"Communicate, communicate, and then communicate some more"
About this Quote
Bob Nelson’s line reads like a mantra you’d tape to a manager’s monitor, and that’s precisely its power: it’s not elegant, it’s operational. The repetition is doing the rhetorical work. “Communicate” isn’t framed as a skill you occasionally deploy when things feel tense; it’s presented as the default setting, something you run until it feels almost redundant. The subtext is a quiet indictment of how organizations actually behave: they treat information like a resource to conserve, a political asset to control, or a risk to avoid. Nelson flips that scarcity mindset into an abundance mindset, implying that most dysfunction isn’t caused by bad people or even bad strategy, but by preventable silence.
The intent is corrective and a little impatient. It anticipates the predictable executive objection - “We already sent the email” - and dismisses it. One message doesn’t equal shared understanding. People miss memos, interpret them through their own anxieties, or assume they’re the exception. Repetition becomes empathy: it acknowledges different learning styles, different attention economies, different stakes. Communicating “some more” is also a hedge against rumor, the shadow communication system that fills any vacuum with speculation and resentment.
Contextually, it sits squarely in modern workplace culture, where teams are distributed, roles are fluid, and priorities change fast enough that yesterday’s clarity becomes today’s confusion. The line isn’t asking for more noise; it’s insisting on intentional cadence: say the thing, say it again, and keep saying it until alignment stops being accidental.
The intent is corrective and a little impatient. It anticipates the predictable executive objection - “We already sent the email” - and dismisses it. One message doesn’t equal shared understanding. People miss memos, interpret them through their own anxieties, or assume they’re the exception. Repetition becomes empathy: it acknowledges different learning styles, different attention economies, different stakes. Communicating “some more” is also a hedge against rumor, the shadow communication system that fills any vacuum with speculation and resentment.
Contextually, it sits squarely in modern workplace culture, where teams are distributed, roles are fluid, and priorities change fast enough that yesterday’s clarity becomes today’s confusion. The line isn’t asking for more noise; it’s insisting on intentional cadence: say the thing, say it again, and keep saying it until alignment stops being accidental.
Quote Details
| Topic | Team Building |
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