Remember those schoolyard games of telephone, where “John ate a banana” would hilariously morph into “Don hates your nana” as it was whispered from one child to another? Whether due to mishearing or intentional distortion, the message that the last child received was never the one the first child sent.

We’ve all experienced this. Yet how many companies rely on the telephone game of cascading communication as their primary (or only) means of communication with their teams?

Cascading communication doesn’t work.

Let me say that again: CASCADING. COMMUNICATION. DOES. NOT. WORK.

It’s delusional to believe that you can effectively deliver a message to a large team by simply telling your direct reports and expecting them to deliver the same unchanged message to their direct reports until it reaches everyone.

Many leaders suffer from the fallacious belief that their intent—the message they desired to send—is what matters in communication. It’s not. The message is what was received by the last person in the chain of the telephone game, not what you told the first one.

In order to lead effectively, you need a system for distributing messages to the entire organization and for memorializing them so that there is no opportunity for confusion in the future.

Charge your leaders at every level with reinforcing the message, but don’t risk the message getting lost in the layers of your organization.

Communicating with your team is one of the most significant leadership levers you possess. Don’t leave it to chance.

Cover photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash