Beware the Blank Stare: Clarity in Communication
I just witnessed this scene again today: A colleague sprinted down the hall waving an email in her hand. “What are you saying here—I don’t get it?” The writer of the email provided the missing detail, re-explained the situation, and clarified using a more specific phrase than the vague one in the original document.
“Oh, okay. I follow you now. I’ll take care of it,” the email recipient responded and disappeared around the corner. And the writer of the unclear document whistled his way on down the hall.
Flashback to a month earlier: I was leading a Get Your Book Published seminar in which attendees had to formulate their book concept in one or two sentences. It came Susan’s (not her real name) turn to “pitch” her book concept to the group. For the first time, the group fell totally silent. Not a word of feedback. Finally, someone spoke up to ask Susan to explain the concept further, and she gladly did so for the next five minutes. Gradually, the group “caught” the idea and gave Susan intriguing feedback. But then the strangest thing happened: During the remainder of the seminar, Susan never changed the way she worded her pitch—even after met with the collective blank stare of confusion. It seemed not to occur to her that maybe her original wording lacked clarity.
Bosses do the same thing with their administrative assistants. They draft a report and ask the assistant to proofread it. The assistant brings the report back with sentences marked and comments, “I don’t understand what you mean here—this seems unclear.” To which, the boss replies, “Oh, that’s just the technical aspects. It’ll be clear to the lawyers who have to review it.” Then two weeks later, the lawyers who review the report ask for a rewrite of the same sentences.
As a communication consultant to business, I’ve watched this scene unfold time and time again. People always assume the confusion happens on the other end of the communication—that what they themselves say is perfectly clear and that the other person just “missed it” somehow.
Things always seem clear to us—or we wouldn’t have said it that way. A better gauge of our own clarity: Beware the blank stare.
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