Agreement Isn’t Confirmation: A Lesson in Effective Workplace Communication

Agreement isn't confirmation. That's not a catchphrase I asked ChatGPT or Claude to come up with because I needed something witty for LinkedIn. It's how one of my event sponsorships almost didn't happen.

In the 2010s, I was working with a sales rep at 13WHAM ABC to promote a local home and garden show. The organizers liked having news personalities involved when possible, which usually meant members of the sports or weather teams or morning-show talent who enjoyed getting out into the community.

For this particular annual sponsorship, I got Matt Molloy and Scott Hetsko. If you watch Rochester, NY television you probably know the duo. They also hosted their own Facebook Live variety show, and putting the two of them together in front of an audience usually meant something entertaining was going to happen.

The idea was simple. We'd partner with one of the food vendors already attending the home and garden show for a friendly cooking competition. Viewers could enter to win tickets to the show and the opportunity to become Matt or Scott's cooking partner. One winner would join each team.

Matt and Scott agreed to the concept. The event sponsor agreed. The cooking sponsor agreed.

We were doing this.

So I did what I thought was the responsible thing. I sent Matt and Scott a long email.

Everything You Need to Know Is in the Email

The email had everything: where they needed to be, when they needed to arrive, what we'd be doing, event logistics, and all the other information I thought they could possibly need. At the bottom, I asked them to reply if they had any questions.

No reply came, and I made an assumption: no questions = we're good. I kept planning. Then came the week of the event. I got pulled into a conference call with my News Director. Matt and Scott were trying to figure out where they needed to be and when for the home and garden show that weekend.

Um. It's in the email. I could point to the message and say I'd sent everything. I had technically communicated the information. That didn't change the fact that we now had to sprint to coordinate schedules and make sure everyone could still get to the event.

The sponsorship happened, but I learned something from the scramble: sending information isn't the same as confirming that information was received and understood. That distinction has become an important part of how I think about effective workplace communication.

How Often Do We Do This at Work?

Think about how many emails you've received from management announcing a new project, process, or policy. Sometimes there's a sentence at the bottom: If you have any questions, let me know. Or: No response is necessary if you agree.

That's efficient. It's also remarkably easy to misinterpret silence. Maybe everyone read it, understood it, and agreed. Maybe someone skimmed it between meetings and planned to come back later. Maybe they thought somebody else was responsible. Maybe they agreed with the general idea but missed the part about what they personally needed to do. Maybe the email is currently sitting under 47 other unread messages.

All of those situations produce the exact same response: nothing. Effective workplace communication can't always stop when the message has been sent. Sometimes the important part is confirming what happened on the other end.

I Did It in My Classroom, Too

Years later, I realized I'd carried a version of the same habit into teaching. I'd explain a new concept or assignment and ask, “Do you have any questions?” No hands. Great. Everyone understands.

Except that's a yes-or-no question where no is the easiest possible answer. So I started changing the question. Instead of “Do you have any questions?” I ask, “What questions do you have?”

I use the same phrasing at the end of mock job interviews with my students. It's a tiny linguistic difference, but the assumption changes. The first question asks whether a question exists. The second assumes questions are normal and gives people space to ask them.

Sometimes there still aren't any questions. That's fine. The important part is that I'm no longer treating silence as evidence that I've been understood.

The Story Behind the Strategy

Looking back, Matt and Scott hadn't done anything wrong by agreeing to participate. They had agreed to the concept. I was the one who assumed that agreement, plus an unanswered logistics email, meant everything had been confirmed.

Those are different things. A person can agree with a project without knowing what happens next. They can support an idea without understanding their responsibility. They can read an email without absorbing the important part. And they can remain silent without communicating anything at all.

This week's Story Behind the Strategy posts have all circled around versions of the same problem: we often give silence more meaning than it deserves.

On Monday, it was the difference between compliance and consensus. On Wednesday, it was what happens when an executive suggestion enters a room with enough authority that nobody feels empowered to challenge it. And sometimes it's much simpler: we sent an email and assumed everyone was good because nobody replied.

So What?

Sometimes effective workplace communication needs a closed loop. Instead of Here's everything you need. Let me know if you have questions, try Please confirm you've received this and that the time works for you.

Instead of Does everyone understand? ask What questions do you have?

Instead of I'll assume we're all set unless I hear otherwise, ask Can you confirm we're all set?

It takes a little more effort. It might even create another email in everyone's inbox. But I've learned that an extra reply is considerably easier to manage than a conference call with the News Director four days before two television personalities are supposed to have a cook-off.

Agreement isn't confirmation. And silence definitely isn't a calendar invite.