When you use those three tactics, every word you use matters. Instead of dancing around the point, you hit it out of the park.
How does this fit with over communicating?
Imagine how much more you could communicate in the same amount of time if you cut “the pork,” used hard numbers, and wrapped it in a story.
Specificity beats generality every time.
Every time I get specific, I get the answers to the most important questions about a project. Much of the ambiguity falls away because I have to make important decisions immediately. The goals of the project become clear. The to-do list starts to form. The vision starts to become a reality. Your focus gets sharper because you are adding restraint. Restraint gives us focus.
It isn’t easy.It requires patience. It requires fighting through the urge to do something. Most of all, it requires you being open to accepting that you may not want to do what you started doing. You may go down the rabbit hole. You may decide that it just isn’t worth the time,money, or blood sweat and tears it will take to make this a reality. It is a hard pill to swallow, because you begin to deal with sunk cost. The work has already begun through planning. You start to see what it is, but – it may not work. That may not work sucks but it’s a reality, but it sucks.
Asking enough questions, specific questions, makes life more uncomfortable. The reality that something might not work is uncomfortable. It hurts to give things away. At the core of it, we are selfish beings.”I am right all the time.” It is alright, no need to worry about that. We are human and dealing with that is harsh.
There is an upside to all of this though. Those specific questions give us freedom. That freedom leads to us getting rid of wasted time. You can always find ways to make yourself feel better about “the suck” but you can never regain time. Being focused is critical to carry out the real work that drives us, and through specificity we can get to a better level of focus.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 