every text before you send it. You don’t spend an hour wondering how they’ll interpret your tone. If something bothers you, you can probably tell them. Not because you’re a better communicator. Because the relationship feels safe.
Now think about someone you don’t trust. Everything changes. You choose your words carefully. You avoid difficult conversations. You assume the worst.
Work is no different. When trust is missing, communication starts to disappear right along with it.
This is where I think a lot of leaders get stuck.
They ask: “How do I get my team to communicate better?” When maybe the better question is: “Why don’t they feel comfortable communicating?”
Those are two very different problems.
One gets solved with another meeting. The other gets solved by creating an environment where people feel safe enough to be honest.
Teams don’t need to know everything about each other. I don’t believe everyone has to become best friends. That’s not realistic. But I do think it’s a lot harder to assume the worst about someone once you know a little of their story.
- Maybe they’re caring for an aging parent.
- Maybe they’re exhausted because they have a newborn.
- Maybe they’re naturally quiet and you’ve mistaken that for disengagement.
- Maybe they have an incredible idea but haven’t felt like their voice matters.
When we know nothing about the people we work with, our brains fill in the blanks. Usually not in a good way.
This is why I do what I do. People sometimes hear “team building” and picture awkward icebreakers or trust falls. I don’t.
I think about creating space for conversations that probably should have happened months ago. The kind where people leave saying, “I had no idea you felt that way,” or, “I never knew that about you.”
Those moments don’t just make people feel good. They change the way people work together on Monday morning.
So why doesn’t your team communicate? Maybe they don’t feel safe. Maybe they don’t know each other. Maybe they’ve been burned before. Maybe everyone is trying so hard to be professional that nobody is being real.
Whatever the reason, I don’t think the answer is another communication workshop where people learn how to write better emails.
I think the answer is helping people trust each other enough to have the conversations they’ve been avoiding. Because once that happens, communication tends to take care of itself. And that’s where the real work begins.
