The single most critical failure, the single most critical failure of any management structure and therefore pretty much any company, the single most critical failure of any company, any management structure is an inability to create clarity. This happens at the very basic level of an IC and a manager, an individual contributor and a manager, where the manager is not providing clarity of what they expect from the IC. Perhaps they're not providing clarity for a particular piece of work that the IC is working on. And then this continues as you go up the chain from a manager to a senior manager or director, where the director is not providing clarity to the managers of the organizational goals that are being provided to them. Or perhaps that is actually the problem even further up the chain, that the organizational goals are not being clarified from the, let's say, the C-level, down to the VP level or the director level. And so this continuous folly of lack of clarity creates a whole system that has a lack of clarity. Now, the interesting thing that you'll find, if you ask any one person, especially the people at the top of that chain, if they are clear on what they want from the IC, and the people that report to them, most of the time, they'll say yes. So clearly, something is missing. When there is unidirectional clarity, in other words, the reporting downward, the leader has more clarity than the report does. This is a very common problem, and it will kill an entire company. We're going to talk a little bit more about what this means, why is it? What is that missing piece of the puzzle? Right after we talk about today's sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Unblocked. When was the last time you had a question about your code base and spent hours digging through Slack channels or PRs, JIRA tickets and wikis looking for answers? 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That's G-E-T unblocked.com. Thanks again to Unblocked for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. Hopefully it's no surprise to you that I care so much about creating clarity. Is indeed part of what this show's kind of top level mission is to find clarity. Or to help you find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. And I'm sure you'll be able to find clarity. Driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. And clarity is absolutely critical, but is not simple. It sounds simple. It sounds obvious. If we just say the thing that we mean, then we are being clear. Right? But this is where the problem comes in. As with many problems, a lot of it starts with us. We imagine that our communication is not as simple as it seems. It's naturally clear. Whatever we're saying, if we say what we mean, if we're being honest, that's a key problem. If we're being honest, then we are being clear. These two things are not the same concept. We can be honest in our intentions. We can be honest in the words that we say, in the message that we hear ourselves speak. But it can still lack clarity. And this goes right back to the communication model we've been talking about on this show recently. And it keeps on coming up over and over again because it is such a critical part of our world. Clarity is not only dependent on the messenger or the message, but it's also dependent on the receiver. In other words, it doesn't really matter how clear it seems, how many best practices you're following. It doesn't matter if you're checking all of the boxes of every feedback model that you know of. If the receiver does not get the message, then something is failing. Now, before you turn the podcast off in a swift defensive motion, just understand that I'm not telling you that you, are failing to be clear, but rather you should think about this from an objective perspective. The message is failing to be clearly heard. The message is not making it to the intended receiver in the form that you intend. Why is that? What causes this? There's so many things that can cause a message to get interrupted or somehow lose its clarity. It can start with you. Perhaps you imagine that it's clear because you're filling in a lot of the gaps. So much of our communication relies on a heavy amount of assumption. For example, we assume that the person that we're talking to can understand the basics of our language in the first place. Much less our tone of voice or perhaps our specific word choice. All of the things that go unsaid that are implied by the words that we choose. All of the things. All of the things that are attached to, let's say, the timing of the message. As humans, we attempt to be as efficient with our communication as possible. So the other side of the coin is that creating clarity costs. It's not free to create clarity. This is a very simple idea. If we go back to the theory of information, clarity comes as a result of reducing uncertainty. So in other words, clarity comes as a result of transferring information. We also know from the theory of information model that every additional piece of information is incrementally more expensive to transfer as the one before. Another way of saying the same thing is that reducing uncertainty from 100% uncertainty to 50% uncertainty might be fairly cheap. But it may cost the same amount to have it again. So. To go from 50% to 25% uncertainty. And in virtually every realistic system, it is impossible or extremely expensive to get to 0% uncertainty. And so as humans, when we are transferring some kind of information, when we are communicating a message, when we are trying to be clear, we are also trying to optimize our investment. How much can we put into being clear? In this instance, because humans are social creatures, we very often expend the same amount of investment, creating clarity for any two messages, regardless of the value of that information. In other words, we may treat our casual conversation about the weekend with the same level of intentionality as a conversation clarifying requirements on a project. It's not always intuitive or easy to understand. When we should add more intentionality to our communication, to our information transfer. So it would feel a little bit weird to ask someone if they understood what we just said about our weekend. It would be socially awkward to reflect that information back to them. But it might be very useful to reflect the information we're hearing about project requirements back. So that we can ensure that the message has made. It to its receiver. Here's my broad recommendation. No matter where you sit in the organization. Whatever you're doing in your career. If you're working for clients, maybe even as a freelancer. You will almost definitely. Be paid back in spades. If you invest more. In clarity. And this is a broad recommendation because our default mode. Is low. Stakes communication. If we get something a little bit off. It doesn't really matter. Our social communication. Is low stakes. If we're not totally precise about what we're hearing another person say. Basically nothing happens as a result of that. So in a work environment when the stakes are much higher. You are likely. To err on the wrong side of clarity. In other words. You're still operating in that kind of social. Environment. In your communication. It is useful. To think about this default mode. And try to bias against it. By investing more. In clarity. There are a lot of ways to do this. I mentioned a very simple one. I'll reiterate it here. When you have a message. That you're trying to get across. Make sure that the message is restated back to you. And if you are receiving the message. You can do this as the receiver. Restate in your own words. What you're hearing. Additionally. It makes sense to ask questions about. What this information actually means. What does it imply? What are the real consequences of what you're saying here? Share whatever assumptions are going through your head. About whatever the message is that you heard. Perhaps your assumptions can be validated. Or maybe they can be removed from the table right away. Overall you can see very quickly. That A. This is a lot more energy. Than maybe you're used to expending. In a conversation like this. And B. The amount of clarity and information transfer. That you're going to get out of this type of discussion. Is going to go through the roof. Engineers. I challenge you. In your next feedback session. If you're confused about some piece of feedback. If you want more tangible proof. Of where this feedback is coming from. Rather than it being a hand wavy thing. Or if you're feeling like the feedback. Is not grounded in some expectation of your role. Ask for more. Ask for more explanation. Ask for examples. Ask for. Where does this show up exactly. In the expected parts of my role. And of course. There's a little bit of a risk here. If you're not careful with the way that you're communicating this. A lack of clarity here. May make the other person assume. That you're doing this to interrogate them. Or somehow. To defend against the feedback. That they are providing you. So it makes sense to be explicitly clear. That you're not trying to do that. That you actually do. Want to understand more. That you don't want to keep on going on. In the same direction. Without having much clearer feedback. Overall. The investment in clarity. Is almost definitely going to pay you back in spades. I'd love to hear. If you've invested in clarity. And somehow it came back to bite you. But I've yet to hear that story. Whatever stories you do have. Please come and join the DeveloperT Discord community. And share them. You can head over to developerT.com. Slash Discord. To join that community. Totally free. Today. It'll always be free. Go and check that out. Thank you again to today's sponsor. Unblocked. Unblocked provides helpful and accurate answers. Developers need to get jobs done. It tailors answers. By augmenting your source code. With existing team knowledge. In GitHub. Slack. Confluence. And more. Spend less time digging for context. And more time building great software. Check it out. At. Unblocked. Dot com. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of DeveloperT. And until next time. Enjoy your tea.