You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day.

I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

If you've ever over-analyzed a one-line message from a friend or a colleague before, today's talk is for you.

Turns out most of the time when a receiver of a message spirals out about whatever

the text said, the other person has no idea they sent anything remotely confusing. Employees and

executives, 86% of them blame workplace failure on ineffective communication. And U.S.

businesses alone lose $1.2 trillion a year as a result of miscommunication.

That's leadership expert Melissa M. Mikus. In this talk, she shares a surprisingly simple fix,

something she calls a communication style tag. It's a few lines that tell the people you work with

how to reach you and how to get

the best out of you. No app, no training, no cost, just clarity. When we tell people how best

to work with us, we not only increase communication effectiveness, we build trust, we move

faster, we feel less strained, and we build teams that actually work. That's coming up

right after a short break. And now our TED Talk of the day.

So I'm sure everyone here has been on the giving or receiving end of a workplace communication failure.

Is that fair?

Well, I want to share a time when I sent a message to my team that created countless hours of wasted effort, a few sleepless

nights, and maybe even some tears. That message was, sure. Yep, that's it. One word, four letters,

no punctuation, no emojis, just sure. I bet you were expecting something a little bit more controversial or spicy. So here's what

happened. My team was working on an important presentation for an upcoming board meeting,

and right on deadline, the project manager, Charlie, sent me an email with a presentation and said,

are we okay to send this to the board chair for feedback? I reviewed the presentation that evening while simultaneously making dinner, but I was delighted.

...