Meetings, stand-ups, 1:1s, check-ins. "Just slot something in."

The discussions are flying around the workplace. Yet, the results often fall short. There is a lot of talking, but little understanding. Decisions seem clear, but everyone leaves with a different view. Before you know it, an hour has passed and all energy has long clocked out.

And we haven't even talked about the format. One colleague wants to go through each agenda item point by point, while another prefers to throw a few to-dos in Slack. For some, a meeting is a sign of engagement; for others, it cannot go fast enough. And this is exactly where verbal and non-verbal miscommunication sneaks into teams.

It's not that teams talk too little. The problem is that they don't speak the same language.

Surprise surprise: talking is not the same as understanding

A lot of talking is not genuine communication. In many organizations, meetings have turned into rituals: everyone sits down, says something, checks off a point, and then often leaves with a different view. It’s the illusion of alignment. This is precisely where communication problems arise in the workplace. Not because people don’t want to, but because there is no shared language about what words, signals, or decisions actually mean.

The impact of miscommunication in the workplace

This difference in language is not a detail; it is one of the biggest energy drains in teams. The State of Business Communication Report (Grammarly, 2024) shows that knowledge workers spend nearly 90% of their workweek communicating via various channels. Yet, more than half experience stress due to miscommunication, with consequences like: lower productivity, disrupted relationships, and missed deadlines.

The Communication Statistics Report (2024) also shows that 63% of employees say they waste valuable time due to communication problems. It's no surprise, as in Microsoft’s Work Trend Index 2025, it states that employees get interrupted by an email, message, or meeting on average every 2 minutes. That adds up to about 275 interruptions per workday (!). Moreover, 57% of meetings are ad hoc, with no agenda or clear preparation. No wonder teams struggle with so many distractions.

Different communication styles in teams

The communication styles within teams always vary. A short, clear message can come across as blunt. Well-meaning feedback can sound like criticism. Generation gaps in the workplace amplify these differences. In our previous blog [The reason you don’t understand your Gen Z employees. And they don’t understand you.], we show how each generation brings its own communication style and pace of work. The result? Teams talk, but don’t always understand each other.

On top of that, non-verbal communication plays a significant role. Tone, pauses, body language, or even emojis color the message. What feels light-hearted and human to one person may seem unprofessional or unclear to another. Especially in hybrid teams, where many of those signals are missing, the chance of miscommunication only increases.

AI and communication problems in the workplace

Meanwhile, AI is also joining the table. Chatbots that write emails, summarize meetings, and smooth out feedback. Convenient, but also risky: communication becomes faster, but sometimes flatter.

At the same time, younger generations, such as Gen Z and Gen Alpha, seamlessly embrace AI as a shortcut to save time and make room for creativity. For older colleagues, it can feel impersonal or unnatural. This difference in trust in technology can widen the generation gap. This is precisely where the challenge lies: connecting different communication styles in the workplace, so that collaboration generates energy once again.