Is miscommunication within teams affecting productivity?

In a recent poll, managers rated interpersonal communication as one of the top priorities in the workplace. Interpersonal communication is the foundation of meaningful, cohesive, and productive relationships in the workplace. Without such relationships, tensions and conflict can derail important projects, consume valuable time, and even damage a company’s reputation.

However, not all employees have strong interpersonal effectiveness. Interpersonal effectiveness is a skill that affects how well employees communicate. This skill is something that has to be taught and learned (rather than a personality trait). As such, companies have the ability to have direct effects on the development of their employee's effectiveness.

Interpersonal effectiveness is what drives things like negotiation skills, asking questions, respectful assertiveness, strong leadership, requesting help, providing and receiving constructive feedback, and making team work pleasant and productive. Poor interpersonal effectiveness is what leads to defensive, antagonistic, aggressive, critical, negative, or helpless, scared, and defeatist employees. It can also result in the concealment of mistakes that then grow larger and more problematic. Poor interpersonal effectiveness can be uncomfortable and awkward at best, and at worst can cause harm to others and damage to one’s self and one’s professional standing.