Education's role in business communication dysfunction
Business communication is broken.
We send so much time talking and writing (emails, text messages, Slack and Teams, etc.) but we don't really communicate; we don't transfer information.
How do we solve this?
Through tech?
We've kind of tried that.
First, we revolutionized written communication with email, by removing the friction of wait times with instant delivery. Then, when email inboxes got clogged up, we rolled instant messengers for the workplace, such as Slack and Teams.
The good news: Our email inboxes had fewer messages. The bad news: Now we have another communication tool to manage and lose track of information in.
What about institutional knowledge and knowledge transfer? No problem, we have knowledge management tools like Confluence to help out.
But wait, there's more!
If the prophets of AI have their way, soon human-written communication will be obsolete because you'll be able to lean on generative AI tools like large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT to articulate just what you need with wordy and meandering walls of text no one wants to read. All that's required of you is to write the perfect promote that lays out exactly what you want.
With the help of AI, we can outsource sincerity!
That last point bring me back to the theme of this post: we suck at communication. And I don't think technology holds the key to solving our communication woes.
Is it crazy to think that maybe the problem is more basic? What if the best time to solve business communication headaches was 20, 30, 40, maybe even 50 years ago—when today's office workers started school?
The secret is out: school doesn't teach students how to think or solve problems so much as it teaches students how to pass standardized tests.
NOTE: I don't blame teachers for the failings of the education system. Metrics such as test scores are used as metaphorical guns to their heads. 😭🔫 Teachers don't create the curricula; they merely execute the plan.
When it comes to writing for school, word count is emphasized more than efficiently making a coherent point.
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