Clarity is in the distinctions

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Funny story:

Easter Sunday and my husband set off down our street to hide Easter eggs for our children to hunt.

As he was laying some of them against one of the steps a few doors down the guy came out of his house.

‘What are you doing?’ he said.

‘I’m hiding Easter eggs for the children’ said my husband as he carried on down the street swinging his Easter basket.

‘Thanks very much’ said the guy as he picked them up and went back into his house - much to my husband’s consternation.

It turns out, on speaking to the neighbours that this guy has grandchildren… and, it seems, also now thinks of my husband as a very generous benefactor of Easter treats for the children of our street.

So what went wrong?!

My husband didn’t distinguish between OUR children and THE children. And the happy grandad saw easter through his own excited grandchildren’s lens.

Which is what we all do. We see the world through our own lens, apply our own context and reach our own conclusions.

Which is why, as a leader you need to use clean language.

You need to say EXACTLY what you mean in a way that sets your team up for success.

If you have children yourself you may have come across Julia Donaldson’s Monkey Puzzle book - in which a baby monkey is looking for his lost mum.

‘I’ve lost my mum’ says the monkey to a butterfly.

‘Come little monkey, don’t you cry, I’ll help you find her says butterfly. Let’s have a think, how big is she?’ ‘ She’s big says the monkey, bigger than me’. And off they go to find his mum.

But instead the butterfly finds an elephant - which is definitely big. But not a monkey!

This goes on for some time as the butterfly follows each incomplete description in turn.

Finally the monkey in sheer exasperation says ‘none of these animals looks like me’

‘She looks like you, oh you should have said’ says the butterfly

‘I thought you knew’ said the monkey…

‘I couldn’t you see, none of my babies looks like me’

And there it is again. That need to see things from another point of view. The need to see what the other person is missing.

To really set someone up for success, you need to see what they are missing.

I’ve seen many an exasperated monkey and many a frustrated butterfly in a leadership context.

And at the root of it is always the same thing, an expectation, assumption or just blind hope that the person you are delegating to ‘just gets it’ or as another client put it - ‘I just wish my team were psychic'.

I hate to be the one to tell you this but in order to empower a team really well. To get to a point where you can genuinely delegate, you have to put a lot of work in up front. Do this consistently well and your team might even have a chance of being close to seeming psychic.

You need to paint the picture, work through the detail so you can determine those distinctions and communicate with supreme clarity.

Then you need to open the floor for questions. Answer them fully. Find ways to understand what the other person is missing. Fill in the gaps.

Only then are you approaching real clarity. Only then can you expect someone to be able to carry out what you need them to.

Over time, if you do all of this really well then you will start to create an environment of genuine empowerment.

If you’d like to chat about any of the topics raised in this blog, do drop me a line, I’m always up for hearing how my thoughts have landed!

Best wishes as always for a lovely week.

Rebecca