The project is behind schedule. Everyone knows why. The engineering team blames unclear requirements. Product blames shifting priorities. Leadership blames execution. We've all been in this meeting.
What strikes me now, looking back at years of these situations, is how rarely the stated problem is the actual problem. Behind "unclear requirements" is usually a conversation that never happened, an assumption that was never checked, a question that felt too risky to ask. Behind "shifting priorities" is often a failure to communicate constraints, or a leader who changed direction without explaining why. Behind "execution issues" is frequently a team that didn't feel safe saying "we can't do this in that timeframe" until it was too late.
Once I started looking for the communication failure underneath the presenting problem, I found it almost every time. Two departments in conflict? Somewhere there's a misunderstanding that never got surfaced. A hire who isn't working out? Usually the expectations were never actually aligned, just assumed. A strategy that's not getting traction? Often the real concerns never made it up the chain because the environment didn't make that safe.
This isn't about blame. It's about leverage. When you understand that most professional problems are communication problems in disguise, you gain a different kind of access to them. Instead of solving the surface issue over and over, you can address the communication pattern that generates it. That's where the lasting change happens. Fix the conversation, and the problem often fixes itself.