{"id":293,"date":"2007-05-09T02:01:10","date_gmt":"2007-05-09T02:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=293"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:39:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:39:11","slug":"committing-to-clarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Committing to clarity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" height=\"55\" src=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/sm_curry_spices_sxchu_279171_4526_c_lotushead.jpg\" \/>One evening I was in Rochester, NY for business and I went looking for Indian food. I decided to check out a place that someone recommended as being &#8220;very authentic.&#8221; I went in and ordered, and the waitress asked me how spicy I wanted my meal. My generic answer is &#8220;mild&#8221; but she offered &#8220;medium, or spicy?&#8221; I thought &#8220;well, medium is the less spicy option; I&#8217;ll just go with it and hope for the best.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bad idea. On this evening, authentic Indian food meant <!--more-->&#8220;really spicy&#8221; and I had trouble eating the meal. I certainly didn&#8217;t enjoy it.<\/p>\n<p>What happened? <strong>Why didn&#8217;t I ask more questions<\/strong>, get more clarity on what she meant by &#8220;medium or spicy?&#8221; I think in retrospect I was tired, hungry, and just wanted to eat. I so badly wanted it to work out that I didn&#8217;t press forward and ask the key clarifying questions that might have told me if I&#8217;d get what I wanted. And what if the restaurant simply didn&#8217;t have mild food? Did I really want to go somewhere else? <strong>By not facing the tough questions early on, I ended up with a bad result.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s face it: this phenomenon happens in work situations all the time. Does this sound familiar?<\/p>\n<p>A trusted coworker commits to sending me a deliverable by Tuesday. Tuesday at noon rolls around and it still hasn&#8217;t arrived. I send email to find out what happened. &#8220;Oh, you wanted it by noon? I thought end of day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So he rushes to finish it by 3PM, and it arrives. But it&#8217;s a Word doc. All text. I wanted a Power Point presentation. With pictures. Big trouble.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s one thing for me to have built trust with a coworker, so that I know that he has good intentions. <strong>But it doesn&#8217;t mean that we can read each other&#8217;s minds.<\/strong> Getting clear and specific is a critical way to build working relationships.<\/p>\n<p>How to solve this? Here&#8217;s my best shot.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First I <strong>get as clear as possible<\/strong> on what I want. If I&#8217;m even a little confused, the other person will be even more confused.<\/li>\n<li>I pay attention to <strong>noticing when I&#8217;m just &#8220;hoping for the best.&#8221;<\/strong> When I&#8217;m reluctant to ask questions, it&#8217;s a sign of trouble and a cue to ask myself &#8220;what&#8217;s going on?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>I remind myself that <strong>misunderstandings are much easier to fix early<\/strong> in the process. If it&#8217;s painful now, it won&#8217;t get better later.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Consider the people you work with<\/strong>. How clear are they on your expectations? How do you know?<\/p>\n<p>Paul Konasewich, <a title=\"Connect Leadership\" href=\"http:\/\/connectleadership.com\">connectleadership.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2007 Paul Konasewich<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One evening I was in Rochester, NY for business and I went looking for Indian food. I decided to check [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[39,64,1370,38,50,46],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","tag-best-practices","tag-communication","tag-leadership","tag-project-management","tag-requirements","tag-teamwork"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13716,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions\/13716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}