I No Longer Expect Good Work to Explain Itself

The work still needs explaining

If the work was good enough, I assumed it would mostly speak for itself. Someone looking at it would see why it mattered, understand the choices behind it and have enough to judge it. I expected the quality of the work to carry much of the explanation.

I no longer expect that.

Finishing something and explaining it ask different things of me. While doing the work, I need to follow the problem wherever it leads. When explaining it, I need to help someone else understand where I ended up and how I got there. They should not have to repeat my whole process to check a decision.

That gives me something I can practice without waiting for a bigger role. I can explain a choice. I can make an assumption visible. I can make an unresolved question easier to find.

I have no idea whether doing that changes what opportunities come my way. It does make my reasoning easier for someone else to examine. That feels useful enough on its own.

What the reader needs

Larry McEnerney gives me a thoughtful way to think about the gap. He argues that experts often use writing to work through complicated thoughts, while the writing that helped them think may be difficult for someone else to follow.

That feels familiar.

I can write something that makes perfect sense as a reminder to myself because I already know why I discarded an option or which detail changed my mind. Someone else does not have that history.

They may need a different order. They may need a missing step. They may need me to say plainly what decision I am asking them to consider.

The test I want to use is simple: can someone see the choice I made, what it depends on and where they might disagree?

If they reject my conclusion but can point to the assumption or decision they would change, the explanation has still done something useful.

Making discussion possible

The reason I care about clarity is that most of the work I do eventually has to become useful to someone else.

A recommendation has to be discussed. A risk has to be understood. A decision has to be made. Sometimes the useful outcome is disagreement.

Research by Jessica R. Mesmer-Magnus and Leslie A. DeChurch found a positive association between team information sharing and team performance. That does not tell me how to write a better page. It does reinforce the basic importance of people being able to work with information held by someone else.

Jeff Bezos has written about narrative memos as preparation for better meeting discussions. What I like about that example is the idea that writing is part of the work, rather than something added after the real work is finished.

That changes how I want to use my own drafts.

I can give the explanation time. I can ask someone where I lost them. I can rewrite something when the conclusion landed and the reasoning did not.

The goal is not to make disagreement disappear. It is to make the disagreement more useful.

A clear page has limits

There is a limit to what clearer writing can do.

Teams often spend more time discussing information they already share than information held by only one person. A point can be perfectly understandable and still receive little attention.

Those are different problems.

I can make the information I have easier to follow. I cannot make my account complete when important information sits somewhere else. And I cannot decide by myself what a group chooses to spend time on.

That matters to me, especially when I think about someone early in a career.

I would hate to turn every unanswered concern or ignored recommendation into a communication failure. Sometimes another revision would help. Sometimes the problem sits somewhere else in how the group shares information, makes decisions or chooses what deserves attention.

Clarity matters. It just cannot carry all of that by itself.

Something I can practice now

The habit I want is fairly practical.

Before I send something, I want to read it once as someone who was absent for the thinking.

Where have I skipped a step because it feels obvious to me?

Can they tell what I am asking them to consider?

Can they see enough of the reasoning to question it?

Miss Mango, clarity is a form of respect. It means taking the time to help another person understand enough to make up their own mind. You can care about that without accepting responsibility for every response your work receives.

That is probably the distinction I missed earlier.

Good work still needs to be good.

I just no longer expect it to explain itself.