The consequence of communicating with clarity

Caption goes here

Image from Getty Images

There are lots of theories on what made D-Day such a success. But you know what I think made it successful? I think it was a total lack of clarity on Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s part when communicating with the other people with whom he was planning this momentous event. President Franklin Roosevelt would ask, “When is D-Day taking place?” General Eisenhower would reply with shrug, “Hmm. Not sure.” Bernard Montgomery, field marshal for the British army, would ask, “How many troops will you need?” Eisenhower would look out the window and respond, “Good question. A bunch?” Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay of the Royal Navy would ask, “To which beach, my good chap, do we need to deliver all of the troops?” Eisenhower would put his hands in his pockets and say, “Don’t know. Pick one.”

All communication lives in the relationship between the sender and receiver. The sender pushes out a signal, be it a spoken phrase or nonverbal gesture. The receiver interprets that signal, processes what they think it means and replies in response. Roles switch and the communication circle spins round and round. The impact of any signal is dependent on its clarity, a lesson well learned for those old enough to remember using rabbit ears antenna to tune into an analog broadcast television station. Clarity in communication in an organizational setting can make the difference between an organization’s success and failure. That’s why learning to communicate with clarity is a power skill that you need to master.

Knowing what you want to say

When someone earns a reputation as the “Queen of Clarity,” they have gained a level of expertise worth considering. Ann Latham, author of The Power of Clarity and The Clarity Papers, reminds us that clarity in communication can only come with a clear understanding of the message you are trying to send. In her 2023 Forbes article “Clear Communication Is Just The Tip Of The Clarity Iceberg,” Latham teaches us that the communication portion of communicating with clarity is only half of the deal. Latham writes, “Clarity requires knowing, with specificity, what you are trying to accomplish, how and with whom, and with the ability to focus so you can be successful. Harnessing the power of clarity, does not just involve the way you communicate, it also involves the way you think and interact.”

Power Skills Series

Check out more articles from this series

Consider the last successful project on which you and your team worked. Did everyone have a strong sense of the goal and their role within achieving that goal? Were you and your team members specific in your understanding of what questions you needed answered when coming to an impasse? Did you have purposeful processes in place to resolve those areas of confusion?

Now think back to the last unsuccessful project you and your team worked on. How specific was the sense of purpose in communication? Did you take advantage of processes to resolve areas of misunderstanding? Clarity, or its lacking, in thought and intent is most likely a major factor in determining the difference between those projects that succeeded and those that failed. Latham zeroes in on the criticality of specificity in thought to achieving success. “Without specificity,” she teaches us, “you can’t take deliberate, productive, efficient action. Instead, you are doing what I call ‘wandering in.’ You are headed in a general direction, but not on a clear path to speedy and effective outcomes.”

Mastering the cognitive six to communicate with clarity in meetings

The vision statement is a diva. The mission statement, a showboat. They get all the press, all the attention. And sure, the best ones are a sight to behold, rapturous and breathtaking, clearly communicating an “X” on a map toward which an organization should travel. But sextants are actually the tools by which a ship navigates on open waters, and meetings are how organizations operationalize the work their mission or vision prescribes.

In her 2021 article “The Language of Outcomes,” Latham provides us all with the navigation tools required to achieve crisp, clear results from those operational meetings through which organizations make their day-to-day progress.  In the article, she outlines what she calls the Cognitive Six, which are a “concrete, tangible sign of progress that you can point to, agree upon, and use as a steppingstone to greater accomplishment.”

Latham’s cognitive six tools are:

1. Decision. A trigger that initiates the next step toward the desired outcome.
2. Problem resolution. A solution for an undesirable situation caused by internal or external factors that puts the operation back on a path toward the desired outcome.
3. Plan. Future actions mapped from the desired outcome to the moment of decision.
4. List. Items of actions tied to a plan through which completing leads one closer to the desired outcome.
5. Confirmation. Analysis of the desired objective, the portions of the plan completed to date, and whether the next, upcoming action will continue to move toward the desired outcome or not.
6. Authorization. Approval to take forward action through a phase gate toward the desired goal.

Consider you and your team’s operational meetings. How often do the conversation points within those meetings align with these six actions? When seeking confirmation, do you provide a clear “yes” or “no,” or do you go into a long soliloquy on this one time when this person did this thing, never giving the person seeking confirmation a clear answer?

Do you want to abolish meandering meetings that don’t provide problem resolution or authorization to move forward? Make the decision to update your meeting agenda template to align with Latham’s Cognitive Six. Write up a plan focused on getting your team’s buy-in on using this frame for your operational meetings. Build a list of tasks required to achieve that goal. Make sure to confirm with your team, once the plan is implemented, that you are all seeing objective improvements in the effectiveness of your team’s operations.

Impactful leadership requires precision

Army general, NATO supreme commander and eventually president. Born in Denison, Texas, at the end of the 19th century, raised in Abilene, Kan., David Dwight Eisenhower understood the power of his words. Ike knew that his words had consequences, ending with death for some and life for others. Eisenhower used words, paired with deeds, to lead, and those words had world-shaping impact which still reverberates today. He did not speak carelessly. It is easy to imagine Eisenhower taking a moment of quiet comfort when he saw the following Confucius quote on a memo from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the World War II:  “If language is not correct” Confucius teaches us, “then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone.”

The work you and your team do to maintain the health care physical environment has life and death consequences no less powerful than those Eisenhower and the troops under his command faced in those dark days before storming Omaha Beach on D-Day. Patients and their families, staff and suppliers, all are made safe by correctly maintained fire doors and a properly working electrical system. All could be fatally harmed by if the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning systems serving a contagious patient’s room malfunctions, or by a faulty valve on a medical gas system. You and your team owe it to all those people to communicate with a clarity that ensures a precision of action. You and your team owe it to all those people to learn from Ann Latham, the Queen of Clarity, on how to integrate the communication best practices she discovered in her research into your operational approach. Communication is a power skill. Communicating with clarity, well that is supremely powerful.