This article is part of Make It Land, a 5-part series on leadership communication. Each essay explores a different reason why an idea can fail to land with the audience. The pieces stand alone. Together they reflect on a simple leadership discipline: communicating so that ideas are understood, remembered and acted upon.
Leadership communication principle:
Feedback without conversation is criticism without care.
In February 2017, former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a blog post detailing her experiences with sexual harassment, discrimination and HR failures at the company. Her account described reporting harassment to HR, being told that the harasser was a “high performer” whose behaviour would be overlooked and subsequently facing retaliation.
The post went viral. Within days, Uber’s board commissioned an investigation led by former US Attorney General Eric Holder and Arianna Huffington. The investigation revealed systemic cultural problems across the organization.
In June 2017, CEO Travis Kalanick sent an email to all employees acknowledging the findings and outlining planned reforms. The message was carefully worded, appropriately serious and widely distributed.
It was also entirely insufficient.
Employees who had reported harassment, experienced retaliation or watched colleagues leave in frustration did not need an email. They needed conversation. They needed acknowledgement that what they had experienced was real, that leadership understood the harm and that change would be sustained, not performed.
The email satisfied regulatory requirements. It satisfied the media cycle. It did not satisfy the people whose trust had been broken.
Within weeks, Kalanick resigned as CEO. The new leadership under Dara Khosrowshahi adopted a different approach: direct engagement, town halls with open Q&A, one-on-one meetings with affected employees and sustained accountability mechanisms built into performance management and promotion decisions.
The Illusion of Control
Email offers leaders the illusion of control. You can edit. You can refine. You can choose your words carefully. You can say exactly what you mean without interruption. You can create a record, document decisions and ensure nothing is misunderstood.
Except things are misunderstood all the time.
Communication is more than words. It includes tone, timing, presence and the signals that tell someone where you stand. It give the speaker the added ability to hear how something is landing in real time…and adjust.
When the message is difficult, email does not make communication easier.
When Documentation Replaces Dialogue:
In May 2018, The New York Times reported that McDonald’s employees had filed sexual harassment complaints with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in ten cities. Workers described a pattern of groping, propositions and retaliation. Many complaints had been filed through standard HR channels and addressed procedurally rather than through direct senior leadership engagement.
The legal framework was followed. The documentation existed. The responses were procedurally correct. Employees described feeling unheard. Complaints that should have triggered deeper investigation were closed administratively.
These incidents could have been conversations instead they became transactions.
By 2020, McDonald’s workers in multiple countries organized strikes specifically around the company’s handling of harassment claims. In the United States, worker advocacy groups filed complaints with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration arguing that the company’s failure to adequately address harassment created unsafe working conditions.
The Three Tests:
Not every message requires a conversation, but some cannot survive without one. Before you write, ask:
What Good Conversations Do:
A good difficult conversation does not feel easy. But it does feel clear.
The person knows where they stand. They know you have thought carefully about what you are saying. They know you care enough to sit with them in the discomfort rather than sending it from a distance.
Good conversations allow for response. For questions. For misunderstanding to be corrected before it calcifies into resentment.
They allow you to see whether the message has landed. Not whether the person agrees, but whether they understand. Those are not the same thing, and in writing, you often cannot tell the difference.
They also allow you to adapt. If you see confusion, you can clarify. If you see hurt, you can acknowledge it. If you see defensiveness, you can slow down.
None of that is possible in an email.
A Question for Reflection:
Think about a message you need to deliver this week. Before you begin drafting the email, ask yourself:
- What am I avoiding by writing instead of speaking?
- What do I need to hear that only a conversation can reveal?
- How would I want to receive this message if I were them?
If the answer to the last question is “in person,” you have your answer.
References:
Byron K. (2008). Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of emotion by email. Academy of Management Review. 33(2):309-327.
Fowler S. (2017, February 19). Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. Susan Fowler [blog]. https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber
Isaac M. (2017, June 21). Uber founder Travis Kalanick resigns as C.E.O. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.html
Kruger J, Epley N, Parker J, Ng ZW. (2005). Egocentrism over e-mail: Can we communicate as well as we think? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 89(6):925-936.
Schlosser S, Levy J. (2018, May 21). McDonald's workers file new sexual harassment complaints. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/21/business/mcdonalds-sexual-harassment.html