I'll give you what you need, what you need

Oh, INXS. Growing up, your music certainly did that. But I am bemused about how often what you need is not considered. Let me tell you what I mean.

I became keenly aware of this problem in the workplace because of my time lecturing, tutoring and marking essays at Uni. At the time, I was amazed by how often you would set a question, like "What was the consequence of X" or "How did someone approach something" and the response would be to tell you everything they knew about X, or something or someone. But they did not answer the question. They tell me that X was born in 1933 and lived here and did this. And this was very frustrating.

Being upfront about the importance of answering the question, reinforcing not to tell me everything you know about the topic, etc., didn't seem to help. Giving verbal and written feedback to individuals was also ignored. It was easier for students to give me a bagful of facts than think and answer the question.

I was the audience, but many students didn't give me what I asked.

Then in the workplace, reports, proposals and briefs for leaders to support them in making good decisions can also reflect this. The belief that you need to write everything you know just in case the decision maker needs to know this is baffling. Pages and pages of detail and appendices add to the incredible word count that burdens directors and executives and does not support outcomes.

They are your audience, but do we give them what they need or what we've always done?

I was disappointed to attend a conference where a speaker told story after story about themselves, completely divorced from the audience in attendance and unrelated to the topic and the theme. This happens with presentations in the workplace as well.

It starts with including everyone in the department in the session for no rational purpose. Many, many tiny words on many, many PowerPoint slides. So much backgrounding and context setting that it starts with the Big Bang.

The people in the room (and who they influence) are your only audience.

Who is your audience, and are you considering giving them what they need?

What question does this information answer? Is it the right question? And how do you share the information so the audience gets what they need? Can you do it another way?

Not thinking about the needs of others who you are working with makes the workplace more difficult than it needs to be - and that little bit more shit.

#makeworklessshit #customerexperience #focus #habit #selfawareness