Why Most Communication Training is Absolute Rubbish (And What Actually Works)

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Three months ago, I watched a senior manager at a Perth mining company completely butcher what should have been a simple team meeting. Twenty-three people sat there for ninety minutes while this bloke droned on about "synergistic communication paradigms" and "leveraging our collaborative bandwidth." By the end, half the room was checking their phones and the other half looked ready to quit on the spot.

Here's the thing that really gets me fired up: we're spending millions on communication training in Australia, and most of it is complete bollocks.

I've been running workplace training programs for sixteen years now, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that 73% of corporate communication courses miss the bloody point entirely. They focus on PowerPoint presentations about active listening when what people actually need is permission to speak like human beings at work.

The Real Problem Nobody Talks About

Most communication training treats symptoms, not causes. You'll sit through eight hours learning about "I statements" and "reflective listening techniques" when the real issue is that your workplace culture punishes honesty. No amount of role-playing exercises will fix a toxic environment where people are afraid to speak up.

I learned this the hard way back in 2018. Had a client – major telecommunications company in Sydney – spending a fortune on communication workshops. Beautiful training materials, expensive facilitators, the works. Six months later, employee engagement scores were worse than before. Turns out, teaching people to communicate better just made them more articulate about how miserable they were.

The breakthrough came when we threw out the fancy training manuals and started with one simple question: "What would you say to your manager if there were absolutely no consequences?"

Game changer.

What Actually Works (Spoiler: It's Not What You Think)

First, stop trying to make everyone a communications expert. Not everyone needs to be Tony Robbins. Some people are naturally quiet, others are naturally loud. Your job isn't to turn introverts into extroverts or make everyone comfortable with public speaking. That's like trying to teach fish to climb trees.

Instead, focus on three things that actually matter:

1. Create psychological safety. This fancy term basically means people need to know they won't get fired, demoted, or humiliated for speaking honestly. Google spent years researching what makes teams effective, and this was their number one finding. Not communication skills training. Psychological safety.

2. Teach people to disagree without being disagreeable. This is where most Australian workplaces fall apart. We're either too polite (passive-aggressive nightmare) or too direct (bull in a china shop). The sweet spot is learning to challenge ideas without attacking people. Takes practice, but it's learnable.

3. Fix your bloody meeting culture first. If your meetings are garbage, all the communication training in the world won't help. I've seen companies spend thousands on presentation skills courses while running meetings that would make paint-drying competitions look exciting.

The Australian Communication Paradox

Here's something that drives me mental: we pride ourselves on being straight-talking, no-nonsense people, yet our workplaces are filled with corporate speak that would make a politician blush. "Circle back," "deep dive," "low-hanging fruit" – when did we start talking like management consultants who've never done a real day's work?

The best communicators I know – and I mean the ones who actually get things done, not just the ones who sound impressive – speak like normal human beings. They use short sentences. They admit when they don't know something. They're not afraid to say "that's a terrible idea" when someone suggests something stupid.

Telstra figured this out better than most. Their customer service training focuses on natural conversation rather than scripted responses. Result? Customers actually feel heard instead of processed.

The Training Industry's Dirty Secret

Want to know something the training industry doesn't want you to hear? Most communication problems aren't skill problems – they're courage problems. People know how to communicate. They learned it as children. They know how to ask for what they need, express disagreement, and share ideas.

The problem is, somewhere between childhood and corporate life, we convinced them that workplace communication requires a special language that sounds nothing like how humans actually talk. We created artificial barriers to natural communication, then sold expensive solutions to problems we created.

I once worked with a mining foreman who claimed he "wasn't good with words." This same bloke could explain complex safety procedures to new workers so clearly that nobody ever got confused. He could negotiate with suppliers, mentor apprentices, and resolve conflicts between team members. But put him in a corporate training room and suddenly he needed to "work on his communication skills."

Ridiculous.

What Good Communication Actually Looks Like

Real communication isn't about perfect grammar or impressive vocabulary. It's about clarity, honesty, and respect. The best communicators I've worked with share a few common traits:

They ask questions when they don't understand something. Revolutionary concept, I know. Instead of nodding along and hoping for the best, they actually clarify expectations. This prevents about 80% of workplace conflicts right there.

They own their mistakes quickly and completely. None of this "mistakes were made" passive voice nonsense. "I screwed up" is a complete sentence and it works better than twenty minutes of explanation about contributing factors.

They separate ideas from identity. When someone criticises their proposal, they don't take it as a personal attack. This is probably the hardest skill to develop, especially for people who are passionate about their work.

The Technology Problem Everyone Ignores

Let's talk about email for a minute. Email has probably done more damage to workplace communication than any other single invention. We've created a culture where people send emails to colleagues sitting three metres away rather than having a thirty-second conversation.

Then we wonder why everything gets misunderstood.

I had a client last year – accounting firm in Melbourne – where the partners were sending passive-aggressive emails to each other instead of talking. Meanwhile, they're mandating communication training for junior staff. You can't make this stuff up.

The solution isn't better email etiquette training. It's establishing when to use email (documentation, scheduling, sharing files) and when to use your actual voice (everything else).

The Feedback Fiasco

Most communication training spends enormous amounts of time on "giving and receiving feedback." Here's what they don't tell you: most feedback is rubbish. It's vague, delayed, and focused on personality rather than behaviour.

"You need to be more confident" isn't feedback. It's a character assessment. "When you speak quietly in meetings, I can't hear your ideas" is feedback. See the difference?

Good feedback is specific, timely, and actionable. Bad feedback makes people defensive and resentful. Guess which one most managers give?

The irony is that people are starving for good feedback. They want to know how they're doing, what they should improve, and what they're doing well. But instead of clear, helpful information, they get annual performance reviews filled with corporate buzzwords that mean nothing.

The Cultural Shift Nobody Wants to Make

Here's the uncomfortable truth: fixing communication in your workplace requires changing your culture, not just training your people. Culture eats training for breakfast every single time.

If your culture rewards conformity, people will stop sharing creative ideas. If your culture punishes mistakes, people will stop taking risks. If your culture values hierarchy over results, people will stop challenging bad decisions.

You can send everyone to communication skills workshops until the cows come home, but if the underlying culture hasn't changed, you're wasting your time and money.

The companies that get this right – companies like Atlassian and Canva – focus on creating environments where good communication naturally emerges. They don't rely on training to fix cultural problems.

What You Should Do Instead

Stop looking for quick fixes. Communication isn't a skill you learn in a weekend workshop and then you're done. It's an ongoing practice that requires attention and intention.

Start with yourself. Model the communication you want to see. Be direct but respectful. Ask for clarification when you need it. Admit when you're wrong. Thank people for disagreeing with you when they raise valid points.

Create systems that support good communication. Regular one-on-ones. Team retrospectives. Clear escalation processes. Make it easier for people to communicate well than to communicate poorly.

Most importantly, stop treating communication like it's some mysterious art form that requires expensive training programs. It's a basic human skill that everyone already possesses. Your job is to create an environment where people feel safe using it.

The mining foreman I mentioned earlier? Once we removed the corporate communication barriers, he became one of the most effective leaders in the company. Turns out he was never bad at communication – he was just bad at corporate performance art.

And that's something worth remembering: the goal isn't to sound impressive. It's to be understood.

Because at the end of the day, that's all communication really is – one human being sharing something important with another human being. Everything else is just noise.