When You're Tired of Saying It, They're Just Starting to Hear It
“I don’t think this guy knows what he’s talking about. It’s hard to believe they hired him as the new president. After all, we’re a faith-based nonprofit, and he’s coming from a for-profit background. Worse, he’s been a high-level executive in a company that’s now going bankrupt. Was this really the best choice?”
These were my thoughts after being recently promoted to my first ever higher-level leadership role. Sure, I’d only been in the operations role for a handful of months, but I believed my field office experience gave me a better understanding of our work than someone from “the outside.” Had this new guy even stepped foot in a field office? I doubted it.
I saw myself as the voice of the front lines. My experience in a U.S. field office—and later traveling to audit the others—gave me broad insight into the daily realities of operations throughout our national network of offices. I wasn’t going to be one of those HQ-types who wrote annoying policies disconnected from the hard work happening on the ground.
And now, this outsider was supposed to lead us. Worse yet, I would report directly to him for the next six months while my supervisor transitioned from an international field office back to the U.S. The arrival of this new president felt like yet another obstacle in my uphill transition to leadership.
But what began as frustration turned into one of the most valuable learning experiences of my career.
When Repetition Becomes Revelation
Over the next several months, I sat in many meetings with my temporary boss. I watched him navigate complex challenges and communicate in various settings. And something started to bother me.
I kept hearing him say the same things. Over and over. It felt repetitive to the point of redundancy. Was this all he had? I’d hear him talk about strategy or values, and I’d think, Here we go again.
Then one day, it happened. I was in a conversation with one of my direct reports, and they just weren’t grasping the bigger vision I was trying to share. And then to my surprise, out of my mouth came one of the exact phrases I’d heard my boss repeat countless times.
At first, I was horrified. “Oh no,” I thought. “I’m turning into one of them! I sound just like the new guy!” But then I realized something profound: the message finally got through. The consistency of my boss’s communication had finally clicked for me, and now I was passing it on to my team.
The Real Power of Communication
I had been so wrong about my boss. I naively thought his repetition stemmed from a lack of understanding, but it was actually the opposite. He deeply understood the importance of alignment (and my lack of experience). He knew that for us to move forward as an organization, everyone—from the leadership team to the field staff—needed to internalize the same mission, vision, and values.
His consistency wasn’t a flaw; it was a strategy. He hammered home the fundamentals in every context and meeting. And now, without realizing it, I was doing the same. The mission, vision, and values were no longer stopping with me—they were flowing through me to my team.
A Lesson I’ll Never Forget
Over the years, I’ve learned this about communication: When you’re tired of saying something, your team is just starting to hear it. Repetition isn’t overkill—it’s how alignment happens.
One of the best measures of whether you’ve communicated enough is when others start saying the same thing without your prompting. So now, even when I’m tempted to think, They already know this. Do I really need to say it again?, I remember that lesson.
When I’m sick of saying it, I’m probably getting close.