Every leader agrees that communication needs to be clear. But in large organizations, the word functions as a blank check. For the legal team, "clear" means the language is legally precise. For the Marketing team, "clear" means the message is emotionally engaging. For the Operations team, "clear" means the message contains a single, unmistakable instruction.
This is where the structure breaks down. Because clarity is subjective, every department has the license to prioritize its own functional needs. Compliance focuses on exhaustive policy adherence, while Finance focuses on aggressive simplicity for tracking. Both teams are effective within their own walls, but when their outputs meet, they instantly clash.
The manager responsible for acting on both a simple financial directive and a complex new policy document needs to stop and mediate the conflict. They waste hours deciding which department's definition of "clear" takes precedence, or they create their own workarounds.
This problem is the massive hidden cost of subjective communication. The organization is running separate operations under the pretense of a single strategy. The system absorbs cost in time and error, compensating for the lack of a shared understanding of what "clear" actually means.
The solution is to stop debating subjective clarity and replace it with a technical standard. Clarity must be defined by one thing: usability. For a message to be truly clear across every department, it must consistently satisfy two requirements for every recipient: "What does this require me to do?" and "How will I measure success?"
When every department is held to this same technical standard of usability, the resulting messages align instantly. You stop debating semantics and start enforcing an objective measure of performance. You unify the organization by unifying the definition of the word "clear."
The only way to unify the organization is to enforce a single definition of clarity.
