Why Leaders Must Put Thoughts Into Words

Would you like to be clearer about anything?

Hi, I'm Kevin Iconberry and I'm here to help you reach your potential as a leader and

a human being.

Welcome to Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.

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Are you ready?

Let's get started.

You've had this experience.

You've had an idea.

It's a good idea.

It's clear in your head.

You've thought about it.

You are excited to share it with someone else and then when you start to share it with

someone else with your excitement and the clarity that's in your head and as you're

talking about it they start asking you questions and the idea that you thought was so clear

becomes Swiss cheese.

But there's also a hole in it.

The first question they ask immediately makes you say, well, let me think about that

or the first question they have about something you don't have an answer for, we've all experienced

this.

We've also experienced this scenario where someone talks to you about something and goes

on and on and on.

You hardly get another word in.

They talk for two, three, four, five minutes and when they finish they say, thank you for

your help.

You say to yourself, I didn't do anything.

Those two stories are proof, positive of this important statement.

Thoughts are fuzzy.

Words bring clarity.

Yeah, it's when we take something from our beautiful brains and put it into words, whether

that's spoken words like the two examples that I just shared with you, when we put our

thoughts into words, they get clearer and that's important.

But it's not just spoken words, it's also written words that when we write stuff down

we get clearer.

Now, I've done all sorts of exercises with groups in training sessions where I actually

have them think about something and for whatever the purpose might be and then they write

it down and then they share it, but what they share isn't the same thing that they wrote

down.

Both spoken words and written words help us.

So some of us are more verbal and so the thinking out loud is maybe more helpful and others

are more tactile and perhaps the writing it down might be more helpful.

But as humans, we are wired such that both are true.

Thoughts are fuzzy.

Words, whether written or spoken bring clarity.

So let me give you two immediate and practical examples of this.

If you're having, if you're wanting to have more effective relationships with other people

at work or otherwise, what you can do is make sure you're clearer with them about your

expectations and boundaries.

Like just because you are thinking it doesn't mean they know what you're thinking and the

boundaries or expectations that makes sense to you or you think everybody knows are

not necessarily what they know.

So get clear about what you want or need and then share it and maybe sharing it both

in writing and spoken depending on the situation could be of great value.

So expectations, boundaries, two practical examples.

There's another, anytime, anything that you assume.

Like when I assume something about Marissa who's on the other side of this camera, it

doesn't serve either one of us.

But if I talk about it, if I share it, not only will my assumption be clearer, but she

will know it too and both of us will win.

So those are just a couple of hundreds of examples we could use about how we get clearer

by putting words to our thoughts.

This applies not just to us personally and interpersonally, but also on our teams.

So the examples I just gave or organizational examples of getting greater clarity by

giving more people the chance to talk things out, especially in a world when we're working

virtually is especially important.

Let me close with today's remarkable reminder, thoughts are fuzzy, words bring clarity.

If you want more clarity, put your thoughts and ideas into words.

Three days a week I put some of my thoughts and ideas into words and it's called your

remarkable day and it could show up in your email inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday

if you subscribe.

You'll be informed, you'll be inspired, you might sometimes be amused, it will add to

your day, hopefully helping your day become a more remarkable one.

You can learn more by going to Kevinikenberry.com slash newsletters to sign up.

Hope you'll do that and hope you're signed up here so you'll be back next week for another

episode of Remarkable TV and the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.