Alex is brilliant. Her words are often full of wisdom. In fact, I only know a handful of people who know as much about their field as she does.
Alex is also a huge time waster. Because her wisdom is usually the team’s to discover. Her thinking is dense. Her slides are packed with stuff that’s totally clear to her but not to her team. Her language is quite special with words that have a specific meaning to her but not to the team.
The sad part of the story is that this happens not only with brilliant minds like that of Alex but it is often the default even for people who are far less brilliant.
In fact, often we find ourselves to be ok with communication that lacks clarity. Somehow, it seems acceptable to have the team figure out what it all means. Rather than have one person invest the time to figure out how to speak with clarity, we have all the others invest the time to figure it out.
Great teams get stuff done more quickly because they have figured out how to speak with clarity (among other things, of course).
PS: Of course, Alex is not her real name.