Timestamps

00:00:00: Introduction
00:02:05: Clarity navigates complexity
00:05:51: Missing clarity and the impact caused
00:11:14: Find your confusion creators
00:12:31: Five techniques…
00:12:48: ... 1: mirroring
00:15:24: ... 2: summarising
00:17:05: ... 3: clarifying questions
00:19:56: ... 4: repeating yourself
00:23:30: ... 5: less is more
00:24:54: Five tactics...
00:25:08: ... 1: go back to the why
00:26:44: ... 2: beginning, middle, end your meetings
00:28:06: ... 3: practice presenting the full picture
00:31:57: ... 4: clarity co-pilot
00:34:12: ... 5: visuals and prototypes
00:37:25: Final thoughts

Interview Transcription

Helen Tupper: Hi, I'm Helen. 

Sarah Ellis: And I'm Sarah. 

Helen Tupper: And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly show where we dive into the ups and downs of work, and try to give you some ideas for action, some things to help you navigate all that knottiness that you might be experiencing in your Squiggly Career.  And we're also always trying to help ourselves too, because even though I think we're about something like 370 episodes now in terms of our podcast, we still need lots of help, and this podcast is still a weekly way that we help each other with that.  So, it's always helpful to us and we hope very much that it's useful for you too. 

If this is the first time you've listened to the podcast, it might be worth knowing that there are lots of things that we create to support you and your listening and learning.  So as well as this episode, you can get our PodSheet, which is a one-page summary, which you can download.  It has the ideas for action that Sarah and I are going to talk about, and some quotes and things like that that could be useful; we've got PodNotes, which are swipable summaries.  You can get those on social, so make sure you're following us @amazingif, either on Instagram or LinkedIn.  And then there's also PodPlus, which is a weekly session on a Thursday morning, where we talk about the topic in a bit more depth and you get the chance to contribute what you think and ask us some extra questions too.  All the information for that is on the show notes or you can find it on our website at amazingif.com. 

Sarah Ellis: And so this week, we're talking about how to create clarity and there is no shortage of people who talk about just how important clarity is in our jobs, because there's so much happening.  And there was a great quote that I came across from James Clear, who's been on the podcast talking to Helen, and I'm sure lots of you are familiar with his book, Atomic Habits, where he says, "Most people think they lack motivation, when really they lack clarity".  And I think we've all had that sense of where things feel messy and confusing, and you come away from a meeting and you just think, "I don't know, I'm not really sure what I'm meant to do or where I'm meant to go".  That is really demotivating, and it's not very energising or enjoyable.  And so, we're really trying to think about, we want clarity, we don't want confusion. 

I think it's really important to recognise upfront that what we're not trying to do is use clarity to get away from complexity or ambiguity or uncertainty, (some people might be like, "Unfortunately").  So I don't want to start with a false promise, because I think those three things, the complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty, those are the reality of our Squiggly Careers, of the organisations that we're working in.  We know there's lots of change happening all of the time, and I think it's almost because of those characteristics, because of the nature of our work now, that clarity is even more important than it was.  So actually, what clarity helps us to do is to navigate the complexity, not to take it away. 

I was reading Satya Nadella's leadership book, I think is probably the best way to describe it, it's called Hit Refresh; it's a good title I think. 

Helen Tupper: I had a copy of Hit Refresh with notes in the margin, when I worked at Microsoft.

Sarah Ellis: Not from him?

Helen Tupper: Well, only employees got it and so it was his notes in the margin of the book. 

Sarah Ellis: Oh, okay. 

Helen Tupper: But I think I sent it to somebody and I might not have had it back! 

Sarah Ellis: Are you allowed to do that?  Is that like insider trading? 

Helen Tupper: Oh, gosh.  No, well, Satya Nadella's words.  I mean, I'm pretty sure they could have leaked.  I don't think I'm the person.  It wasn't under lock and key; it was printed for like 100,000 employees!

Sarah Ellis: Fair enough.  So, the reason I ordered that book to read, it's actually fascinating, the kind of Microsoft story and his story is fascinating; but he talks a lot about leadership traits and his number one is around clarity, and particularly where I think in Microsoft he describes the reason it's called Hit Refresh was not starting from scratch, but a really quite big cultural change that he was trying to inspire across lots of different people in lots of different places.  Yet again and again he came back to, "Well, if we don't have that clarity, it's really hard to achieve our objectives".

Helen Tupper: I was thinking when you were talking then about, I think there are some books out at the moment, one of which is on my desk, Shane Parish's Clear Thinking, and I think people like James Clear get cited in this area, I think Adam Grant gets cited in this area, you just talked about Satya Nadella in this area, it's quite male-focused. 

Sarah Ellis: Shocker!  Business books are male-focused.  That's not really news, is it? 

Helen Tupper: It's not an anti-men's thing.  But I think a lot of the thought contributors to creating clarity are, at the moment at least, men.  And it just makes me think, I wonder whether that skews the advice or insights that we get.  So we'll try to be un-skewed, because we're definitely reviewing some of their work, and contributing some of our own ideas to create clarity too in this episode.  But yeah, a thought to ponder on whether there is sort of the gender bias in where we're getting this information from at the moment, in terms of how to create clarity, affects the actions that are shared. 

Sarah Ellis: Well, one of the things that Helen and I have observed this week in preparing for the podcast, and this is different every week, is there is a lot talked about in terms of the importance of clarity, but very little that we can share with you where we say, there's lots of how-to out there, there's lots of how to develop the skill of clarity.  So, certainly if you're listening and you've come across something brilliant, please share it with us, helen@sarah@squigglycareers.com.  

So actually, a lot of what we're going to talk about today, our ideas, and a mixture of also things that we have observed from people who we think do this really well, I think we do have a bit of an advantage today that this is one of Helen's super-skills.  We came to that conclusion as we were preparing for this.  I was like, "Actually, this is one of the things that you're brilliant at.  This is why we've got some really good ideas here".  So, we have that advantage of Helen being incredible at this, and I think we've both worked with and for some people where we think they've done a good job of this too.  So, borrowed a bit of their brilliance and come up with our ideas, but there's not as many resources to point you to today. 

Helen Tupper: So, one of the things that might be useful to reflect on first in your own work and experience is what clarity is currently missing.  That might be things like objectives and goals, it could be in people's roles and responsibilities, or you might be picking up a lack of clarity in the processes in terms of how the team is operating.  So, good to spot where the problem might be starting.  And then, what also might be useful to think about --

Sarah Ellis: I say, the next bit, nervous laughter.

Helen Tupper: -- yeah, is where there isn't clarity in those things that we just mentioned, what is the likely impact?  So, a couple of things that we might notice, I'll do a few, Sarah, and you can do a few.  So, where you haven't got clarity in objectives and role-responsibility processes, what you might be seeing in terms of the impact is a duplication of tasks, so different people doing the same thing; tasks that fall through the cracks, so this assumption that someone's getting it done, but no one's actually picked it up; deadlines constantly slipping; maybe a reduction in quality, so more mistakes being made. 

There might be a lack of clarity about who is making the decision, or you might be getting lots of different views on priorities, and that could lead to some potentially quite uncomfortable discussions a bit later in the day than they need to be.  And then, just no shared goals or objectives, so people may be feeling a bit frustrated, you might get a sense of frustration in meetings where people feel like priorities are changing and, "What are we doing this for anyway, Sarah?" 

Sarah Ellis: And it's interesting because I think, I mean the reason we were slightly nervously laughing to ourselves is over the last couple of weeks, I think at least 50% of those things we have seen in our company.  For example, there was one thing that Helen did recently that was quite time-consuming.  It was recording a video about something and we were like, "Oh yeah, it's important".  So, Helen did it and I was like, "Great, we've got that done now".  And then two weeks later, I have literally found that we have done that video before, and we'd forgotten about it.  And you know when you're just like, "How has that happened?" and you really like beat yourself up about it, because you're like, "Oh, it's such a waste of time, and Helen's had to do something twice". 

Helen Tupper: I was the person that did it. 

Sarah Ellis: I felt awful about it. 

Helen Tupper: If anyone should have remembered saying the same words twice…! 

Sarah Ellis: Yeah, I know.  But I think because I hate the idea of, it's like time wasted, isn't it?  It's like the opposite of time well spent.  It really gets to me in my critical brain.  And then, tasks falling through the cracks, we've had a bit of that and not being clear about some things.  But I think in my head, I hadn't necessarily gone to, "Oh, it's a lack of clarity that's causing that problem".  I think I've perhaps been either too tactical about it, or you just kind of beat yourself up and be like, "Oh, I'm not on top of stuff enough.  I need to sort myself out", and like, "Why did we not know that?" 

Whereas actually, when I started to read this list and I was looking at a few of their articles and they mentioned these same things, I was like, "Oh, okay".  Actually the starting place to get to better is actually look at why have you not got clarity or what would creating clarity look like, and then you actually stop some of these things happening.  So I went from being demotivated about some of these things to feeling more motivated, to be like, "Oh, okay, at least hopefully some of the things we're going to talk about today can help you get to a better place". 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, I think it helps you to reframe blame a bit, doesn't it, you know, not blaming myself or blaming somebody else?  Creating clarity feels like a much more constructive way to respond to something when these sorts of things are going wrong. 

Sarah Ellis: And we also talked about, it's also interesting to spot where and when in your week is confusion most likely to occur.  So, are there any repeated patterns where you're more in confusion land than clarity land?  And maybe not, maybe it's sporadic and a bit ad hoc and this might not be useful, but we certainly both observed, well, is it in meetings?  Maybe a bit less so for us.  Is it in email?  Well, we don't use that much email internally.  So actually, the emails feel fine, but we do use Microsoft Teams, and there are a lot of messages kicking around in Microsoft Teams.  And Helen and I were both saying, almost then some of the processes that sit around that do mean probably tasks get duplicated, things fall through the cracks, those kind of things. 

So, I think almost tech that is designed to make our life easier can also sometimes do the opposite.  So, I think one of the questions I got to, I was like, "Where is tech creating confusion rather than clarity for us?"  And I think we haven't quite figured out yet, and I'm sure everyone listening relates to this in some sort of tech way, just volume of messages, making sure nothing gets missed, making sure the right people do the right things.  And I can just think of so many examples of where that creates confusion for us, and then those things happen.  And I think the point is not to blame the tech either.  I think it's really easy to blame the tech, because we all love to do it, and it's sort of faceless, isn't it?  It's like, "I'm just going to blame Teams, the Teams channels".  And okay, well, that doesn't really move you forward! 

But also it might be different for you.  I can think back to other organisations where meetings weren't always super clear.  There might have been meetings where maybe you didn't say anything because you thought, "Well, maybe everyone else is really clear".  And then you realise afterwards, no one's actually done anything.  You know those meetings, and then you come back together and you talk about it, and you're like, "We're either having the same conversation again, or nothing has moved forward".  I remember those days quite well! 

Helen Tupper: So, the question made me to reflect on, and we've got a couple of these, but I think, what are your confusion creators?  And I think it could be places like Teams for us; it could be processes like, "That never works"; it could even be people.  I think some people are confusion creators, because they just go round and round in circles and they never get to the point, and then they contradict themselves.  So, we will come up with some solutions for you, but I think where and what are your confusion creators is a useful thing for you to be aware of.  And maybe some other prompts, just so that you can really spot where this might be causing some problems or slowing you down, what doesn't make sense at the moment?  Or maybe, what's feeling a little bit muddled?  Or, where do we repeatedly leave conversations more confused than we started them?  I think any of those things might help you to spot where confusion is leaking into your work, and where we might want to help you to create a bit more clarity. 

Sarah Ellis: I'm now distracted by thinking, do I create confusion?  I think sometimes. 

Helen Tupper: I mean, it wasn't aggressive feedback I was trying to give you on the podcast! 

Sarah Ellis: No!  I was just thinking, there are times where I think my personality might prompt confusion rather than clarity.  Luckily, we've got some techniques!

Helen Tupper: Well, it might be useful for you to get some clarity feedback, which we'll talk about; we're going to talk about that. 

Sarah Ellis: So, we're going to split the second part of the podcast into two areas.  We're going to talk about creating clarity, some techniques that we just think are helpful for all of us to practise and to use, and then some creating clarity tactics.  So, smaller, really specific actions that again you might want to try out. 

Helen Tupper: So the first technique that is useful is mirroring.  This is where you are effectively playing back what someone has said, and you can do this in a few different ways.  So, sometimes I will mirror in, often it's in one-to-ones or in coaching sessions, I often use this technique.  I'll be listening to somebody and then I'll be catching how many times they say the same word, so I'm literally picking out a word.  It might be Sarah might say, "focus", ten times in a ten-minute conversation.  And I'll probably just say, "Just before we go on, it's worth noting that you said focus ten times the last ten minutes.  Is that something you want to talk about?" 

Sarah Ellis: Yes, always!

Helen Tupper: Obviously!  There's some more feedback for you!  But sometimes you might mirror because you're holding a mirror up to words that people realise they haven't said; sometimes it's statements.  Sometimes I'll listen to something that someone's saying, and there's either a particularly emotive or a summative statement that someone's making and I'm thinking -- when you're listening, it almost jars; when I'm listening to someone say something I'm like, "Oh, that's an interesting little statement".  And I might then just say, "Look, again, before we go on, there was one thing that you said that I just want to play back to you, because I'd like to hear a bit more about what you think", and I'll literally play back that statement. 

So, mirroring does not have to be, "Oh, Sarah, let me tell you everything you said in the last minute".  That's hard for you to write down and I think you're probably not listening in the right way if that's what you're trying to do.  It's the particular statements that stick out, and I think words that people have said more than once that are really useful to play back to create clarity. 

Sarah Ellis: And I do think this works in a team or a group environment as well.  Funnily enough, I think I would be more likely to use this in a meeting.  So I might say, "One of the things I've heard pretty much everyone say today is, 'relentless'", or whatever it might be, "so, I'm sensing that there's a feeling of overwhelm", or something like that.  So, I think it's also interesting to see consistency with mirroring, when you've got multiple people in a group or in a meeting.  So, I think it can work both one-to-one and in a meeting as well. 

Helen Tupper: I've sometimes even used it on Teams.  There's been a word that I've typed in, well, this isn't an advertisement Microsoft, it's just what we run our business on; I'll type in a certain word, like I could type in, "overwhelm", or something like that, and I can see how many times different people in the team have maybe typed that word in.  It's quite interesting to mirror like, "Oh, in the last month, we've done 12 different posts on Teams that have included this particular word".  It's just an interesting way that it doesn't always have to be when you're listening to people.  I think actually our words exist in more than one place, and that's what you're mirroring back.

Sarah Ellis: So, the second creating clarity technique is summarising.  So, this is different to mirroring.  Mirroring, we are repeating the exact words and phrases that we have heard someone or a group of people say.  Summarising is your version of the key and most important points.  So, I think the reason this creates clarity is it sort of has a dual benefit.  It creates clarity for you, because it's a forcing function to think, "Well, what do I think the summary is of what I've heard in the last half an hour [or] in the last 15 minutes?"  But also, you're sharing your interpretation as a way to sense-check, "Well, is this what everybody else thinks too?" 

I have seen this technique work so well.  You know when you've had meetings that have been messy or meandering, or just maybe there is a lot of complexity, so I'm not trying to kill the complexity, because some things are, that that is the nature, there is a lot to grasp and to juggle.  But then I've seen somebody just say, "Okay, so between now and when we're next together, I'm just going to summarise what I think the three key things are that we need to move forward".  And they say one, two, three, they're very clear about who's taking those actions and then what happens next.  So, I think the summarising also encourages people to still have the conversation, you go in different directions, you can still think big and zoom out, but then the summarising I think actually does zoom you in.  It zooms you in, what's most important now, what's going to happen next, and then you move forward.  And you don't have to ignore the other stuff, but it just creates clarity for everybody. 

Helen Tupper: So the third technique is to use clarifying questions.  So, these are about asking questions to specifically make sure that something is clear.  Sarah and I were doing this earlier actually.  We were having a meeting about some progress we're trying to make on a couple of projects, and we were having to be very, very specific about who is doing what and when are we doing it and what happens next.  And those are the types of questions we're talking about, when you're trying to clarify.  It might sound like, "What's the first action that everyone's going to take?  What's your most important priority over the next week?  Who needs to do what first?"  It's those types of questions. 

I think sometimes, these types of clarifying questions, they can feel a bit confronting, because it can feel maybe even like a bit --

Sarah Ellis: You asked me one earlier. 

Helen Tupper: Did I?

Sarah Ellis: When we were talking about those projects, you were like, "Well, where is that saved?"  And I was like, "Oh, my gosh".  It's funny, isn't it, because that is quite confronting because I was thinking, "Well, I hope it's in the shared drive, but now I'm not sure".  But it's a very important clarifying question, because if it's not there and then you, whenever it is, get to doing your contribution to that piece of work and then I'm not around, I then become a bottleneck.  And so, I think you have to be quite ready for, you weren't trying to blame me there, but you were just going, "Yeah, but is it there?  Because if it's not, it creates confusion rather than clarity". 

Helen Tupper: And these aren't the only types of questions that you can ask in a working week.  I think if all you were asking was clarifying questions --

Sarah Ellis: Imagine!

Helen Tupper: Yeah.  We were thinking, these types of questions, they can feel quite reductive, sort of like, "What's the answer?"  Whereas, we've done a podcast episode before on questioning, and sometimes you want more expansive questions, you know, "What if we did this?" sort of larger questions.  But these ones are designed to be detailed in terms of their answer and specific.  So, you might want to frame them.  I might say with Sarah, "Okay, just a few questions to clarify.  So, I've kind of framed that these are now the types of questions that I'm asking, so it doesn't feel too confrontational, but they are really, really important to reduce confusion. 

Sarah Ellis: Well, I think one of the reasons our conversation went well is we both had acknowledged at the start of that conversation, "Right, there's a lot to get sorted, and there's quite a lot of time pressure in the next ten days".  So, I think we were very much in the mindset of, I don't think we were confused, I don't think we'd quite tipped to confusion, but there was a fair bit of complexity.  And we were sort of going, "Well, to get some clarity in the midst of all of this, we need to do the clarifying questions".  And so again, I do think just signalling, "There's a lot for us to think about here.  So let's just clarify exactly where we're going now or what to do next", I think just helps to reassure people that you're not doing it to be pedantic or to be overly reductive, or to ignore the complexity.  Usually you're just doing it in the spirit of both progress, but also I think shared progress. 

So, the next creating clarity technique is repeating yourself.  This is different to mirroring.  So mirroring, you are repeating someone else.  Here, you're basically saying the same thing a number of different times.  This is probably the thing that comes up most when you read about leadership techniques on creating clarity.  And I do think you have to be a bit careful here, because otherwise you could sound like a sort of leadership robot.  But the classic thing here is, people can only remember three things, which sometimes I think even three things is too many, depending on how much you've got to talk about, but you tell people what you're going to tell them, you tell them the actual things and then you remind everybody what you said. 

I mean, I would never do it in such a formulaic way, but I think it is worth reminding yourself whether it's email, a Teams message, a presentation you're doing in a meeting.  If there is a lot of complexity or potential for confusion, you probably do want to over communicate.  You probably want to say the same thing more than once in the same way.  And I do remember working for a leader who definitely had a bit of a mantra of the things that is most important, so usually like goals or objectives, she was like, "When I start getting bored, I know I need to keep going and double it again, till I'm really, really bored", essentially.  And she really saw that as part of her job, of getting bored of saying the same thing over and over again, because she said, "It never fails to surprise me how you think you've said it a million times, but actually half the people are still just sort of, maybe they missed it the first few times, they're still getting their head around it, they've forgotten it, we don't have very good memories. 

When you do read about this generally, all leaders pretty much say over-communication is so rarely a problem.  You so rarely come across leaders where their teams say, "Oh God, they just say the same thing on repeat".  If anything, it's almost like you need to be on repeat to get cut through.  Everyone's jobs are so busy, everyone's got four million things on their mind, you've got your home life as well as your work life, I think it's just empathising with that.  And so, if you really need to create clarity on something, it's incredibly important if you're leading a big project or a team, almost knowing, "Part of my job to do here is to repeat myself".  And I suppose that asking your question, "So, what am I going to repeat myself on?"  Because obviously it's not everything, but there might be two or three things where you're like, "Right, that's the drumbeat, that's the thing that I'm going to keep coming back to". 

Helen Tupper: And authenticity here is really important.  So, that point that Sarah said about the leadership robot, it reminded me, early in my career I was on a graduate scheme, a sales graduate scheme, and we went on some presentation training, how to make, your presentation stick.  And the advice that they gave to everybody, all the graduates on that training programme, was that you should start your presentations with a stat, like a data point.  And then for the next month, every presentation from every grad started with, "96% of people don't do this", or like, "72%..." and it just lost its authenticity and it's, I don't know, you just stop being interested in it really, because it just felt a bit fake and forced. 

So, I think with all these techniques, so the practice ones, but things like the repeating yourself, it might be, "I've got three things I want to talk to you today", or whatever your structure is that works, but I think finding that authenticity so it feels natural is really important.  And last, but not least, in the creating clarity techniques is, less is more when it comes to clarity.  I kind of feel like I should stop there, the whole point of less is more, but I feel like I need to explain it. 

Sarah Ellis: The irony!

Helen Tupper: I know, I need to explain it teeny, tiny bit.  It's just that sometimes, we just put too many words into our conversations and our communications than we actually need.  And if you were to look at it and think, "Well, what's the100-word version?" or, "How could I condense this down into three bullets?" or, "If I took out all the jargon, what would it sound like?"  Really force yourself to create clarity in your communications.  And if you find that hard, and maybe you don't know where to start, this is where AI is your friend, because there are lots of tools, like Wordtune and Grammarly, where let's say you've written an email out, you can take that email, you can copy and paste it into one of those tools, or ChatGPT, it'll do it, and you could say, "Reduce this by 50% in terms of words", or, "Create a more succinct summary of this statement", or whatever you want, and it'll do it for you.  I don't think you should always outsource the answer to AI, because then --

Sarah Ellis: You actually do become a robot. 

Helen Tupper: You do become a robot, yeah, I don't think that is the answer.  But if you want a bit of a, "But what would it look like if I was already writing in this way?" they might just give you some useful prompts for you to look at. 

Sarah Ellis: So hopefully, they're helpful for all of us a lot of the time, I would imagine, in our working week.  And we're now going to talk about five specific tactics that again, we just think create clarity, and again hopefully things that you can put into practice really quickly. 

So, the first tactic we're calling, go back to the why.  And this one I think works particularly well when you've got people doing loads of different things.  I think this matters in big organisations where you can feel like a tiny fish in a very, very big sea, swimming around, and it's definitely inspired by Satya Nadella, what he talks about in that Hit Refresh book.  And so, going back to the why might look like, go back to what is your overall mission or ambition or goal, whatever you want to call it, whatever you do call it. 

So for us, for example, we always ask ourselves the question, "Will this help make Squiggly Careers better for everyone?"  So, that's sort of a very high-level question.  And going back to your values can also be incredibly helpful.  So for us, we would always ask, "Is this energetic?  How are we being useful?  Is the action really clear?  Are we practising being work in progress?" because they're our four values.  Sometimes, I think that's a bit easier if you're in a smaller organisation, because we can all do that in Amazing If, we can go back to Squiggly Careers better for everyone, we can go back to our four values. 

In a really big company, I think that's often why teams have team charters or ways of working documents, or things like shared objectives that are very transparent, because again, they are things to keep going back to.  And the reason that you go back to them, I think the going back to is really helpful like, "What do we go back to that helps to create clarity?"  That would be a really good propelling question I think to understand as a team and agree on as a team, "Oh, we go back to our top three objectives", because they are a brilliant filter for clarity. 

Helen Tupper: So the second tactic that you might want to give a go is, beginning, middle, end your meetings.  This is a practical build on the point we're talking about, about repeating yourself.  So, let's say you have a meeting.  At the start of the meeting, you want to make sure that you're setting the intention of the meeting.  So, "The thing we want to talk about today is the presentation that we're doing to the board in two weeks' time.  And the aim is that by the end of the meeting, we are going to have a straw man of what that presentation is going to look like and who's saying what".  So I've kind of created that clarity at the start of the meeting. 

Then, at the middle of the meeting, you're going to check in on the progress, "Okay, so we've been here for 45 minutes, we've got another 45 minutes left, I just want to check in on the progress.  Are we moving in the right direction?  Do we need to do anything different?" for example, so you do that middle check-in.  And then, at the end of the meeting, you then reconfirm where you're at, "Okay, so we've got the board meeting in two weeks, what we've got through today is… and what we're doing next is…"  And if you can beginning, middle, end your meetings, you can create an awful lot of clarity for people in the meeting who spent their time in there, and you also don't have to be expert.  I think that is the real trick with this.  We are all in lots of meetings where we probably don't have all the answers, and that's fine.  But what we can still do is add an awful lot of value in those meetings by making sure that we're creating clarity for the people in them.  And beginning, middle, ending your meetings is a way that you can do that. 

Sarah Ellis: So clarity tactic number three is practise presenting the full picture.  We are pretty much all one part of a bigger whole, and often I think we get very used to presenting our part or communicating our part.  If we have to see the whole, or see something bigger than ourselves, you have to make sure you really understand and you can make sense of it, to be able to communicate it to other people. 

So let's imagine, for example, in a team meeting, usually you might be like, "Well, I'll present my bit and then Helen will present her bit and then someone else will present their bit".  And that's great, we definitely don't want to take people's ownership away from the work that they do.  But what it might mean instead is that I actually one week present a joint picture of this work that Helen and I have been doing together, but I need to present all of it.  And so, when I suddenly have got that accountability, I might think, "Oh, but I don't know what Helen's done.  And actually, I don't think I really understand this one thing.  So if I get asked about it, I don't think I'll do a very good job".  So, I basically have to achieve clarity for myself to then be able to communicate clarity to other people. 

We actually think this is quite a hard action.  We were talking about this before, we were like, "Do we put this in, do we not?"  And because also, we were obviously very mindful of like, we don't want to like steal people's thunder.  That's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve here.  But I think if occasionally you create that discipline of going, "Well, I'm going to talk about something that I'm maybe not in, day in, day out", I think it just helps to stretch that skill of creating clarity, and knowing, to Helen's previous point, you don't have to be the expert to be able to do this successfully.  It was at this point we realised that Helen is very, very good at this and that's probably why she's incredibly successful in what she does in her career.  So, that was our conclusion of this point. 

Helen Tupper: Sarah's very complimentary to me in this podcast.  But I was thinking about another way.  So, you could present a colleague's project or progress and they could do the same for you, so you've got to dive pretty deep into their world to be able to do that.  Or if that feels a bit uncomfortable, you know what Sarah's saying, "Well, does that feel like I'm taking credit for their work?" I think an alternative thing you could do, and this would have worked well for me when I was working in a big company, is you could go and spend time in another department's meeting, go and sit. 

So, I was in marketing, for example, in Microsoft.  I could have gone and sat in a meeting in sales, or I could have gone and sat in a meeting in the partnership division, or whatever.  And then I could have listened and learned quite a lot, and then I could have played that back to my team.  So I'm still creating clarity, because what I'm doing is I'm saying, "This is what they're working on, these are their priorities, these are the problems they're struggling with at the moment".  And just that act of creating clarity in a world that you're not that close to, I think is a really good way that you can stretch the strengths, because if all you're ever doing is talking about work that you already know about, how hard are you really trying to develop this skill?  Whereas if you go into a work you're not that familiar with, then as Sarah said, you've got to listen, you've got to learn, you've got to interpret it, and then you've got to share it with other people, and that is stretching the strengths in a more sophisticated way. 

Sarah Ellis: And do you know what I realised when we were talking about this, and I was reflecting on this as an idea for action?  I actually missed the opportunity to do that this morning.  So, we were having our usual start-of-the-week team meeting, and you and I were dividing up some stuff we need to talk to everybody about, and we both talked about the thing that we were probably most confident about, or certainly I did.  And I nearly said to you at the time, I was like, "Oh, no, maybe I should talk about the other thing", because that was perhaps typically not what I would talk about.  And I would have had to make sure I was really clear to have been able to do that.  So even noticing, I was like, "Okay, well that's a good one for next time because it won't be the only time we ever talk about that".  So, just spot those moments where you're like, "Oh, I could have done that, but I went back into what I'm very used to doing". 

Helen Tupper: Tactic number five is inspired by a meeting that I was in last week; it's clarity co-pilot.  So, I was in a meeting last week and again we were presenting on Teams, and when I was presenting they had enabled Microsoft Teams Copilot functionality, which basically as I was speaking, was summarising what I was saying, but quite a bit more succinctly than I think I was saying it.  Because I was talking for like 45 minutes and there was a paragraph with a few bullet points and I was like, "Yeah, that's sort of that, that's sort of that".  And this is Copilot functionality, which we've actually not enabled in our company yet, but I kind of saw it in action in that particular meeting. 

What Sarah and I were thinking was, I mean, for a start, turn that on.  It might help you in a meeting to create some clarity for everybody, because that conversation gets summarised pretty succinctly.  But also, if you haven't got the tech, we've not got it at the moment, you can sort of replicate that clarity co-pilot functionality for each other.  Like, Sarah could be my clarity co-pilot.  She could spot where I'm talking, where I might be better creating clarity, or where I'm creating confusion, and feed that back to me.  And I've actually asked the team for this.  So, I went to our team this morning and I asked them sort of clarity co-pilot questions.  The questions I asked them was, "When do you think I best create clarity?"  And then I asked them another question, "When do you think my actions create confusion?"  And the feedback that I got was quite consistent. 

So basically, I create clarity when I'm good at summarising what needs to be done, when it needs to be done; and then, I create confusion when I'm rushing.  So if I'm trying to rush, then often I don't give people the why behind the work.  As Sarah said at the start, giving people that why is really important.  And it seems to me, from the feedback that I got from my team, that I don't always do that because I'm rushing straight into the what.  But that's a really good way that my team have sort of been my clarity co-pilots because I've gone and asked them for that feedback. 

Sarah Ellis: And what was interesting, because we did that as a bit of a test pre-podcast, you got very fast feedback.  And that's usually a sign that it's an easy question to answer.  And I think that's a sign of a good feedback question.  So someone isn't having to go like, "I don't know how to answer that, or I'm struggling to come up with examples", they responded really quickly and you could spot it in yourself very fast and you're like, "Right, okay, well I've got something I can do something with now. 

Then our final clarity tactic, which I think is my favourite, probably because it's the one that I use the most, is using visuals to create clarity.  And visuals don't have to mean drawings, they might be sketches, they might be any kind of prototype.  And it's inspired a bit by a quote that we've used before from IDEO which is, "If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a prototype is worth a thousand meetings".  And you know, sometimes if you go around in circles, I think if you go around in circles, you're like, "We're going around in confusing circles", essentially.  That's sort of the opposite of creating clarity, because you just feel like you're sort of stuck in a spiral.  Often just try to think about, "Well, what could we do quickly?" 

You know if you're trying to create a website, for example, you use something called scamps, which is basically people just drawing on a bit of plain paper what might be on each web page.  And it sounds very fancy, but it's not really.  You go, "Oh, we want some text here, and we'd like a nice picture here and a diagram here".  I just think we could probably do that more than we appreciate.  And a few times where I've not done this, I've definitely sometimes created confusion, because I have got something in my head and I haven't got it out of my head, or maybe my words haven't been super-clear.  Whereas if I'd actually just sent a quick sketch or even a diagram of something, we probably could have moved forward fast; or someone would have spotted, "Okay, I'd imagined something slightly different". 

It is amazing how rubbish these visuals can be.  I could show you some examples I have sent to people like our designer.  I mean, I literally have to put an apology before that because I'm like, "I'm very sorry about this.  But here's an image", and you're like, I mean, is it even an image?  Could we even use that as a description?  But what's funny is she sort of gets it really fast.  She's like, "Oh, okay, yeah, I understand what you mean by this thing balanced on this thing over here".  Whereas if I had tried to describe it, I could have definitely created confusion and a lot more work, which is not helpful for anyone.  So, it doesn't always have to be a drawing, it could be a prototype, it could be just standing in a room with a flipchart using a Miro board, anything where you're just starting to get out of your head and put something down on a bit of paper, I think. 

Helen Tupper: Yeah, and even on a slide, you don't have to do the perfect slide, but you could be like, "Oh, it's something a bit like this".  I think the trick here, and if you have an idea of what you think something could look like in your head, like if I'm saying to Sarah, "I think the way that we should run the team meeting is a bit like this", like if you in your head, you're like, "I already have an idea of what I want it to look like", I think it's getting that out of your head into some format as quick as you can. 

Like sometimes I don't have an idea what I want it to look like.  I might talk to the team and be like, "Oh, I think we should do something a bit like this, but I can't visualise it, I can't see it, I haven't got the answers yet".  If your brain has already gone forward from that point and started to almost create a mental sketch of what that could be, I think it's worth getting that sketch into reality in some way, and you're not trying to constrain someone else's creativity, you're just trying to give them a starting place; because otherwise, they're trying to start from scratch and you've already got halfway there in your head, and I think that's the bit we're trying to help people with. 

Sarah Ellis: So, just to go back, our creating clarity techniques are, mirroring; summarising; clarifying questions; repeating yourself; and less is more.  And our creating clarity tactics are, go back to the why; beginning, middle, end your meetings; practise presenting the full picture; clarity co-pilot; and visuals and prototypes. 

Helen Tupper: And we will summarise all of those techniques and tactics in the PodSheets.  We know we've covered quite a lot today, but we hope there's quite a lot of practical stuff that you can take away and try out too, and that PodSheet might make it a little bit easier for you. 

Sarah Ellis: So, that's everything for this week.  Thank you to everybody who continues to rate, review, subscribe and share.  We read them all, it makes a really big difference to our week, so if you ever fancy doing us a five-minute favour, any of those things make a massive difference to us and our ability to continue to grow all things Squiggly Careers.  But that's everything for this week, thank you so much for listening and we're back with you again soon.  Bye for now. 

Helen Tupper: Bye everyone.