You Don’t Need Everyone On The First Bus

Some of the communication advice handed to leaders is brilliant. Some of it would require a leader to be six people at once.

A lot of communication coaching asks leaders to speak to the whole room. Give the big picture for the strategic thinkers and the detail for the analysts. Bring the numbers for the people who trust facts and the story for the people who trust feelings. Keep it moving for the ones who wanted to start yesterday, while reassuring the ones who won't take a step until they've read the appendix, the appendix to the appendix, and the risk register.

On paper it sounds inclusive. In practice it's exhausting, and close to impossible. Try it and you end up with a thirty-minute update that has something for everyone and lands with no one. The big-picture people tuned out at the spreadsheet. The detail people stopped trusting you the moment you said "roughly". The fast movers checked their email. The careful ones left with more questions than they arrived with.

Every leadership book seems to have a bus in it

Leadership writing has a strange fondness for buses. Jim Collins told us to get the right people on the bus. Countless keynotes since have told us who should drive it, who should sit up the back, and who needs to get off at the next stop.

I've long believed buses teach a different lesson. If you miss a bus, it's mildly annoying. You stand there, perhaps mutter something unrepeatable, and then, not too long after, another one turns up heading in exactly the same direction. Anyone who has waited for a bus in Melbourne knows "not too long" is a flexible term, but the principle holds.

The driver doesn't hold the bus for twenty minutes while everyone at the stop grabs a coffee. The driver doesn't do a lap of the block to collect the person running late. The bus leaves, follows the same route and sticks to the timetable.

That's a far healthier model for leadership communication than much of what is taught.

Holding the doors open hurts the people already on board

When leaders try to bring everyone along at the same moment, they hold the doors. They re-explain, re-frame, add another slide, schedule another meeting. The people already on board get restless. The people still on the footpath feel pressured and watched. The leader gets frustrated that half the team "still doesn't get it".

It's painful for everyone involved, and it often has the opposite effect to the one intended. The more a leader adjusts the message to win over each sceptic, the more the message drifts. By the fourth version, even the early adopters aren't sure what they signed up for.

People don't come on board at the same time. They never have. Everett Rogers mapped this decades ago in his work on the diffusion of innovations: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Different people, different timetables, same destination. Rogers wasn't describing a failure of communication. He was describing how humans take on something new.

Repetition does the work you're trying to cram into one meeting

John Kotter argued in Leading Change that leaders routinely under-communicate their vision by a factor of ten or more. Psychologists have long documented the mere exposure effect: we tend to warm to things simply because we've encountered them before. Familiarity builds comfort, and comfort builds willingness. That is why, in the lead-up to the Victorian election, politicians who have been hiding for four years are suddenly plastered all over the media.

Kotter's research and the politicians' campaign strategy point to the same thing. The leader's job is less about crafting the perfect message for every personality in the room, and more about delivering a clear message, consistently, for long enough that people can board when they're ready.

The big-picture thinker gets it on day one. The detail person gets it on the third pass, once they've had time to check the numbers. The cautious one gets it after they've watched it hold up for a couple of months. None of them needed you to rewrite the message. They needed you to keep running the route.

Running the same route, week after week

A few practical shifts:

Decide what the message is, then stop editing it for each audience. You can change the examples. You can change the format. Where you're heading and why remain the same.

Say it more often than feels necessary. If you're sick of hearing yourself say it, your team is probably hearing it properly for the first time.

Make the next bus visible. Tell people when the next chance to ask questions, see the detail or test the idea will be. People relax when they know this wasn't their only opportunity.

Stop chasing. Keep pulling the same person aside for one more private chat and you teach them that the destination is negotiable if they push back long enough.

Notice who's on board, not only who isn't. Leaders can pour so much energy into the people still on the footpath that the people who boarded early feel ignored. They're your best advocates. Give them a seat near the front and let them talk.

Why consultation-heavy cultures struggle with this most

I see this pattern most in organisations working through change, particularly in government and the not-for-profit sector, where consultation is valued and no one wants to be accused of leaving people behind. That instinct is a good one. It becomes a problem when "bringing people with us" turns into "waiting until everyone agrees before we move".

Underneath most attempts to communicate to everyone at once sits a quiet anxiety: if I don't win them over now, I've lost them. That's rarely true. People who miss the first bus aren't lost. They're waiting for the next one.

Compassion in leadership looks a lot like a reliable timetable. A leader who says the same thing in March as in September. Who doesn't punish people for boarding late. Who doesn't make the people already seated wait while they negotiate with the footpath.

Inconsistency is what actually leaves people behind. If the route changes every time someone complains, the person who finally decides to get on finds the bus has gone somewhere else entirely.

Some people were always heading somewhere else

There are people who watch three, four, five buses go past and never get on. They're not slow. They've read the destination on the front and decided it isn't where they want to go.

That's allowed. It's healthy, even.

No one stands at a bus stop demanding the driver change the route because they'd prefer to go somewhere else. They catch a different bus. In workplaces, that looks like someone moving to another team, or finding another job that suits them better. Leaders often treat that as a failure of communication. More often, the communication worked. The person understood exactly where the bus was going and made an informed decision.

I describe my approach as compassionately confrontational, and this is where both halves earn their keep. The confrontational part is being honest about the destination, and not changing the sign on the front to suit whoever's still on the footpath. It also means not painting a fairytale picture of the journey to coax the reluctant on board. If the road ahead has potholes, say so. The compassionate part is accepting that they may choose another route, and wishing them well rather than taking it personally.

A leader who won't leave the stop until everyone is on board ends up with a bus parked at the kerb, engine running, the passengers becoming frustrated.

Let them go, and the bus keeps running. That's the whole point of a bus.

Your job is the timetable, not the passenger list

Trying to speak to every preference in the room at once makes leaders hard work to listen to, and leaves them exhausted. The big-picture people, the detail people, the fast movers and the careful planners don't need four versions of you. They need one version they can rely on.

Announce the destination. Articulate it clearly. Use plain, understandable language. Don't add fluff, colour and movement in an attempt to win people over. Repeat it. At every opportunity. Tell people when the next bus is due. Welcome the ones who board late without making them earn their seat. Let the ones who choose another route go with your good wishes.

That's a far lighter load than trying to be everything to everyone, and it's more likely to get you where you're going, faster.

People will board when they're ready. Your job is to make sure the bus is still coming.