Exhaustiveness Vs. Clarity

Telling More May Mean They'll Remember Less

Let’s say I’d ask you to write down these things from memory, without looking them up:

• What’s the mission of your company?

• What’s your Product Vision?

• What’s your Product Strategy?

• What is the list of top company objectives?

I often ask participants of my workshops to answers these questions from memory. What’s scary is that often not a single person in the group is able to write it down accurately from memory.

And if nobody knows the mission, vision, product strategy or list of company objectives by heart, then how can they take it into account with their work and daily decisions?

When you don’t know from memory what the answers to these questions represent, then how can a lightbulb go off when you’re about to decide something that may impact any of the facets of your business and the product?

When you don’t want to miss anything, you’re likely to miss most things. This may sound counter-intuitive, but allow me to explain.

Let’s say you’re presenting your Product Vision, Product Strategy or a list of goals. You want to make sure that everyone knows all the details, because you want to make sure that we’re all on the same page.

Often the desire for being exhaustive and putting all the cards on the table is the primary thing that will prevent you from having everyone on the same page. It’s an information avalanche where the gold nugget of clarity gets buried.

Consider the O.J. Simpson case: “If the glove does not fit you must acquit.” or Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”.

Make sure you provide a smart hook so people can easily remember the core of your argument. And when they do remember, they are more likely to remember other things that are related too.

But start with making sure they remember the core of your message.

It’s better to be clearly incomplete than to be unclearly exhaustive.

Unclearly exhaustive means you will tell more and they will remember less, and you lose control over what they will remember. Clearly incomplete means you tell them less, they will remember more, and you will be in control over what they remember.

A information foothold of something is better than an information avalanche that buries everything.

By telling less they will remember more.