Communication: Easy to Say, Hard to Do

Mark Mullaly is president of Interthink Consulting Incorporated, an organizational development and change firm specializing in the creation of effective organizational project management solutions. Since 1990, it has worked with companies throughout North America to develop, enhance and implement effective project management tools, processes, structures and capabilities. Mark was most recently co-lead investigator of the Value of Project Management research project sponsored by PMI. You can read more of his writing at markmullaly.com.

  Communications Management   Teams  

One of the essential principles of project management is communication. I would go so far as to argue that it is the most essential principle. If you aren’t communicating, are you even managing?

The inherent challenge is that it is easy to say that communication is important, but it’s incredibly hard to do it well...and consistently. Communicating well is a very high bar. It is not one that gets cleared often, which makes it notable when it does happen.

There are a number of reasons for this—not the least of which is that what constitutes effective communication is in the eye of the beholder. We don’t get to decide whether or not we are communicating well; that is the privilege and responsibility of those we are interacting with. It is a subjective assessment. It is also a moving target. Being effective in our communications relies on several factors, most of which are not actually in our control.

Think of a situation where you’ve been reliant on someone else’s communication. Perhaps you’ve been having your car repaired, for example. You dropped it off in the morning, with the presumption that it would be fixed and ready that evening.

In the majority of instances, this can be considered a straightforward exercise. You might get a phone call if there was a further problem discovered. Perhaps a heads-up that it was in …

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