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September 12, 2007

Complete is the enemy of clear

I’m working on a change communication program where we keep encountering the same obstacle: Because the client team is so enthusiastic about the initiatives they’re supporting, they want to communicate absolutely every detail every time to every audience.

As a result, although our first drafts are succinct and to the point, by the time the clients end up adding “all the stuff you left out,” e-mails are 1,200 words, web pages go on for five screens, PowerPoint presentations swell to 45 or 50 slides.

I’m not exaggerating. And this isn’t an isolated incident. All too often, well-intended people think it’s necessary to include all the facts, chronicle each step of the process, list every team member, and otherwise junk up a perfectly good message.

The outcome? You know: Employees delete without reading. People’s eyes glaze over during PowerPoint presentations. Nobody understands, much less remembers afterwards, what the communication is supposed to be about.

I needed help, so I did what any self-respecting Liberal Arts major would do: I turned to Voltaire. (You remember, the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher.) I was looking for the great quote, “Perfect is the enemy of good,” because it was close to conveying what I wanted to say: If you try to put everything in, you’ll get less than you need—and it won’t be effective.

But the quote didn’t quite hit the mark, so I adapted it: “Complete is the enemy of clear.”

And then, as I was scrolling through the extensive Voltaire quotation collection on Wikipedia , I found something even better: “The secret of being a bore is to tell everything.”

That captured the situation perfectly. Now I just have to find a diplomatic way to share it with the clients.

Posted by Alison Davis at September 12, 2007 03:10 PM