BREAKING NEWS - What the CEO Says Is Often of Little Value to Most Employees

Most leaders and managers assume that once they’ve spoken, their words are reliably spread out and sink in, and things start to happen . . . which rarely actually happens.

The higher up in leadership you are, the more isolated you become. Every day becomes less and less about what’s spreading and sinking in, and more importantly, about what fails to get there.

Here’s how internal communication generally flows (or stalls) in organizations of any size.

You or the boss makes an announcement and . . .

Enter Lukaszewski’s Immutable Realities of Communication Failure That Operate 24/7

Reality 1: Information only reaches its target when the target reaches out for it.

Reality 2: Whatever the original communication source, targets always seek local sources.

Reality 3: The higher the source of communication, the more distorted, truncated, and misinterpreted it becomes on its way down to the target.

Reality 4: Toward the bottom of the communication pyramid, the target invents or imagines (makes up) what’s missing or unintelligible and proceeds only if what they imagine seems plausible.

Here’s How Employees Value the Information They Get to Help or Direct Their Work by Source

CEO	5%
Upper Management	6%
Middle Management	7%
District Management	8%
Firsst-Line Supervisor	30%
TGNTM*	24%
IMIU**	20%

* TGNTM: The guy or girl next to me
** IMIU: I made it up

The Lessons

First-line supervisors are the most critical communicators in the lives of employees. How much time is spent training them, coaching them, and acquainting them with what those higher up seek to accomplish?
The person at the next bench is the one people rely on to validate what the first-line supervisor is saying, and what an employee thinks they heard, saw, or read.
This estimate is probably low, but almost every employee (if they told the truth), makes up at least 20% of what they do every single day, and their supervisors are unaware.
Folks at the end of the communication chain rarely really know what’s going on, so (as you can tell by the analysis) they fake it until they make it or break it.

The Grand Lesson: Remember the Monkey Tree

You’re on the Monkey Tree, in the hierarchy of your organization, and you are above employees. Whenever you look out the window, down the stairs, or down the hall, you see a bunch of smiling faces looking up at you. They are probably pretty frustrated at the communication that they’re getting.

Now put yourself on the Monkey Tree looking up. It’s a very different view.