Condominium and corporate communications: what happens when no one clarifies roles, flows, and responsibilities?

Condominium communication deserves its own regulation

Condominium communication deserves its own discipline, possibly taught through practical simulations, study of meeting minutes, and training in emotional regulation when faced with the phrase: "I've always parked there.".

Because the condominium, in its apparent banality, is one of the most realistic laboratories of human communication. There are shared spaces, uncertain boundaries, layered habits, ownership, expectations, personal interpretations, people who "have always done it this way" and others who, with surprising obstinacy, insist on entering and exiting their own home without having to resolve a diplomatic crisis every time.

It seems like a small matter. It isn't.

Or rather, it's banal only on the surface. If we look at it as a dynamic, it becomes a very clear example of what happens whenever explicit communication is lacking. People don't just argue over a parking space, a gate, a yard, or a customer who parks where they shouldn't. They argue over everything that wasn't discussed beforehand.

The visible problem is only the effect of more subtle dynamics

In a condominium court case, an owner had sold an apartment without explicitly clarifying the parking space issue. The buyer had assumed that the use of the parking space was included, or at least that the situation had already been resolved in a manner favorable to his expectations. In short, let's face it, he hadn't explicitly addressed the issue. The seller, however, had kept the assigned parking space for herself and hadn't communicated clearly enough that it wasn't part of the sale.

It's important to pause here, because the immediate temptation is to look for the culprit. It would also be convenient: one is wrong, the other is right, everyone goes home, possibly each to their own parking space.

But conscious communication works precisely on this: it goes beyond the infantilizing and guilt-inducing narrative (made up of victims, executioners, saviors) and begins to look at responsibilities.

The seller's responsibility was to clearly state what was being sold, what wasn't being sold, and what the existing condominium situation was. The buyer's responsibility was to ask specific questions: is there a parking space? Is it assigned? Is it included? Is it excluded? Are there resolutions? Are there rules? What do the regulations say? What do the documents state?

These are simple questions. That's precisely why they're often overlooked.

Many people confuse "it seems obvious to me" with "it's been clarified," and from that tiny, enormous difference arises a lot of chaos that, in an apartment building, always finds fertile ground. The ego never wastes an opportunity to confirm its narrative.

If one person thinks A and the other thinks B

The central point was almost elementary: if one person thinks A and another thinks B, it means that those two people haven't talked to each other enough, or that they talked to each other without checking whether they understood the same thing.

This is one of the simplest and least practiced truths of communication. It's not enough to just talk. You have to make sure the meaning is shared. Otherwise, everyone leaves the conversation with their own version of events, and a few weeks later everyone is wondering how the situation could have degenerated.

Very possible. In fact, predictable.

In this specific case, the misunderstanding between two parties ended up affecting the other condominium owners as well. This often happens in small systems: a lack of communication between two people becomes a collective inconvenience, because the cost of ambiguity never stays where it originates.

How often does this happen in a company? Two colleagues interpret a delivery differently, no one checks what "urgent" or "complete" means, and the work arrives at the next team already crooked. At that point, it's no longer just a matter of fixing a detail: mistakes are chased, delays accumulate, and relationships become strained.

An unclear and incomplete brief between client and strategist becomes a job redone three times by the operations team.

An unassigned responsibility becomes a missed deadline, with everyone thinking it was "in someone else's hands." This is my favorite. It's the great classic "let's do it": yes, but who are we, exactly?
(If you recognize your boss or a colleague in this dynamic, I wrote an article on responsible leadership that might interest you, you can find it here. here.

Or a manager assumes a procedure is clear, while those who are supposed to implement it have a different understanding. No one asks, no one explains, no one redefines the process. But then the problem appears downstream: in the dissatisfied customer, in the passive-aggressive email, in the urgent meeting called "to clarify," when clarity would have been needed three weeks earlier.

A disagreement about what "approved," "urgent," or "ready" means leads to emails, tensions, delays, and remedial meetings. The usual elegant corporate ritual of "why didn't you say so right away?".

The condominium, in this sense, is just a more domestic version of the organization. Fewer slides, more driveway. But the dynamic is the same: when the meaning isn't shared, the system begins to produce friction.

It is no coincidence that internal communication is now seen as a strategic function in companies. Report on Internal Communication in Italian Companies 2026, conducted by the CERC of IULM University and reported by FERPI on July 3, 2026, highlights an increasing maturity of internal communication: the 79% of companies now has a dedicated formal function, compared to 56% in 2019. Translated outside of corporate language: when people must work, decide, or coexist within the same system, communication is not an accessory. It is what allows the system to remain legible, coordinated, and transformable.

The Dirty Dozen and the Underrated Luxury of Telling Each Other Things

In the field of human factors, there's a reference known as the Dirty Dozen, a list of twelve conditions that can contribute to errors in complex contexts. One of the first and most important is lack of communication.

The obvious thing is that you don't need to be in a hangar, a operations room, or a high-risk organization to see this dynamic. A backyard is enough.

When communication fails, people fill the gaps with assumptions. When assumptions go untested, they become expectations. When expectations are disappointed, they become resentment. When resentment goes unmentioned, it becomes conflict. At that point, someone will say the parking space is the problem, but the parking space is merely the physical location where everything previously unspoken has settled.

This is where communication stops being a “soft skill,” a phrase often used as if we were simply talking about good manners and theory, and becomes infrastructure.

“It's been like this since 1995” is not a system

In the same courtyard, there was a mechanic's shop with an internal entrance. The business had been in existence since 1995, so everyone knew that customers would have to come in, that cars would be moving, that traffic would increase at certain times, and that, in the event of hailstorms, accidents, or emergencies, internal traffic could become significantly heavier.

Yet, precisely because the situation had been known for years, it had been taken for granted, amidst general resignation and silence. This is one of the most common errors in human systems: confusing a habitual situation with a managed one.

It's the same dynamic as the famous "it's always been done this way" that we hear in many companies. A disturbing but very convenient phrase: it protects the status quo, avoids questions, postpones decisions, and allows those who should intervene to avoid investing energy, attention, or responsibility in change.

On the other hand, however, it also produces helplessness. Those who suffer from disorder begin to believe that there is no alternative, that the problem is inevitable, that complaining is pointless, and that adapting is the only option. Thus, a poorly managed situation ceases to seem changeable and simply becomes "normal." A normality that is very practical for those who don't want to deal with it, much less so for those who pay for it every day.

Just because something has been going on for thirty years doesn't mean it's working. It just means that no one has yet organized it well enough, or that the cost of the disorder has been silently absorbed by those who endured it.

“"It's always been this way" isn't an analysis and shouldn't be a condemnation. It's often the phrase that kills the possibility of improvement. And, in a company or in a condominium, this crime deserves someone to ask questions and bring the truth to light.

The system that was missing

In that context, clear communication was needed towards three different targets: the owners, the business managers and the business customers.

Owners needed to know which spaces were reserved, what behaviors were expected, and what criteria had been shared.

The business owners needed a concrete protocol, not a generic "try to be careful," which is the condominium version of "be good." An affectionate phrase, perhaps, but practically meaningless.

Customers needed visible guidance before they created the problem: notices at the entrance, clear signage, immediate information on where to stop, where not to stop, and how to behave during peak traffic times.

This is the difference between reacting to chaos and designing a system. In the former case, you intervene every time someone makes a mistake. In the latter, you reduce the probability of the error occurring.

Communication isn't about being polite. It's about making reality habitable.

One of the most limiting ideas about communication is that it's primarily about being kind, diplomatic, gentle, and accommodating. Sure, tone matters. But communication, when done well, serves above all to make reality more understandable.

Stating things clearly isn't attacking. It's preventing people from having to guess.
Establishing responsibility doesn't mean accusing. It means preventing the burden of a fault from falling on those who didn't cause it.
Creating a protocol doesn't mean making daily life rigid. It frees up mental energy, reduces friction, and allows people to focus on other things, ideally something more interesting than arguing about a poorly parked car for the umpteenth time.

The point: See the system before the conflict

My job, in cases like this, is to see the dynamics before they're reduced to a symptom. The symptom was the parking space. The dynamic was the lack of explicit communication. The symptom was the clogged yard. The dynamic was the lack of a preventative system to manage predictable flows.

This applies to condominiums, companies, teams, families, and professional projects. The locations change, the points of contention change, but the mechanism is often the same: some take it for granted, some don't ask, some don't explain, some adapt until they explode, and then everyone feigns surprise at a situation that was perfectly clear long before.

This is what awareness is for: seeing things first. Not to dramatize, but to intervene when the problem is still transformable.

Conscious communication brings to light unspoken expectations, shortcomings, and responsibilities. Without this step, conflict remains superficial: the effect is discussed, but the mechanism that produces it is not resolved.

Conclusion

Condominium communication makes you smile (or not) because it's everyday, concrete, and at times unintentionally theatrical. But precisely for this reason, it's an excellent example of how crucial communication is in human systems.

When clear language, accountability, and procedures are lacking, even a trivial situation can become a recurring problem. However, when the dynamics are named, responsibilities are recognized, and solutions are transformed into systems, coexistence becomes easier.

Probably not perfect, because we are still talking about human beings with egoistic needs who must share spaces within a framework of often senseless regulations, which contribute to complications rather than simplification.
But certainly much more manageable. Which, in real life, is already a rather advanced form of civilization.