Openness and clarity are the keys to effective communication. Or at least, that is what is taught and encouraged by most educators, especially in business schools and HR departments. You ask a clear question, you should be able to get a clear answer. And so when you go to a management meeting, you expect to find out what's really going on in the company. Well, that ain't necessarily gonna happen.
Before I explain why you won't get the straight skinny, I need to clear out some of the underbrush. I'm not talking mostly about deception or outright lying. Sure, that takes place, but most managers understand that if they deceive often they're going to earn a reputation for it. That'll make it especially difficult for them to communicate a straight message when they need to. Also, they know that the trust of people is a key incentive for organizational productivity and team motivation. Besides, it takes a lot of energy to keep your lies consistent which means that you'll eventually get tired of it--and be found out. Deception is not an effective path to work and team success.
But if you critically examine the communication of most managers, execs and government officials, you'll notice that the usual definition of (effective) communication as clarity and openness is sometimes, well . . . just bullshit. So beware of the leadership literature and the HR department. As a matter of fact, recent research in organizational communication finds that intentional miscommunication is often as prevalent as intentionally clear communication. I'd argue that often "effective communication" is intentionally ambiguous.
Why is this?
On many, many occasions, managers and leaders are caught in multiple, conflicting constraints. Rather than maximize the achievement of any one goal in particular, the leader winds up in a catch 22. He's caught in numerous conflicting situations, but has no real control over the final outcome.
Although any senior business manager can recite numerous examples of ambiguity, a great example comes from Tom Friedman's article in which he opines on President Obama's ambiguous statements explaining the intervention of America and its allies in Libya. These were the conflicts Obama faced, detailed by Friedman.
In Libya, we have to figure out whether to help rebels we do not know topple a terrible dictator we do not like, while at the same time we turn a blind eye to a monarch whom we do like in Bahrain, who has violently suppressed people we also like -- Bahraini democrats -- because these people we like have in their ranks people we don't like: pro-Iranian Shiite hard-liners. All the while in Saudi Arabia, leaders we like are telling us we never should have let go of the leader who was so disliked by his own people -- Hosni Mubarak -- and, while we would like to tell the Saudi leaders to take a hike on this subject, we can't because they have so much oil and money that we like. And this is a lot like our dilemma in Syria where a regime we don't like -- and which probably killed the prime minister of Lebanon whom it disliked -- could be toppled by people who say what we like, but we're not sure they all really believe what we like because among them could be Sunni fundamentalists, who, if they seize power, could suppress all those minorities in Syria whom they don't like.
Sometimes, as Friedman coments, the truth is too hot to handle. It's too displeasing, too frustrating, too messy, too tentative, too incomplete, and so on. In those situations, inconsistency can't be avoided. Still, inconsistency is not necessarily a bad thing. Making a hopeless impasse clear may be unwise and likely to make things worse. Inherently, many readily succumb to personal, often destructive biases such as the drive for immediate decisionmaking, either-or decisionmaking, or even that the most colorful, vivid option is best.
Inevitably, therefore, the wise leader often chooses ambiguity. And rightly so. He understands that the downside of ambiguity is a lot better than the downside of a very tentative set of strategies that may or may not succeed.
Effective communication as "strategic ambiguity."
Academics have a technical term for that form of presentation: "strategic ambiguity." In a seminal piece of research, Eric Eisenberg argues that clarity and openness are not the only definition of effective communication. Sometimes, he argues, the truly effective leader has to be strategically ambiguous.
- Ambiguity can provide the leader with a great deal of flexibility and creativity, not limiting that leader to a narrow resolution of a problem. In politics, it's just good PR. Ambiguity can promote a great diversity of ideas and actions.
- Ambiguity facilitates organizational change. It gives the leader permission to make various moves that a single objective would not permit. He can pilot numerous initiatives and not have to engage in full disclosure.
- Ambiguity also preserves privileged positions. If there's no single objective that can be readily measured, you've limited the critical options of your public, whether subordinates, commentators or journalists. The ongoing complaint, for example, that Obama hasn't revealed his strategy or endgame is reflective of a governmental or business leader's smart, purposeful use of ambiguity. It limits the criticism that can be leveled at him. "he won't tell us his strategy and endgame" is not much to critique or write about.
There are plenty of situations for which the dumb thing is for your boss to be candid. Smart bosses refuse. That's the nature of effective organizational communication.
Eric Eisenberg, Ambiguity as a strategy in organizational communication.