One of the most interesting parts of leading a group of students across England during last fall break was the logistical aspect of things: how do you effectively move four dozen people from one place to another on time and without losing anyone?  That translated into questions like “how often do chaperons check in with their students?” and “how often do I need to repeat even the most basic of instructions?”  Miscommunication (on both ends) is an amazing thing.

In his book The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni tackles the topic of redundancy head-on.  From the chapter on overcommunicating clarity:

Many [leaders] don’t enjoy the reminding role because it seems wasteful and inefficient to them.  They’ve been trained to avoid redundancy in virtually every aspect of their work, so embracing it in communication isn’t easy for them.  But some leaders aren’t so much worried about the wastefulness of overcommunication; they fear that repeating a message might be insulting to their audience . . .

The point of leadership is not to keep the leader entertained, but to mobilize people around what is most important.  When that calls for repetition and reinforcement, which it almost always does, a good leader relished that responsibility.

Repetition is more than just a matter of communicating something again and again in the same way.  Effective communication requires that key messages come from different sources and through various channels, using a variety of tools.

It’s funny.  In the classroom, I’ve definitely learned this.  Repetition in bits and pieces is a way of reviewing in order to turn content into background knowledge.  But it does feel different when being repetitive for peers.  I feel it every time I’m on the agenda in a faculty meeting.  Lencioni is correct, though.  Redundancy isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  More often than not, it’s a necessary and good thing.  We’ve just been trained to think otherwise.

You can read more reflection on The Advantage here, here, and here.

(image from bbc.com)