How I Learned That Communication Is Everything

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." – George Bernard Shaw

In the fast-paced world of tech, where speed and scale often dominate the conversation, communication tends to get brushed aside as a "soft skill." It's not flashy like a new feature launch. It's not measurable like system monitoring. But it’s the one skill that underpins everything else—and in operations, it's non-negotiable.

In Ops, you're not just responsible for making things work—you’re responsible for making them understood, adopted, and executed across teams. You can’t do that without being crystal clear, intentional, and empathetic in how you communicate. Communication isn’t just helpful. It’s mandatory. It’s what transforms analysis into direction, blockers into next steps, and team silos into alignment.

When communication is lacking, it doesn’t matter how sharp your insights are or how fast your response time is—if people don’t understand you, they can’t move with you.

It’s a multiplier.

Great communication doesn’t just make you more likable. It makes you more effective. It's the connective tissue between analysis and action, strategy and execution, people and process. Without it, even the best ideas fall flat.

Communication = Stakeholder Management

Operations is about making things work—not in isolation, but across teams, functions, and time zones. Every update you share, every question you ask, every presentation you give is a chance to either build clarity or create confusion.

In Ops, good communication often is stakeholder management.

You're constantly adapting your style:

• Explaining tech limitations to a business team in non-jargon.
• Negotiating with product teams why we need to move in a specific direction, aligning priorities with clarity and empathy to gain support.
• Sharing metrics with leadership in a way that highlights implications, not just numbers.

The key? It’s not about what you say—it’s about what they take away.

“The value of communication lies not in what is said, but in what is understood.” – Daniel Keys Moran

That quote became a turning point for me. I realized I could be articulate, detailed, even passionate—but if the person on the other end didn’t walk away with the right message, it didn’t matter.

So I started asking myself after every interaction:

• What do I want them to walk away knowing, feeling, or doing?
• What assumptions might they be bringing into this?
• How can I simplify the message without dumbing it down?

One technique that helped: flipping the order. Instead of leading with context and ending with the takeaway, I started with the bottom line. “Here’s the issue. Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s how you can help.” Then I layered in context only if needed.

From Analysis to Action

A huge part of Ops is turning insight into execution. But analysis doesn’t drive change on its own—narrative does.

Often we spend several weeks meticulously investigating the root causes of bugs that significantly impacts the business. The post-mortems we produce are usually thorough—10 pages of logs, metrics, timelines, and technical insights. From an engineering perspective, they’re close to perfect.

But then we bring that same document to leadership. We walk them through every detail, confident in our accuracy. And yet, when the meeting ends, there’s no urgency, no follow-up, and—critically—no behavior change across the teams who need to take action.

Why? Because even though we explained what happened, we didn’t communicate what mattered. The impact to the business wasn’t framed clearly. The root causes weren’t connected to strategic risks. And the recommendations? Lost in technical nuance. The story simply didn’t land with the non-technical decision-makers in the room.

The lesson? A well-run analysis means little if people can’t act on it. Communication must bridge the gap between precision and persuasion.

Strong communicators do three things:

1. Connect data to decisions. Instead of just surfacing metrics, they frame the implications. (“This 12% rise in ETA is losing 100+ riders each day.”)
2. Make problems actionable. They organize chaos into steps. (“Here are three things we will try this week to unblock the flow.”)
3. Drive urgency with clarity. They don’t just ask for help—they define what kind of help is needed, by when, and why it matters.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

Communication Is More Than Words

Most people think of communication as talking. But it’s also:

• Structure – Are your ideas ordered logically?
• Tone – Are you creating urgency or panic?
• Medium – Should this be a meeting, a Loom, or a Notion doc?
• Delivery – Are you pacing, pausing, and emphasizing the right moments?

Even silence is communication. So is white space in a doc. So is bulleting vs. paragraphs. So is a typo in an email to execs.

It’s all part of the signal you’re sending.

Want to test how effective your communication is? Try asking a colleague to summarize what you just explained. If they can’t, the issue isn’t them—it’s clarity.

Clarity is what transforms communication from noise into signal. In a fast-moving environment like tech, people are overloaded with information and distractions. If your message isn’t clear, it gets lost—misinterpreted, deprioritized, or ignored. But when you communicate with precision and simplicity, you reduce cognitive load, align expectations, and make it easier for others to act. Clear communication respects people’s time, enables faster decisions, and builds confidence in your leadership.

Rapport is a Superpower

In Ops, you don’t always have authority—but you do need influence. That’s where rapport comes in.

Great communicators build trust before they need it. They don’t just drop messages in Slack—they drop into conversations. They check in. They show up with empathy.

That doesn’t mean being overly chatty or fake. It means being intentional:

• Learn how people prefer to communicate (DMs vs. calls vs. async docs).
• Remember what matters to them (deadlines, goals, blockers).
• Validate effort, not just results.

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." – Theodore Roosevelt

Relationships aren’t just nice to have—they’re accelerators. They make alignment faster, feedback more honest, and execution smoother.

In high-pressure environments like tech, things move fast—and often unpredictably. When deadlines shift, tools break, or priorities collide, it’s the strength of your relationships that determines how quickly and collaboratively people respond. Having trust already built means you can ask for a favor without layers of explanation, push back on an idea without creating tension, and surface risks early without fear. Relationships turn transactions into partnerships, and partnerships are what carry teams through complexity and change.

How I Got Better (and Still Am)

Improving my communication didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t about taking one course or reading one book. It was about building daily habits that compounded over time.

Here’s what helped—and how I practiced each:

Watching how great communicators structure their thoughts

I started paying attention to people who always made complex things sound simple. What did they do? They framed things. They didn’t just give data—they gave context, contrast, and consequence.

So I started copying them:

• “Here’s the situation. Here’s the challenge. Here’s my recommendation.”
• “Here are three options, and here’s the tradeoff for each.”

Pro tip: Listen to podcast interviews with execs. Pause and write down how they answered hard questions. That structure? It’s gold.

Recording myself before important presentations

At first, it felt weird. But I’d record myself doing dry runs of slide decks or standups. Then I’d watch: Where did I ramble? Did I say “um” too much? Did I sound confident or rushed?

Small tweaks (like pausing for 1.5 seconds after the opening sentence) made a huge difference.

Rewriting Slack messages to be 30% shorter

I started editing my messages with one goal: Make it effortless to read. That meant:

• One idea per message
• No long walls of text
• Clear asks in bold or with 🔑 emojis
• TL;DRs at the top of complex threads

It wasn’t dumbing down—it was respecting people’s time and attention.

Using silence more intentionally

In meetings, I used to feel pressure to respond immediately. But I learned that pausing before replying made me sound more thoughtful—and helped others feel heard.

I also started using silence after asking a question. People usually fill the gap with something insightful.

Asking for feedback after meetings

At first, I’d just ask: “Did that land the way I hoped?” Then I got more specific:

• “Was that too detailed or not enough?”
• “What could I have done to make that clearer?”

That feedback loop helped me iterate and improve fast.

Want to Improve? Start Here:

Reads:

• “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath – Learn how to make ideas memorable and actionable.
• “Crucial Conversations” by Patterson, Grenny, McMillan & Switzler – Learn how to navigate high-stakes, emotional conversations with clarity.
• “The Pyramid Principle” by Barbara Minto – Especially useful if you write a lot. This book teaches you how to structure your thinking in a way that makes people listen.

Watch:

• Julian Treasure – How to Speak So That People Want to Listen (TED)
• Simon Sinek – Start With Why
• Amy Cuddy – Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are

Final thought:

“Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity.”

If you work in tech—and especially if you’re in operations—communication isn’t just a nice add-on. It’s a force multiplier. When done well, it unlocks clarity, drives impact, and builds real human connection.

So start practicing. A little better every day. One message, one meeting, one moment at a time.