How To Use Clarity To Get Things Done

Do you have a destination in mind? Are you clear about the outcome you hope to achieve? Have you taken the time to engage and enroll your fellow travelers in your expectations? Do they share a vivid picture of what's ahead? Is there a map to get you there?

Leaders are in the outcome business. Most of us live with the "hope" that we'll "get 'er done," but too often we are delayed or lost getting there. Or we never leave.

One of the signs of leadership excellence is the ability to be clear about expectations. The people who follow you deserve a map, a sense of the horizon, but too often we get lost, not because of potholes or surprises in our path to somewhere, but because we were never clear where we are going. One of the most important expectations "followers" have for leaders is clarity of direction. But we waffle, muddle and meander in the false hope that together we'll find our way to Oz.

Guess what? Not only don't we ever get "there," but folks step off the path when they sense they are underled. Whatever your politics, the polling data confirms that most Americans have grown deeply cynical about our elected leaders' commitment to consistency, clarity, and truthfulness. Many of us feel deeply disappointed, even betrayed, and we long for clear and authentic leadership. I've never seen a darker time for truth telling, or more hunger for straight talk. We don't trust the map or the destination.

I recently was in a meeting with a legendary CEO, who remarked that he was personally disappointed in most of our business leaders. He felt that they lacked the courage to provide clear direction, and instead were lured by the siren song of the theme, strategic idea or marketing trend of the moment. He longed for more straight talk in the board room, and he was saddened by the public disclosures of board behavior which have eroded both shareholder and Wall Street confidence. His candor sucked the air out of a room full of CEO's.

I believe leaders are in the business of courageous, consistent conversations...with an unknown future, with their team, colleagues, customers, and with themselves.

For those conversations to work, and to sharpen our expectations, I suggest a simple technique I call "bookending." You know that if you put bookends at either end of a heavy row of books, they need to be anchored at both ends to support the weight. It's the same with clear communications.

This really works:

At the beginning of any conversation, set the context. "I want to review what we need to complete before next week's board meeting to be certain we are prepared." Leaders are in the context business and our followers are starved to understand how we connect the current work with the intended outcome. Several decades at the top of organizations confirms that a leader must constantly frame and hold the context. In this "age of continuous partial attention" we keep writing about, folks lose their way, they forget, that reframe for their own purposes. Don't assume they know.

Then, listen carefully to see if your partner has "received" your message and understands your expectations. Then have your conversation, sort for clarity, probe for ambiguity or detail, and arrive at agreement.

Finally, and this is the step that completes the cycle, and the one most of us forget:
Confirm what's next, what you've agreed to do, be clear about timetables, deliverables, process and outcomes. That's the final "bookend" to frame the conversation. Unless we close the conversation by explicated confirming our "contract" we fall in the pothole of ambiguity, the foe of any leader.

Try it. Before long it will become a natural part of all of your conversations. And, you'll experience a sharpness and engagement with your colleagues that may have been missing before you began "bookending."

Comments

[Paul]

So you set clear goals, work hard and help your company achieve success.

Now some bigger company comes along, buys out the ownership of your company and fires you because they can't afford to pay you and the acquisition costs. After a few years they close the place because it doesn't function any longer - all the people who knew anything are gone.

I have seen this happen over and over again.

The answer?

Keep the company you work for in a state of perpetual possibility, but never quite achieve actual success. The owners will keep the place open thinking riches are just around the corner.

[Jonahson]

Notice leaders of most nations are old people passed middle age. They look cool when answering a problematic question posed to them and they don't often come to a decision immediately.
As we get older our response time is slower and we don't get emotionally aroused as fast as when a person was young. That delayed fuse probably provide better after thoughts and better decision so needed when a wrong word from leaders can bring nations to War.
An example is the President of Iran who is 51 years old. Relatively young as compared to other head of states. His comment on Israel makes one to think that his speech sometimes dosen't goes through his central brain processor.
Older people are wiser because they have more time to ponder.

[OtayPanky]

Just remember: Clarity begins at Om.

[ilovemydoggy]

Great article. I will implement this more and more.

It's opposite is "read my mind" with the final step -- "I will pounce on you, when you inevitably fail".

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[dadw5boys]

To learn to follow simple instructions people learn to give simple instruction.

This is a good lesson for your children. Put them in charge of things and let them learn how to give simple instructions. They will see how getting instruction correct using language people actually understand is important.

[JennyJay]

Setting clear goals? Way down the list of leadership interests. What I have found, after a lifetime
in business, is that really good leaders do not automatically bubble to the top. A guy gets promoted,
he hires "less smart " people to work under him, because it makes him look brilliant in comparison.
So then the "less smart" people bubble up and hire more "less smart" and so on and so on. Until one day, you got a whole bunch of idiots running these companies.
Clear goals and objectives, are not going to help a bunch of idiots work better.

[Zenobius]

Meaning no disrespect, that I think the problem is a little different.

Business leaders do have goals, but they are opposed to the interests of the people lower on the totem pole. They're not clear because might unite their workers against them, which is not in their interest:

After all, getting cheaper workers, even in India and Argentina, and using bankruptcy law to ditch their pension obligations, does not cost execs anything, and will result in a short term rise in share value. I do not discuss the long term, because actually exporting our manufacturing to China and services to India is probably not in the long term interest of the companies, but neither execs nor investors usually think that far ahead. Low taxes on corporations are to the advantage of individual companies, even if they weaken the US government that the companies collectively rely on to enforce and police globalization.

We have created a system where we are relying on business to lead, but the interests of individual businesses are opposed to those of the entire business class, never mind society as a whole. We have to increase the relative powers of workers, come up with a system that judges businesses on more than just the "bottom line", and create a French style dirigiste administrative elite that can steer corporations in a directions which will increase rather than reduce state power.