Pitfalls and Solutions (continued)

You can’t go wrong advertising better communication. But sometimes efforts to clear the air don’t go according to the five-, seven-, or ten-step plan. Some problems between people simply are intractable. No amount of genius communication may help you in the face of an easily threatened manager, a fast-draw blackballer or, clinically speaking, a nut case. And if someone hates your guts, spilling them tactfully isn’t always productive.

“If there’s an interpersonal problem where the person doesn’t like you especially, communicating better with that person will have zero effect,” says Paul Argenti, professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. “In fact, it will have a negative effect because the person will use your position against you.

Instant communications in an electronic age creates a rush to do so, he says. But sometimes it’s worth not communicating, “especially if you know the situation is going to change or could change.”

Business advisors aren’t totally to blame. There’s an audience for non-nuanced, microwaveable solutions. And in the office, where talking about talking is systematized in things like meetings and their follow-ups, words are often mistaken for deeds.

Compounding the problem are the bad apples who, having failed to heed advice in preschool make it necessary to state the stupefyingly obvious such as, “Listen to gain understanding,” as one article on communication notes.

But advice to communicate better can often seem too pat, like much of the self-help industry that influenced business books. “Just choose happiness,” wrote Norman Vincent Peale in a model of can-do literature, “The Power of Positive Thinking.” It’s the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.” (Nomination for an easier happiness key: Vastly lower your expectations.)