Call People In, Not Out

Ever felt like a slack message slapped you in the face? Like someone dropped a comment in a team meeting that made your chest tighten or stomach churn, even though the words were technically “professional”?

That’s what happens when communication forgets the human on the other end.

In too many workspaces — startups, agencies, nonprofits, you name it — the default communication style leans cold, clipped, and transactional. Efficiency becomes the goal, tone gets lost, and people start bracing themselves every time a notification pops up. It’s the “just being direct” defense. The “don’t take it personally” shrug. But here’s the truth: if the culture trains people to be on guard, it’s not productive. It’s self-protection masquerading as clarity.

In healthy cultures, communication isn’t just about passing information. It’s about building trust, layer by layer, word by word. That only happens when we start with a people-first attitude — not to coddle, but to connect.

I have worked in a team that prided itself on radical transparency. But somewhere along the way, that transparency became a blunt instrument. Feedback was rapid-fire, praise rare, and mistakes were called out in public channels with a tone that made even high-performers shrink. People didn’t leave because of the workload — they left because their nervous systems couldn’t take it.

Source: Freepik

Contrast that with another team I supported, where the culture was rooted in calling people in, not out. That didn’t mean conflict disappeared. But disagreements were invitations, not accusations. “Help me understand your thinking here” replaced “This doesn’t make sense.” Leaders asked how someone was doing, not just what they were doing. People didn’t have to earn grace — they started with it.

That’s the difference.

A people-first approach to communication doesn’t mean you tiptoe around the truth. It means you choose words that open doors instead of building walls. You assume good intent. You leave room for context. You remember that how you say something matters as much as what you say.

In this kind of culture, communication feels like a bridge, not a battleground. It calls people forward, instead of putting them on the defensive. And that shift — from jarring to generous, from sharp to sincere — is what transforms workplaces into communities where people actually want to stay, grow, and speak up.

Because when communication honors the person, the work gets better too. Every time.