Confusion Archive - The Art of Communicating

If in doubt, choose plain and simple

If you challenge the status quo but can’t explain how, you’re not transforming anything. You’re just making noise.

If people need a dictionary to understand their next steps, they’ll default to what’s familiar instead.

Plain and simple is the first of the four PATH principles.

It’s pretty, well, simple: If in doubt, choose the simpler words, use the plainer language.

It’s the foundation for everything else.

Isn’t it kind of crazy that it still has such a bad rep in business?

It baffles me that people still wear it as a badge of honor when they are able to juggle complex statements that sound fancy but no-one understands.

Confusion is a much bigger issue than complexity. Even a difficult plan can be followed if it’s clear, but a confusing one will paralyze action.

When you find plain and simple words:
→ A vague vision becomes a future I can clearly see.
→ The logical next step becomes the obvious next step.

This is what I’d award the badge of honor for.

How about you?

Keep lighting the path!

Never delegate the hard part to your audience

I’ve just visited a business website but quickly left it utterly frustrated by the confusing messaging.

Certainly, you’ve had similar experiences with some presentations, websites, brochures, or pitches that were so overloaded with information that you just couldn’t find the point.

The business spoke about a bunch of customer problems. They mentioned a bunch of products with a bunch of features and then a bunch of ideas that they are working on. They elaborated on the company’s history, the mission, the vision, fact, stats, awards, you name it.

Basically what they did was throw all that information at you and hope that something sticks.

Essentially, they delegated the hard work of figuring out what their core message is to you.

To their audience, to their customers.

What a bad choice!

That’s work you should never delegate.

A great tool that helps you avoid this is what I like to call the “pass along phrase”. After someone listens to you or visits your website, what would they pass along to their colleagues?

That’s always short and to the point. It’s never 30 features, it’s one or max. two things.

When you have clarity on what you would like your pass along phrase to be, you can arrange your story to actually deliver it. You can decide which info is essential and which isn’t. You also know how to arrange the info cohesively so it all leads to that message.

What would your audience pass along from your communication?

The Pinnacle of Clarity

Recently at Confused Corp, the world market leaders for unclear instructions and perplexed employees.

The CEO announces: “Our email communication is the pinnacle of clarity!”

Employees glance at their screens, where emails looped in endless chains of cryptic jargon, and wonder if clarity is just another word they are using wrong.

The CEO beams: “No one asks for clarification anymore—it’s a triumph!”

In the back, an employee whispers: “We stopped asking because the ‘clarifications’ only make it worse.”

Curiosity has joined the party

Confusion’s best mate is Complexity.
Clarity’s best mate is Curiosity.

Luckily, Complexity and Curiosity are friends, too.

When you need to explain a complex idea with clarity, I’d suggest you invite Curiosity to the party, too, as she can help connect Complexity and Clarity.

Do not make the mistake of introducing All-at-once to Complexity, as the two will immediately start nerding so deeply about their expertise that it will lead others to quickly feel overwhelmed. Everyone else will get bored, roll their eyes, and tune out – except for Confusion, of course, who gets a kick out of it.

Curiosity, on the other hand, is a brilliant conversation starter that gets everyone involved. She has such a great intuition for what excites the others that it feels effortless for the group to dive from layer to layer of each and every detail. The deeper the conversation goes, the more Clarity will open up and engage in the discussion.

The best part: Curiosity just never gets tired of parties.

Why not invite her to your party, too? Curiosity would love to introduce Clarity to Complexity for you.

We need more structure

Maybe you do. But maybe you need something else. Like, for example, clarity.

The two are not to be confused.

Many websites are well structured. But they are far from clear.

Many corporate presentations are well structured. But they couldn’t be more confusing.

Many scientific papers are well structured, yet not clear at all.

A bureaucracy is often well structured. But totally confusing.

The problem with all of these examples is that they are made not for the final receiver but for a different audience. The website is made to please the board. The presentation is made to please the boss. The paper is made to please the reviewer. And the bureaucracy is made to please the system.

Don’t confuse structure with clarity.

Inner clarity, outer confusion

Clarity is a tricky beast. We can feel inner clarity but sense outer confusion.

Confusion’s best mate is the Curse of Knowledge which reassures us that everything’s super clear. Which it is. To us. I mean, we just know it, right? But the Curse of Knowledge is brilliant at hiding the fact that for our audience it’s super hard to understand. They don’t know what we know, after all.

The more we know about something and the deeper we care about that thing, the harder it gets to speak about that thing in simple terms.

If you want a reality check to beat the Curse of Knowledge and put confusion back in its place, join us on September, 7th for a free Q&A. You’ll meet like minded people and get a chance to ask me anything, e.g. how to overcome the Curse of Knowledge in your case.

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