How I discovered my team’s communication problem was actually mine
It started with a Slack message at 6:47pm on a Tuesday.
Our Product Manager had sent a two-line decision to the team: “We’re pivoting the roadmap. New priorities attached.” No context. No reasoning. No space for questions. Within minutes, our Head of Design had replied with a terse “Thanks for the heads-up” (which, if you know Design, means I’m furious). Our Operations person had gone quiet. And our most junior engineer had asked me directly, “Is everything okay?”
That was the moment I realised something was broken.