We’re back to it.  That darn 37signals.com is just cranking out the value hits.  “Clarity is king” is up next:

Buzzwords, lingo, and sensationalized sales-and-marketing-speak have no place at 37signals. We communicate clearly and honestly.

I love this.  I also have a really hard time with clarity.  I want clarity from the people I work with, and I am horrible at providing clarity.

This past week, we were working on some pretty big projects.  I felt like it was really clear about what he expectations were and what we were hoping to accomplish and in what order.  I even wrote an email letting everyone know what to plan for.

Well, things went amazingly well.  We got tons accomplished.  Unfortunately, there were some misunderstandings which caused some funkiness among the team and with me as the leader.  In the moment, I was pretty frustrated, but instead of going right to the people involved, I started analyzing what my part might have been in the way I was feeling.

You guessed it, bad communication, unclear expectations, basically lack of clarity.

After having some follow up conversations to talk about expectations, and owning up to me not being very clear, here’s what I learned:

No one ever dies from over communication

I make the assumption every day that people are thinking the same thing as me.  They probably aren’t.

My aversion to being redundant or stating the obvious will never outweigh the benefits of the clarity that results from being redundant or stating the obvious.

The clarity that you want from your boss is the same kind of clarity your people want from their boss…you.

Being clear helps to ensure great process, which is a cornerstone of a great production.

As members of a team, we all want clarity.  As  a leader of a team, it is your job to provide clarity.

I can hear my pastor say “Now, just to be clear…who’s job is it to bring clarity?”

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