Thank God It's Monday®! Blog

Somebody broke our communication.

Okay, people don’t talk like that, but every year when we look at hundreds of different culture surveys that we’ve been doing for decades now, what we find is the number one most broken area in organizations is communication.

Here’s the funny thing about communication.

If somebody says our communication is broken, what does that mean? Does that mean that the top-down information isn’t getting all the way through the organization? Does it mean people don’t know how they tie to the strategic plan? Does it mean that we’re not working through conflict well? Does it mean that we don’t know when there’s new things going on and that isn’t being passed? Does it mean that people are tight and we’re walking around on eggshells because everybody’s afraid to say something or have a little bit of fun because everybody’s all tied up in their underwear, not understanding, hey, this is supposed to be fun? We make it fun when we make it fun, and that’s the job for each one of us to step into.

So we’re all responsible for communication, and I’m going to give you one tip to get you started, and that is this: don’t be a lazy communicator.

Lazy communicators give partial statements.

If somebody has to ask you more to know how to execute on what you just said, you were being a lazy communicator.

Americans and all humans are pretty lazy communicators as a regular course of action, but you don’t have to be. If instead you always stop and you think outcome-based thinking, outcome-based communication.

What do I need them to understand to do this? Have I spoken completion? Did I give them the why? Did I say it with the least amount of words but say everything that I needed to? Have I been thoughtful of how I constructed that, or did the first thought that came across my brain come out here? Which can happen to a lot of us. I, on occasion, am capable of doing that, so confession.

Be thoughtful about the word choices that you have to make sure that when you deliver a message, you get to the point, you say it with clarity so that nobody has to ask any questions because you anticipated those questions and you spoke with the clarity.

You know, your communication doesn’t have to be broken if you decide to fix it.

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Artificial intelligence can do a lot—write reports, crunch numbers, even generate creative content. But it can’t replace one thing: your ability to think critically.

In a world of fast answers and surface-level problem solving, first-order thinking is becoming a liability.

Sam Bhatla, in his book Intelligent Thinking, outlines the cost of shallow thinking.

First-order thinking, as he calls it, reacts to surface issues.

Second-order thinking, alternatively, anticipates consequences and drives transformation.

Today, we need more strategic minds who don’t just do what’s urgent, but what’s right. AI can assist you, but it can’t replace the human brain that can identify risk, weigh nuance, and make judgment calls under pressure.

In this new era, critical thinking isn’t just a skill—it is a survival trait.

In a world of AI, those with wisdom will dominate.

What three books will you read in your area of expertise this month to stay ahead of the pack?

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We did it every year. We were snowbirds. We went to Florida with the kids to celebrate spring break.

When the house wasn’t already filled with other snowbirds who called first, my husband’s parents would host us. Granny, as she referred to herself, had the skin of a woman thirty to forty years younger. This is not your ordinary granny who makes cheesy potatoes, jello salad, and bundt cakes. She was a health nut. This is a woman who eats—well, nobody really knows what she eats. My best attempt at a description would be bee pollen-filled organic sprouted flaxseed topped with seaweed powder with a side of enzyme supplement over organic avocados. Not really, but close.

She boasts that she has never eaten at a fast food restaurant, making her the only human I know who can say that with a straight face. Imagine her disgust when every year, every morning we were there, my kids would wake up at her house demanding that we head to the Waffle House. The Waffle House is a Southern phenomenon. We didn’t have those in Minneapolis where we raised the kids. Granny begged and pleaded, “Please let me make you a healthy breakfast,” but no—the kids demanded the food that would make our aortas gurgle.

Why did they demand the Waffle House? Because the food is extraordinary? Nope. After all, it’s only waffles.

Is it because the bathrooms were so clean? Yeah, no. Enough said. We went to the Waffle House because as we would walk in the door, the chorus from the employees within range would start to shout out, “Morning, morning, morning, morning, morning.”

Five or six people would snap to attention, multitasking with a greeting while still waiting on people.

And that’s why we went to the Waffle House. Humans have an insatiable craving to have others around them show that they care. So how do you tap into that power? You show you care when a customer has a problem and you say, “Oh my goodness, that’s terrible. My name is John, and I’m going to make sure that this is corrected right away. Here’s my direct line. We’ll keep talking until this is resolved.”

You show you care when your teammates have a deadline, and even though it is not in your job description, you stay late and do backflips to make sure that they meet their deadline. You show you care when you spend time with your kid with no television and listen to them tell you about what excites them. You show you care when you tell your boss—who demands more of you than you knew you had in you—that you appreciate her critiques of your work because it helps you improve. You show you care when you challenge someone who hasn’t completed their work with the required excellence by going directly to that person and coaching, as opposed to whining about that person to coworkers behind their back.

And you show you care when every customer walks out saying, “Wow, that was amazing. They always make me feel important here.” And you show that you care when you go above and beyond every project that you do. Find ways to make a meaningful difference and add great value.

So try this: Make a list of ten ways that you can make it more obvious to people around you—from family members to coworkers to customers—that you care.

Live your list with fervor. Repeat. Keep finding new ways to show people around you that you care.

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Florna, a fifty-year-old woman, was a bathroom cleaning specialist. I’m actually not sure what her title was, but that’s what she was doing when I met her, so that’s what I’ll call her. Florna was engaged in her work in an Atlanta airport bathroom. Now let’s be honest here—this is not the job that her mama wanted her to grow up to have. This job was an excuse to be bumming. But Florna was not bumming. She was doing this little thing.

Florna was humming—you know, like a bumblebee-type humming. I found that entertaining as I used the facilities while she cleaned. She made me smile. Then when I came out of the stall, she broke into song.

Okay, I’ll admit, I joined in. That was Florna’s game—to make people happy. Florna didn’t stop there. She shuffled toward me as she sang, gesturing for me to sing along.

Why not? As I washed my hands, she leapt to reach for a paper towel while she gyrated to Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today! That’s right—a woman who worked at the airport cleaning toilets was singing New York, New York to me as I came out of the stall.

And I wasn’t special. This, I could see, is what Florna does.

This is a human who has meaning in her work. This girlfriend is spreading joy as she’s mopping the grunge.

Contrast Florna with the millions of people who spend a good chunk of their day complaining. Nobody tells me what to do. Nobody appreciates me. Jeffrey got a bigger raise and he doesn’t even know how to do mail campaigns.

The more they complain, the more they need to look for evidence of why the world is treating them unfairly. Now they have an excuse for not giving their all. They need to find more complaints to justify their previous complaints. That’s how it works for complainers.

If they stopped complaining, they’d have to admit that they had the problem in making up their previous complaints.

So the question is yours: Do you choose joy or not?

So try this: Make a list of all the things you can be grateful for about your job. My boss isn’t a screamer. I get a paycheck every two weeks. I hardly ever have to work on the weekend.

I get opportunities to grow. My teammates tell me when I’m being a doofus, so I’m being coached to grow up as a person.

Make the list long. Just decide to keep writing for at least five minutes. Keep writing.

Now make a list of your five biggest complaints. For each complaint, reframe it. For example, “My boss micromanages me” can be reframed to “My boss cares enough about me to make sure that I’m out of trouble, and steps into my work to help.”

Stay in a state of gratitude and see if suddenly the world doesn’t miraculously seem to be filled with nicer people.

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These boots are made for walking, and that’s just what they’ll do. One of these days, boots are gonna walk all over you. It’s not just Nancy Sinatra’s sexy 1950s boots that you have to worry about. Others want to walk all over you as well.

Have you noticed? Just by writing these words, I’m having an experience similar to what Dr. Raymond Moody talked about. Moody is the physician who studied people who had near-death experiences.

He found that people who died and came back often had a similar experience of going into the light and finding what amounted to a visual film festival of their lives.

I can relate. The details of the situations where people walked all over me with their boots are way too easy to recall. Here’s the funny thing about folks who push your boundaries: you let them do this to you, especially if it happens more than once.

That’s what happens when non-negotiables are allowed to become negotiable. Here’s the thing: the quality of your life directly correlates to how well you call tight the non-negotiables in your life. The more loosey-goosey you are with your non-negotiables, the more you can expect to have sand kicked up in your face. So are you a wimp?

Let’s see. Your toddler asks for and receives water more than seven times in one night. And then it happens the next night. Yep, that counts.

You’re a wimp. Your colleague does part of her work without much attention to detail and then hands it off to you to make sure it is accurate. So you spend two extra hours at the office reviewing, connecting, and completing her project. It’s not that you shouldn’t step up and give freely at work. It’s that she repeatedly slacks off and makes her problem your problem.

Score one for the sand kickers! Your team members don’t do what they’re committed to do, so the entire project is delayed.

All of you risk losing your bonuses. Instead of asking everyone for a commitment so that they can catch up, you camp in the office for the weekend all by yourself. Bring on those white boots. Enough already.

You want to live your life leaping over tall buildings with a single bound and creating kick-butt results. Yes, that sometimes means stepping up to help others get the job done. But there comes a point when it’s time to get the people around you to start leaping with you.

The answer: non-negotiables. Non-negotiables are clear, and they define what happens if the non-negotiable is violated. At work, it could look like this:

Get your sales funnel reported in by three PM every Friday, or your commissions won’t be paid until the following month. Miss it more than once a quarter, and your commissions will be docked thirty percent.

Zero tolerance for talking about the company or client’s private information outside of work. You talk, you walk.

This is a no-gossip workplace. If you have a problem with someone, talk to that person only about it immediately.

No whining to others. Violate this principle, and you will be invited to free up your future.

These non-negotiables work at home too.

If you are even one minute late for the eleven PM curfew, no personal use of the car for a month. Or Daddy only reads the bedtime books after the toys are put back in the toy box. Or there are the really scary ones—the serious ones that destroy lives when they’re not met.

If you choose to continue to drink or come home after drinking, you will move out immediately.

Or you will never hit me twice because you’ll never see me after the first time.

If you continue to violate the procedures or miss the outcomes of your job and put the success of the company at risk, as a result, you will have to leave.

Our boundaries define our results, and our results define whether our lives work or not.

Be clear regarding your boundaries and let those around you know what you expect.

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