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What we've got here is failure to communicate

Writer's picture: Andrea J. ApplegateAndrea J. Applegate

I was reminded of this iconic* line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate," from the excellent movie, Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman. It appeared in the article, The good, the bad and the ugly of performance reviews (Cindy Barth, The Business Journals, July 18, 2024). The article talks to a couple of experts about common ways managers fail at delivering feedback, like when they "dive in with preconceived notions" and when, in the absence of facts, they "make up a story" about what they think is happening.


The line, which is often misquoted as a failure to communicate, is delivered by The Captain in a particularly brutal scene. When he says, "failure to communicate," he doesn't mean we're not communicating. He means that, though we are saying words to each other, we are not hearing -- we are not understanding -- what the other is saying.

This failure to communicate leads to conflict, misunderstanding, and negative consequences for everyone. Also, this failure to communicate is unbelievably common. Ridiculously common.

Every day, managers everywhere believe that the people they lead understand and support everything they, as the manager, has said. Every day, people on teams everywhere believe they understand why the people they work with are doing what they are doing.


Don't get me wrong. I do it, too! Communicating is hard. Resisting the temptation to not dive in with preconceived notions is hard. Having the self-awareness that you don't have all the facts and that you're just filling in the blanks and telling yourself a story ... well, not doing that is hard.


At Applegate Talent Strategies, we help people work together more effectively. We do that through the Mutual Learning Approach, a methodology developed by Roger Schwarz and outlined in the 8 Behaviors of Smarter Teams.


A big, big, BIG part of mutual learning is learning how to communicate effectively with one another.


Effective communication is not something we're born with. But communicating effectively is a skill we can learn. And we will all be better for it.


*The quote, delivered by actor Strother Martin, was listed at No. 11 on the American Film Institute's AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movie Quotes in 2005.

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