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A diverse team members collaborating with shared language and mutual understanding
16 Apr 20255 min read

How to Improve Team Communication with a Shared Language

Build trust and clarity through a shared, strengths-based team language.

Ever feel like you're saying one thing, but your team hears another? You're not alone. In complex, fast-paced workplaces—especially across higher education, health, and social care—miscommunication can quietly drain time, energy, and trust. Often, it's not a lack of communication that's the problem. It's a lack of shared understanding.

This is where creating a shared language can be transformative. A shared language is more than just common words or jargon—it's a mutual understanding of what those words mean, how they’re used, and the values and behaviours they represent. When rooted in a strengths-based approach, a shared language can reduce friction, increase clarity, and help teams connect on a deeper level—making it easier to collaborate, navigate change, and build trust in even the most high-pressure environments.

The Problem: Same Team, Different Language

It's common for team members to talk past each other—especially when they come from different departments, disciplines, or ways of working. One person’s “urgency” might be another’s “micromanagement.” A manager’s “feedback” might be interpreted as criticism.

These small misunderstandings can chip away at morale, slow down progress, and create unnecessary tension. In cross-functional or high-stakes settings, assumptions often fill in the gaps—leading to confusion and frustration. Over time, this can create silos, erode psychological safety, and make it harder to achieve shared goals.

"Just because something was said, doesn’t mean it was understood."

When communication lacks clarity and shared meaning, teams spend more time fixing problems that could’ve been prevented—and less time making progress that matters.

What Is a Shared Language at Work?

A shared language at work is about creating clarity and alignment. It includes commonly understood terms, communication norms, and behaviours that help people interpret and respond to each other with confidence and consistency. Shared language helps:

  • Create alignment across individuals, teams, and departments

  • Build trust and reduce unnecessary friction

  • Increase psychological safety by reducing ambiguity

  • Strengthen team identity and collaboration

A shared language doesn’t eliminate conflict—but it helps teams move through it more constructively. It provides a framework to navigate difficult conversations, offer feedback, and align on what matters most.

Read more: How to Improve Employee Wellbeing

Why Strengths Are a Great Starting Point

Using a strengths-based language gives teams a neutral, positive, and constructive way to talk about work and behaviour. Instead of focusing on what’s going wrong, teams can focus on what’s already working—and how to do more of it.

A strengths-based language:

  • Reduces blame by shifting focus to potential and energy

  • Helps individuals understand and appreciate different working styles

  • Creates a shared lens for feedback, reflection, and decision-making

  • Encourages recognition and self-awareness in real-time

For example, saying "I'm leaning on my Focus strength to get this done" sounds very different from "No one else is concentrating.” It fosters ownership and insight—without judgment or defensiveness.

"Strengths give us a shared lens—not just a shared script."

By naming and working through strengths, teams begin to appreciate how their differences complement each other—and that builds empathy, trust, and resilience.

Related Reading: How to Drive Performance in a Team

How to Build a Shared Language in Your Team

Here are five practical steps to embed a strengths-based shared language in your team culture:

1. Start with a Discovery Workshop

Facilitated sessions create space for your team to explore individual and collective strengths, communication preferences, and current blind spots. These workshops surface untapped potential and give teams a common starting point to build from. They also create the trust and safety needed to experiment with new language and behaviours.

Discover More: Discovery Workshops

2. Use Strengths in Daily Conversation

Bring strengths language into the everyday rhythm of work: 1:1s, team meetings, feedback conversations, and informal check-ins. Normalise it by weaving it into how you recognise effort, delegate tasks, and reflect on performance. The more people hear and use this language, the more natural—and useful—it becomes.

Explore: Strengths-Based Leadership Guide

3. Develop Team Agreements

Co-create a set of behavioural agreements that define what good communication looks like in your team. What language will you use when things go wrong? How will you give feedback? How will you support each other under pressure? These agreements become a shared reference point for communication, especially during moments of tension or uncertainty.

4. Encourage Reflection and Feedback

Build in regular opportunities to pause and reflect. Use team debriefs or learning moments to ask: What helped us work well together? Where did we miscommunicate? How can we adjust next time? These conversations help refine your shared language over time.

5. Reinforce the Language

Make your shared language visible. Use posters, digital reminders, or team glossaries to keep key terms top of mind. Celebrate examples of strengths-in-action. Embed your language into onboarding, performance conversations, and team rituals to ensure it sticks.

Try This: Wellbeing Questions to Ask Your Team

What Strengthify Has Seen Work

Through our Discovery Workshops and Management Development Programmes, we’ve seen how a shared strengths language can transform how teams work, communicate, and connect.

When teams understand their own and each other’s strengths, they:

  • Build more trust across departments

  • Navigate difficult conversations with greater empathy

  • Reduce conflict by increasing understanding

  • Develop stronger team rituals and collaboration habits

Case in Point: The University of Westminster’s Digital Transformation Team used a strengths-based framework to improve cross-team understanding, streamline communication, and build greater clarity around roles. The result? A more energised, resilient, and collaborative culture. Read their story

Conclusion: Speak the Same Language, Work Better Together

Improving communication doesn’t always mean saying more—it means being better understood. And that starts with creating shared meaning.

A strengths-based shared language helps your team connect, collaborate, and communicate with greater clarity and trust. It reduces ambiguity, normalises differences, and provides the foundation for effective feedback, recognition, and problem-solving.

It’s not about jargon—it’s about building understanding. And it’s one of the most powerful tools leaders have to shape culture from the inside out.

Want help creating a strengths-based language across your team? Explore Strengthify’s Programmes to see what’s possible.

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