The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy—disorder in a system—naturally increases over time without intervention. This principle applies directly to product team communication: Without deliberate attention, information flow becomes increasingly disordered, creating costly blind spots for leadership.
As the executive in charge, missing critical information is not where you want to be. Should the problem linger long enough, you may find yourself face to face with serious (even irreversible) damage—to your deliverables, timelines, reputation, or all of the above.
However, recognizing what your team might not be telling you and taking steps to address the underlying issues can have a significant and near immediate impact. (We’ve seen things turn around for some organizations in a matter of weeks.)
Let’s dive in to get you ahead of the curve! (And if you just want to skip to the “how do I apply this to my team” part, take 2 minutes to check out our free diagnostic quiz and see how you’re doing.)
What your team’s not telling you
The fact of the matter is you can’t build great products with a dysfunctional team. Numerous studies have shown that a failure to communicate (insert Cool Hand Luke joke here) is often at the center of dysfunction.
At Crema, we’ve worked with product teams of all shapes and sizes, and we’ve noticed there are several common traps at the heart of most communication failures. Here are 5 we often see in our product team consulting:
1. Hidden workload imbalances
Specific team members may be strapped with heavier workloads than others, resulting in bottlenecks in your processes and a higher potential for burnout in your top performers. They’re often hesitant to discuss the issue with you because they’re worried about backlash, letting the team down, or even being fired—which only ensures the issue can’t be addressed or resolved, further intensifying the problem.
Consequence: A sure path to burnout for your best people.
2. Shifting timelines and scope
A shifting timeline is a reality of working in a fast-paced environment; however, it’s critical to understand that when timelines shift, project scope may need to be re-examined. Your team may have agreed to and accepted a new timeline without voicing concerns over an unadjusted scope. This may ultimately lead to unrealistic expectations based on what’s possible with your team’s size and workloads.
Consequence: An easy way to accelerate technical debt.
3. The domino effect of missed deadlines
While it’s unlikely you’re not in the loop on major missed deadlines, there is a definite possibility that smaller slips may not be communicated quickly. Yet missed deadlines often create a domino effect: one missed deadline will usually lead to another… then another… and another. When your product team remains silent—whether to save face or in an effort to correct on their own—you may not find out until it’s too late to get back on track and meet the overall deadline.
Consequence: A snowball effect that puts deliverables, revenue targets, and reputation at risk.
4. Emotional volatility
No one enjoys difficult, emotionally charged conversations—yet sometimes they’re necessary in the course of creating incredible products. However, because these conversations are hard, it’s easy to try to avoid them or even use shielding behaviors to protect other team members, which can mean key conversations aren’t happening. These might be conversations that need to be had with you or they might be conversations that should be happening within the team. Either way, the team can’t solve problems they can’t talk about, hindering progress and putting projects at risk.
Consequence: An easy excuse to avoid necessary conversations.
5. Misaligned definitions
This last one is a bit of a mind-bender: your team thinks they’re keeping you in the loop, but because of unclear definitions, no one is actually on the same page. For example, your team might have varying ideas of what’s considered “ready for development” and what’s “done.” However, without a universally agreed-upon definition of either term, it’s likely that work will have to be revisited multiple times and processes will be inefficient, wasting resources, burning time, and putting your results at risk.
Consequence: A misstep guaranteed to increase inefficiencies.
Get outside perspective with a Product Team Assessment
At Crema, we've built our reputation on creating exceptional product teams, and now we're offering that expertise to help elevate yours. Our product team assessments make it easy for leaders to take advantage of our experience and look at things from a different viewpoint. After all, “It’s hard to see the label from inside the jar!”
When you’re in the thick of product management, taking a step back to clearly see your team communication dynamics can be hard, but the extra effort is worth it. Teams who participate in an assessment experience:
🗣️ Stronger communication
In case we haven’t made it clear, communication is key. An assessment can uncover how often communication is happening within your team and where silence “isn’t golden.”
🔍 Employee insights
A product team assessment fully examines your team and the group dynamics. If you don’t know how your team thinks, you won’t understand what’s causing them to make certain decisions, and this lack of awareness could lead to stalls, mismanagement, or dips in productivity or morale.
🏃 A competitive edge
How well does your team stand against the competition? An assessment can help you check against industry best practices to see how you measure up and identify what may be holding your team back with recommendations for how team members can improve.
Take the first step
Communication deterioration follows a predictable pattern: small gaps become significant barriers, and eventually, strategic failures. The good news is that with proper diagnosis and targeted intervention, these patterns can be reversed.
After all, knowing is half the battle. By proactively looking for those areas where your team may be holding back, you’ll be more able to spot them. And when you’re ready for a deep dive, consider a product team assessment.
We've guided dozens of product teams through communication transformations, and when leaders implement our recommendations, they consistently report a measurable shift in team dynamics within just weeks.
This cultural transformation becomes your competitive advantage in a marketplace where the difference between good and exceptional products often comes down to how effectively teams communicate.
We’ve also put together a free diagnostic quiz you can take right now to get a sense of where your team is at. (Having been in the trenches ourselves for over a decade, we know the value of a tool that offers a quick check!) You’re just 2 minutes away from a quick gut check on how YOUR product team is doing. Take it today and let us know what you think.
