Is ‘I Thought YOU Were Handling That!’ Costing Your Team?

“I thought YOU were handling that!”

These six words are alarm bells for communication dysfunction in any organization. They surface in missed deadlines, overlooked tasks, and confused customers. They're uttered in tense meetings where everyone thought someone else was responsible.

Think about the last time you heard some version of this phrase. Was it when a customer called about a proposal they never received? Or when two departments duplicated work because neither knew what the other was doing? Maybe it was when an important task fell through the cracks during a team transition.

These moments aren't just frustrating—they're expensive. They waste your team's time, damage customer relationships, and slowly erode the trust that keeps your organization functioning. Worse, they demoralize your best people, who end up cleaning up messes they didn't create.

The Gap Between Good Communicators and Good Communication

You might have excellent communicators throughout your company—people who write clear emails, return calls promptly, and articulate their ideas well. Yet you still face communication breakdowns. Why?

Organizational communication isn't just about individual skills; it's about systems that ensure information reaches the right people at the right time, regardless of who's involved.

The foundation starts with everyone understanding your organization's purpose, goals, and values. These aren't just nice statements—they're decision-making frameworks. When everyone shares this understanding, they connect their daily work to the bigger picture and make consistent choices about what information matters and where it needs to go.

Start by Looking in the Mirror

When examining your company's communication structure, start with your own habits. Are you crystal clear about what you expect from others? Do you provide enough context when delegating? Do you check that people truly understand what you're asking, or do you assume they do?

These small gaps compound quickly. You might be so focused on solving problems that you forget to loop in the right people. Your team might hesitate to raise concerns if your reactions have inadvertently discouraged openness.

Ask yourself: Do I check in consistently, or only when there's a problem? Do people leave my meetings with clarity or confusion? Do I acknowledge good communication, or only address breakdowns? These questions reveal how communication feels to those around you.

Then encourage your team to do the same self-reflection. When everyone takes responsibility for their communication habits, information flows more freely in all directions.

Building Cross-Departmental Bridges

The most damaging breakdowns happen between departments. Marketing creates promotions without consulting operations. Sales makes promises without checking with delivery teams. IT implements systems without understanding user needs.

Forward-thinking companies address this by creating structures specifically designed to connect information across boundaries. They form knowledge integration teams with the authority to identify and fix information gaps. They implement shadowing programs where employees spend meaningful time learning about their challenges and language in other departments.

Some organizations create dedicated translator roles—people connecting departments and ensuring critical information moves between teams. These are skilled communicators who can speak the language of different functional areas and spot connections others miss.

Making Information Visible to Everyone

One of the most powerful changes you can implement is creating information spaces everyone can access. When your organization sees dashboards showing how different departments contribute to shared goals, teamwork improves dramatically.

Instead of competing for resources, departments start collaborating toward common objectives. People understand how their work impacts others and how they fit into the bigger picture. This transparency transforms thinking from "my department" to "our company."

Testing Your Communication From Multiple Angles

To truly understand your communication effectiveness, experience your business from different perspectives. Spend time with customer service handling calls. Shadow your delivery team. Sit with accounting as they process transactions. Each position encounters different communication challenges.

Test your communication channels as if you were an outsider. Call your main phone line. Submit a question through your website. Email a department address. See if information reaches its destination efficiently.

Ask vendors for brutally honest feedback. Do they receive consistent information when dealing with different departments? Or do they waste time reconciling conflicting messages? Their experience reveals how well your internal teams are aligned.

Finding What Works and Expanding It

Not everything needs fixing. Some teams naturally develop effective communication practices worth spreading throughout your organization. Perhaps your product team has an elegant documentation system, or your field staff has created efficient handoff protocols. These homegrown solutions often work better than imported systems because they address real operational needs.

Keeping Communication Human

Even the best systems depend on people using them effectively. Build a culture where curiosity and clarity are valued. Encourage everyone to ask: "Who else needs this information? Have I made this clear enough?" When people adopt this mindset, communication becomes proactive rather than reactive.

Mistakes will still happen. But with solid structures and habits, they become learning opportunities rather than disasters. The goal isn't perfection—it's resilience.

Simple Steps to Start Today

Not sure where to begin? Start with a recent breakdown—a time when someone said, "I thought YOU were handling that." Analyze what went wrong, who was left out of the loop, and why information didn't flow correctly. This real-world example will reveal specific improvements needed in your organization.

Check whether your team truly understands your company's direction. Ask casually about your mission and goals, and listen to the responses. If people give wildly different answers, it's time to realign everyone with your core purpose.

Finally, establish a new communication routine that addresses a specific gap you've identified. It might be a brief daily check-in, a shared status document, or a weekly email update. Don't add bureaucracy—create clarity.

From Breakdown to Breakthrough

When you transform "I thought YOU were handling that" into "We've got this covered," everything changes. Projects move forward smoothly. Customers receive consistent service. Team members feel supported rather than frustrated.

Building effective organizational communication isn't complicated—it just requires intention and attention. When everyone's informed, aligned, and connected, your business doesn't just communicate better. It performs better.

And those six words that once signaled problems? They'll gradually disappear from your company's vocabulary, replaced by something much more powerful: "Let me show you what we accomplished together."

Anne Lackey is the cofounder of HireSmart Virtual Employees,, a full-service HR firm helping others recruit, hire, and train top global talent. She has coached and trained hundreds of U.S. and Canadian businesses to be more profitable and to create the lifestyle they desire. She can be reached at anne@hiresmartvirtualemployees.com or at meetwithanne.com.