Category: Communication

I’ve been thinking a lot about what actually happens when people hold genuinely different views and don’t rush to smooth them over. When instead of advocating for one view over the other, you take an integrated approach.

A very real example from my own life right now is house hunting.

My spouse and I came into this process with overlapping values and some pretty significant differences. We both wanted a safe neighbourhood, a good school district, a place that would support our family long term. That part was easy.

Where we diverged was on priorities.

A shorter commute mattered deeply to him. And I initially saw that as a constraint. A shorter commute meant fewer neighbourhoods, fewer options, fewer features in the price range we could afford. As someone who works from home and spends most of my time in the house, I cared a lot about the size, the layout, and especially the kitchen. The house isn’t just where I sleep, it’s where I live my entire day.

At first, it felt like a tradeoff. His priority versus mine.

But instead of papering over the disagreement, we stayed in it. We talked it through. We pushed on each other’s assumptions. We didn’t treat disagreement as something to resolve quickly, but as something to understand properly.

And within a few conversations, things shifted.

I realized his long commute wasn’t just his problem. An hour-long commute each way has meant long stretches of solo parenting every single day for me. It has meant less attachment time between our son and his dad. It has meant evenings that felt compressed and rushed. It has meant chores piling up, balance slipping, and a general sense that life is harder than it needs to be. A shorter commute wasn’t just about his comfort, it was deeply tied to my happiness and to the kind of family rhythm we both wanted.

At the same time, he came to see that prioritizing commute at the absolute expense of the house itself didn’t make sense either. The size of the home, the flow of the space, and especially the kitchen mattered to how we live. This is where meals happen, where people gather, where so much of daily life unfolds. A house that technically checked boxes but made everyday life harder wouldn’t actually serve us.

What we ended up with wasn’t a compromise in the “everyone gives something up” sense. It was a better prioritization model altogether. A more integrated model. One that neither of us would have arrived at on our own.

And it struck me how important that is, and also how uncommon it can be.

Instead of one take winning over another, we ended up with a brand new take, one that was better than either of the original ones.

This pattern shows up everywhere: in families, in friendships, in teams trying to make hard calls together. The context changes, but the dynamic doesn’t.

Diverse views don’t weaken decisions when people are willing to stay open.

They make them more sound. More resilient. More honest.

When you’re not afraid of healthy disagreement, you stop optimizing for your own list and start designing for the system you’re actually part of. It’s the difference between defending a position and actually trying to get somewhere good together.

In our case, that system is our family. And the outcome is a house hunt strategy that’s more balanced, healthier, and stronger than either of our original lists alone.

The best outcomes rarely come from one perspective winning. They come from multiple perspectives being taken seriously, long enough to reveal what actually matters.

Google Calendar has this habit of suggesting titles like Their Name / My Name whenever I book a one-on-one. It’s fine, but over time I realized it makes the event clearer for me, not for the person I’m inviting.

So I flip it.

If I’m the one scheduling the call, I rename it to My Name / Their Name. When it lands on their calendar, the first thing they see is who they’re meeting with: me. They don’t have to parse anything or read to the end of the title. It’s just immediately obvious.

And honestly, it doesn’t cost me anything. I’m already blind to my own name in event titles, so I naturally jump straight to the second name anyway.

It’s a tiny, subtle thing but it makes the interaction feel a little more intentional. A little more considerate. And those small touches add up, especially when your calendar is packed with people you’re trying to build good rhythms with.

The other day I found myself thinking about how differently organizations communicate.

Some teams love long, detailed proposals with every scenario mapped out. Others rely on slide decks, designed to tell a story quickly. Some live almost entirely in async threads and comment chains.

And I remembered a conversation from years ago, someone saying they found their company’s communication style ineffective, that this other way was so much better. I remember nodding along, maybe even quietly agreeing that yes, our way wasn’t great, but what could you do?

That was some years ago.

Since then, I’ve changed my mind.

I still think certain modes of communication work better for certain kinds of information. But I don’t believe any one of them is inherently better. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. When a company develops a default way of sharing ideas, that doesn’t happen by accident. It says something about what the organization values, how decisions are made, and what kind of people thrive there.

There’s a lot you can learn from that, if you’re paying attention.

And more importantly: if you want to be effective in that environment, it’s on you to get good at communicating that way. Not to surrender to it grudgingly, but to recognize that there’s a shared language here, a shorthand everyone understands, and if you can speak it fluently, you’ll get a lot farther.

That doesn’t mean you have to abandon your own preferences. If you think best in detailed docs, write the doc. But when it’s time to present your thinking, translate it into the form people expect. If your execs want slides, make good slides. If your team thrives in async threads, learn to write tight, scannable posts that keep momentum going.

The point is: communicate in the way that helps your message land.

Trying to change how an entire organization communicates is a massive undertaking. It’s tempting, especially when you’re convinced your way is more efficient or clearer, but change like that requires deep alignment, trust, and timing. Without that, it’s just friction.

And in most cases, there are bigger, more meaningful problems to solve than the format your ideas take.

So these days, I try to observe how people share information before worrying about what they’re sharing. Every organization has a communication culture, and the fastest way to be effective is to learn its language first.

Later, once you’ve earned trust and built credibility, maybe you can help evolve it. But you can’t skip the first step, learning the lay of the land.

Because ultimately, good communication isn’t about your personal preference. It’s about connection, understanding, and getting things done together.

What I like remind myself is: the onus is always on you to be understood, not on others to understand you.