he failure to communicate well in the commercial environment is a significant factor in poor customer relations and employee discontent. It leads to the failure of businesses to achieve their potential and, in extreme cases, to business failure itself.

In one infamous case in 1991 the UK jewelery chain Ratners, worth over 500m, almost collapsed overnight when its founder and Chief Executive denigrated the company’s products in public.

In a speech at the Institute of Directors Gerald Ratner announced that one of his firms products, a sherry decanter with six glasses, was cheap because it was complete rubbish. Confidence in the company collapsed, and what was a successful retailer became a laughing stock, soon disappearing from the British High Street. A high price to pay for a badly planned sentence.

There is more to poor communication than mis-judged words. A few years ago Microsoft conducted a survey of 38,000 employees in 200 countries highlighted that poor communication wasted significant amounts of time. Ineffective meetings were singled out as a particular problem.

If weak communication is known to be a major problem within organisations, good communication skills are going to be a major asset at both a personal and corporate level. The ability to get the right message across in a simple, effective manner offers crucial benefits, as those who get it wrong, like Gerald Ratner, have learned to their cost.

The main benefit of good communication is improved effectiveness. When a strong, unambiguous message is broadcast it leaves the hearer is no doubt of what was meant or as to what they should do. This principle applies to communication at a one-to-one level and right up to company-wide messages which might also be multinational. It also applies to internal and external communications.

A good communicator knows what they want to say, and that involves planning. When Apple launch a new product their message is crystal clear. For example, the iPhone, they said, would revolutionise they way we use mobile telephones. It turned out that they were right. But it was at least in part a self-fulfilling message – people wanted to make the iPhone more just a phone because Apple told them they should.

The principle of clarity remains valid at the level of the individual. If a manager wants to brief an employee about a new task they must invest time in planning what they will say, and how they will say it. This might only take a few minutes, but it can lead to a message which is clearer and more effective than a rambling, off-the-cuff, briefing which can leave the employee confused, even upset. I’ve seen it happen – good news can be delivered so badly that it sounds like bad news.

The importance of good communication skills in business cannot be underrated, and its effectiveness does not depend on technology, but the quality of the message. As Joseph Priestly said: “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”