"Communication Is Key" Is the Worst Advice You Have Ever Been Given

Why Better Communication Won't Fix Your Recurring Arguments

Amber Frazier-Finkelstein

CEO & Founder

Battles Insights

"Communication Is Key" Is the Worst Advice You Have Ever Been Given

By Amber Frazier-Finkelstein

Every woman I know has been told that communication is the key to her relationships, her marriage, her team, and her sanity. It is the advice featured on every podcast, in every workshop, during every HR training, and on every wedding card. It is also the reason most of us keep having the same argument.

It is Tuesday. The dishwasher is full. You ask your partner if they can unload it. They say, "I'll get to it."

You say, "You said that yesterday."

They reply, "Why are you starting?"

Forty minutes later, you are no longer talking about the dishwasher. You are talking about last weekend, the in-laws, who said what at dinner in March, and the toilet paper roll. Nobody knows how you got there. Both of you are convinced the other person started it.

You did not have a communication problem. You had this same argument in November. And in August. And the Tuesday before that.

What were you thinking when the dishwasher conversation started?

Not about the dishwasher.

The same thing happens when an issue keeps resurfacing at work. The one-on-one that keeps getting tense. The project that keeps stalling. The person who goes quiet during the same type of meeting. The conversation you have had with the same direct report three times this quarter.

The topic changes.

The reaction does not.

Here is what most people miss: the topic is the costume. The argument is what is wearing it.

You keep trying to fix the costume.

"Communication is key" is the worst advice you have ever been given because it sends you back into the same conversation armed with better wording. It tells you to use "I" statements, softer tones, and active listening, but none of that addresses the real argument.

You are communicating.

You are simply communicating about the wrong thing, using the wrong tools, and operating at the wrong layer.

Your shoulders know the next round is starting before your mouth does.

When that happens, stop the conversation.

Not the relationship.

Not the meeting.

The conversation.

Then ask three questions.

Ask them out loud.

Write them down if you have to.

What did I say?

What might they have heard?

What keeps showing up, no matter what the topic is?

The third question is the answer.

The first two are how you get there.