Clear as Mud
/
One of the greatest barriers to effective work is getting clear about what we want, need or expect for a job well done. Here are some examples of lack of clarity getting in the way of good work. They are all live examples from my own interactions with staff, or from leaders I coach.
A designer sends me some sample ideas based on an initial brief. It’s not even close to what I was expecting. I’m baffled, because I’m sure I have been really clear about what I consider some of the fundamental ‘must haves’ in the design. When I go back to my brief I find several areas that I thought were crystal clear, but on reflection are very ambiguous. I have not set the designer up for success. I could have done a much clearer job of the brief. The designer could have asked for more clarification.
A manager gets very frustrated when a high priority piece of work has received no attention for several weeks. They had given an urgent task to the person responsible. The urgent task was interpreted as a ‘drop everything else’ priority. He had shifted all his effort and attention to the new task. It left the manager questioning his capability and him feeling ambushed and unsupported.
A team gets delegated work from their team leader. They take no action. Why? Because the team leader has a pattern of taking over part way through a delegated task and ‘re-doing’ it because it’s not ‘up to standard’. Neither the leader or the team can articulate what the ‘standard’ is. The team has decided to wait until the team leader initiates the direction, because it feels like a waste of time to do otherwise.
A director gives a senior leader responsibility for coordinating the scheduling of staff for significant remote area projects that the team is delivering. The leader starts organising a detailed roster to ensure expertise, breaks, and logistics are all taken into account for each trip. She’s told she’s overstepping the mark. The directors wanted to be able to assemble their own project teams. The senior leader was completely confused about what was expected. Turns out they wanted someone tracking workloads and scheduling issues, to advise on team makeup, rather than someone to actually assemble the team. Both had a really different picture of what ‘coordination’ meant.
All these examples burnt time, energy and resources. They created frustration and more work to arrive at good outcomes. All of them involved capable, competent and enthusiastic people. Lack of clarity was a significant factor in all of them.
Do you have similar experiences where you work? What’s the impact?
Lack of role clarity is listed as a potential psychosocial hazard. Lack of clarity adds to workload and can certainly contribute to stress. Clarity also contributes to a sense of certainty and acts as a launch pad for high performance. Next time we’ll talk about what we can do to add clarity.