What happens when two engineers — at least by education — reconnect?
You start with college memories, drift into physics, discuss today's corporate world, and suddenly realise that one of the most famous thought experiments unexpectedly became a lesson in communication.
Schrödinger's Cat.
The thought experiment suggests that until the box is opened, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead.
At first, we found the parallel in the hottest topic of the day - hiring. You submit an application. Until the recruiter responds, you're both shortlisted and rejected. Then this happens at each subsequent stage - the recruiter calls, conversation with the hiring manager, technical round, HR round, leadership round and any other round or hurdle one needs to loop over.
Every stage opens one box... and closes another. Until someone opens it, every possibility feels real. You are thinking: "I nailed it.” And also... "They've gone with someone else."
As we spoke, my friend—now a business / AI leader—smiled and said: "You know why the boxes stay closed, don't you?"
We started listing - budgets, approvals, changing business priorities, tapping internal candidates, leadership availability, and what not.
His point was simple: Hiring isn't linear. There are countless variables at play, many of which candidates never see.
I smiled, nodded and added. "That's true. But there's another variable we often overlook.”
Communication.
Whether the silence is justified or not isn't the point. People don't experience your internal process. They experience your communication.
And when communication stops, people don't stop thinking. Rather they start writing their own story. More often than not, it isn’t a generous one.
That's true for candidates. It's true for employees navigating change. It's true for customers during uncertainty. It’s true whenever organisations leave a vacuum.
Silence isn't empty. It's filled with assumptions. It impacts your credibility, trustworthiness and brand.
Which is why communication isn't just about sharing information. It's about shaping the story that fills the silence.
Perhaps that's what Schrödinger's Cat has been teaching communicators all along. When the box stays closed, people don't wait for certainty. They create certainty of their own.
The question is: are you shaping that story, or leaving others to write it for you?
As we got up to call it a day, my friend smiled and said,
"Funny... we spent all this time discussing hiring.”
I smiled.
"No. We were discussing communication.”
Rohit Mishra
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