Clarity is Not Optional
Why leaders must learn to communicate so they cannot possibly be misunderstood.
Effective communication lies at the heart of both a team's strengths and its weaknesses. When problems arise and team members become upset, the overarching complaint is often about the need for better communication.
But what exactly does "better communication" entail?
Danny Meyer, in his book Setting the Table, boils it down to this:
Understanding who needs to know what.
When people need to know it and why.
And then presenting the information in an entirely comprehensive way.
When it comes to communicating with their teams and audience of stakeholders, the people in charge routinely fall into two camps:
First, there is not enough communication, so the crucial direction that the team needs will be missing entirely.
Second, overly verbose communication, saturated with consultant speak and fluff, and written like the author hates you and wants you to stop reading or listening immediately.
In today's hybrid global workplaces, verbal and in-person communication competes with emails, instant messaging, asynchronous bullet-point presentations, and video soundbite snippets. Attention spans have shortened, and constant distractions make it difficult to determine the signal from the noise.
Therefore, providing clarity when you communicate isn't a nice to have. Ambiguity is bad. Ambiguity signals laziness. With so much uncertainty already present in the workplace, providing clarity is a necessity. Achieving brevity and clarity when you communicate with your team and stakeholders is challenging. Concise and clear communication often demands more effort and time than longer content. As Blaise Pascal (French philosopher and mathematician) wrote in a collection of letters called "Lettres Provincales",
"I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time."
Why is it challenging to communicate clearly and concisely?
As Paul Graham, the co-founder of Y Combinator, states
"Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought. Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them."
I would also add that most busy professionals are either too lazy, too distracted or just don't understand the impact they can achieve and, hence, the return on investment (ROI) from writing well. Writing is a process by which we improve our thinking and learning. Refinement, editing, and removal of superfluous words and sentences strengthen our understanding of the subject we are focusing on. Consequently, it will enhance how you direct and guide your team to help them achieve the desired results. Clarity improves the likelihood that your team will better understand what they should be working on.
Paraphrasing Deirdre Nansen McCloskey in Economical Writing, who I believe hits the bullseye with the following:
Clarity is a matter of speed directed at the goal. Bad communication stops people with a puzzle in every step they take. It sends them off in irrelevant directions. It distracts them from the goal, provoking them to wonder what the next step is now, what the connection might be with the last step, and why doing the right thing isn't clear. People will also lose their way - bad communication introduces friction and slows things down. Put it this way, you ought to take care to communicate not merely so your team can understand but so they cannot possibly misunderstand.
When communicating with your team, your messaging needs to pass through the five W's heuristic for maximum clarity and understanding:
Who is your audience?
What are you telling them?
When is the best time to share this information?
Why - is it clear to your audience what actions to take?
Way - have you spent the time making the message clear, persuasive, and making it impossible to misunderstand?
The five W's heuristic will help you position your team for success by assisting them to understand the topic better and focus on achieving the desired results.
📫 - A quote that I am currently pondering
"The answer is always in the room, so don't hire consultants to tell you what you already know."
Every manager who has seen this happen
🧾 - An absorbing and insightful (short) read
Read this Simple Sabotage Field Manual from WW2 and you will be forgiven for thinking a lot of the dysfunctions within teams in intentional.
🤔 - If you did have the answer to this question, what would it be?
When did you last change your mind about something important at work?