Communication Usually Fails Except by Accident
The default state of human communication is failure. Successful transmission of meaning is the exception, not the rule, and we should design our systems accordingly.
"If communication can fail, it will. If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm." Osmo Wiio
Osmo Wiio, a Finnish professor of communications, formulated a set of laws that read like Murphy's Law applied to human interaction: communication usually fails except by accident; the more you communicate, the harder it is for communication to succeed; there is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message. His most striking observation is that any conversation between two people actually involves six participants the three versions each person holds of themselves, the other person, and how the other person sees them.
This is not cynicism but a design principle. If you assume communication will succeed by default, you will chronically under-invest in clarity, repetition, and feedback loops. Camille Fournier's list of skills senior engineers need is almost entirely about communication: how to run a meeting, how to write a design doc and drive it to resolution, how to influence another team, how to repeat yourself enough that people start to listen. The emphasis on repetition is key. Fournier does not say "communicate your idea once, clearly." She says "repeat yourself enough that people start to listen" acknowledging that the first several transmissions will fail.
The German military doctrine of Auftragstaktik solved this problem by minimizing what needed to be communicated: give subordinates the intent, not the instructions, and trust them to fill in the details. Field Marshal von Moltke observed that "the greater risk is the loss of time that comes from always trying to be explicit." The paradox is that trying to communicate everything guarantees failure, while communicating less but the right things can succeed.
Takeaway: Assume every message will be misunderstood, then design your communication with enough redundancy, simplicity, and feedback to overcome that default.
See also: Ask Culture vs Guess Culture | Writing Is Thinking Made Visible | Efficiency Is The Enemy of Resilience | Pluralistic Ignorance Sustains Norms Nobody Believes