The fog
"It's complicated" is a common explanation.
"There isn't an easy explanation."
"There are a myriad of issues involved."
"We have access to information that you don't."
The fog surrounds problems. It engulfs seemingly poor decisions, unexplainable votes, bad courses of action, failures to act, bad sales jobs. It is thickened by jargon and muttered explanations that leave no one in the room any clearer on what happened. It deepens in memos and presentations that ramble on; in massive email strings that refer you ever downward to another portion of the message.
The fog is bad. It prevents progress, encourages bad conclusions and repeated mistakes.
Fog can be produced by skilled people or slick people or careless people. But it can be detected because the listener (or reader) never really understands.
It is cleared by precision and pointed questions designed to elicit responses that fall in between the two extremes of watch-building and "shit happens". I get suspicious when something is "too complicated" or so "multi-faceted" that I wouldn't understand. I've found clients are the same way. They appreciate fog-clearing. They want to understand. They are bright people.
Fog-clearing is a full time job.
"There isn't an easy explanation."
"There are a myriad of issues involved."
"We have access to information that you don't."
The fog surrounds problems. It engulfs seemingly poor decisions, unexplainable votes, bad courses of action, failures to act, bad sales jobs. It is thickened by jargon and muttered explanations that leave no one in the room any clearer on what happened. It deepens in memos and presentations that ramble on; in massive email strings that refer you ever downward to another portion of the message.
The fog is bad. It prevents progress, encourages bad conclusions and repeated mistakes.
Fog can be produced by skilled people or slick people or careless people. But it can be detected because the listener (or reader) never really understands.
It is cleared by precision and pointed questions designed to elicit responses that fall in between the two extremes of watch-building and "shit happens". I get suspicious when something is "too complicated" or so "multi-faceted" that I wouldn't understand. I've found clients are the same way. They appreciate fog-clearing. They want to understand. They are bright people.
Fog-clearing is a full time job.
Wonderful post! If you want to understand an organization's culture, just look at how much fog managers add to seemingly simple situations.
For some supervisors, creating fog is a convenient method of avoiding clarity (specially when they are a part of problem).
Clearing this "fog" requires a ruthless quest for facts with right questions that hit the core. Being subjective is not always a better strategy.
You hit the nail right on the head when you say "Fog-clearing is a full time job" - Brilliant!
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Thanks, Tanmay.
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