The Gift of Clarity

How seeing clearly can make it possible for you to move forward

I had one job at Facebook that I really, really wanted. I sought it, worked toward it, and asked for it. The first time I was passed over, I asked to be considered the next time it became available. When the role eventually became available again, I was passed over a second time. In fact, not only was I not offered the job, but I was told it would never be an option for me. 

That hurt. But it also did something else: it gave me the gift of clarity. By having that door closed (or rather, slammed, which was what it felt like at the time) in my face, I now knew with certainty what was not possible. I could then focus all my energy on what was possible. I ended up doing my best work after I was turned down by making my job one that I wanted and would be excited about. 

We are comfortable with strategic ambiguity because we like to feel safe. We would rather not know the answer than put someone else on the spot or risk the possibility of getting turned down. But this is what my friend Carol Isozaki would call an “unintentional ridiculous strategy.” No one says, “I don’t want to know if I will ever get this job”, but that is exactly what we allow to happen.

This ambiguity hurts us. And although clarity sometimes hurts too, it's better than not knowing and spending our time wishing for what can never be. 

Document, document, document

If it's not written down, it never happened. This was a lesson I learned earlier in my career, at a point when I felt like things were stagnating. 

I’ve written before about the time I had seven managers in a two-and-a-half-year period. (That’s not even including the fact that I took maternity leave during that time.) I did the same job while they rotated above and around me. The goalposts moved with every single manager as I was forced to prove myself over and over and over. It was so frustrating. Finally, I sat down with my seventh manager and told him my frustrations. I asked him what it would actually take to get promoted. He laid it out for me. This time, I made sure to write it down, emailing it back to him to confirm that we were in agreement. We went over that document every month or two. And, after a long wait, that promotion finally happened.

I remember a peer, who was also a friend, saying she wanted to get promoted, but that our manager was not going to promote her to director. I asked her if she had ever told him, and she assured me she had. She was so unhappy with the situation that she was getting ready to leave our team and move to another. I immediately called our mutual manager on my way home and I told him that he had to put her up for the promotion or else he was going to lose her. 

He had no idea she even wanted to get promoted.

I think what probably happened was that she did ask him—so gently that it was nearly imperceptible—and he never got the message. As a result, he was caught completely off guard by her desire to leave the team and her unhappiness with their relationship.

The gift of clarity is not about putting someone on the spot to get an answer. It is about asking the question in such a way that you can get to the answer behind the answer. If you want to get promoted, just saying “Are you going to promote me?” is a bad way to ask. You can ask that, but when you do, you’re putting the onus on the other person to say “yes” or “no”. That makes the conversation adversarial rather than collaborative. Instead, it’s better to ask for information and guidance. “What is the distance between where I am and the next level? How long do you think it's going to take to get there?” The answers to those questions will tell you exactly what you need to know without putting the other person on their back foot. You are also bringing them to your side to work with you on it. 

I have been coaching people, mostly women, for a long time. During these short calls, many of them will ask me what they need to do to get promoted. The first thing I usually ask is whether they've asked their manager. Many have. I then ask, “What happened when you wrote down what they said and showed them the agreed upon path?” Nearly no one does that. 

But clarity is alignment, and alignment is clarity. As I've written about in my earlier post, Perception Is Reality, many people walk away from the same conversation with different perceptions of what happened. Your manager might believe they didn't promise you anything when you believe that you've checked all the boxes and they agreed. Both people could be taking away something completely different. 

You would never treat a negotiation that way, and you would never do a business deal that way. You would never join a company that handwaved your salary and benefits and just said, “We'll take care of it.” So why do we accept this in so many other situations?

Someone once came to me and asked for advice on getting promoted. I gave her my usual advice about documenting what was said and asking how they could work together to find a path up the ladder. Later, she told me that she had gone to him

and done exactly that—and that her manager had not only said he was not going to promote her now, but that he was never going to promote her. 

I told her that was a gift. “He gave you clarity, and now you know you need to move on—either by changing managers or changing companies. You now have all the information you need to move forward. You could have been working for him for years, stuck in limbo without a clear answer about your future, but because you had that conversation, now you’re free.” She later found something else that was a better fit for her skills, and it wouldn’t have happened without the gift of clarity.

Clarify, clarify, clarify

How can people help you if they don't know what you want? If you don't share your struggles, how can they lift you up?

I find it funny that so many advice columns feature questions from people who say their partner won't commit. They wonder when they're going to get engaged or get married or have children. These sorts of questions often leave me confused. If your goal is marriage and children—two very important and life-changing events—and you don't actually talk to the partner you see every day about it, then how on earth can you expect to build a life together?

When David and I started dating, I was 19 years old. From the beginning, we said we were going to date to marry, and that we were aiming to get married within about five years. And we did. We came from fairly conservative Christian backgrounds (we met at a Chinese Christian church after all), and so we had a specific set of goals for our relationship. We talked at length about how many children we wanted and how we wanted to raise them. We clarified everything. 

I recently got done traveling for seven weeks, barely making it home most weekends. The week I finally got a break, my husband sat me down and said, “We have two big things coming up, and we need to divide and conquer. We have to do our taxes, and we have to help review our son’s essays and submissions for college.” 

I sighed. Each of these tasks was going to take at least 50 to 70 hours of intense work over a short period. I said I would help Jonathan. David agreed, but the next morning, he said he had changed his mind and wanted me to do taxes. He quipped, “You are on the board. It’s called dogfooding.” In exchange, he would help our son with his essays and applications. 

It took me many hours to do our taxes, but knowing my swim lane and having clearly defined responsibilities ensured that there were no misunderstandings. David had a job to do, and so did I. I finished the taxes and submitted them. Then, when I found a mistake on them, I spent another ten hours filing an amendment. 

At work and at home, clarity is a gift. Knowing what people expect, and what it will take to be successful, is critical. I remember a time when my then-manager, the VP of Product at PayPal, said, “I met this candidate, and his question really impressed me. He asked, ‘What does success look like in this role?’” They went on to align on what was said in the interview, she hired him, and he went on to have a long and impactful career at the company. This is the value of setting clear expectations and agreeing on them early. It gives you a roadmap for success, and it eliminates so many possible misunderstandings. 

If you want to start practicing clarity in your own life but you’re not sure how, try the following:

1. Learn to ask. This can be tough, especially when you’re not sure if the answer you’ll get is the one you want. But remember that asking is a win-win. If the answer is no, you can start brainstorming ways to get to yes. If the answer is never, then you’re saving yourself the discomfort of always wondering, and you can move on with a clear conscience. And if the answer is yes, you’ll be glad you didn’t put the conversation off. This is the value of telling people what you want. 

2. Document the answer. I can’t overstate how important this is. People often forget what was said in conversations, or their interpretations end up being different than yours. Writing down what was said, agreed to, and decided on is critical. Take careful notes, review them with the other person, and be prepared to reference them later. This will save you frustration and grief in the long run.

3. Follow up on anything ambiguous. Even when you think you’re on the same page, misinterpretations and confusion can still happen. Whenever you feel like you’re not on the same wavelength as the other person, it’s important to address it as soon as possible, rather than waiting for it to work itself out. If you’ve followed steps one and two, this should be relatively easy to do. 

4. Align on the outcomes. Aligning on what both people want is important, but aligning on what that looks like is equally important. How can you create a roadmap for getting somewhere when you don’t have clarity on the destination? If the goal is a promotion, make what success looks like in the role part of the conversation. If it’s a personal relationship, clarify exactly what you want the ideal outcome to be and seek to understand the other person’s point of view. This gives you something clear to work toward and keeps assumptions from getting in the way.

Consider this process a favor to yourself, not a chore. Making your desires known is the only way to eliminate ambiguity and put yourself on the path to success, in both your personal life and your work life. 

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We often embrace ambiguity because it gives us an easy way out. If we never get a clear yes or no, we can tell ourselves that the truth is the version we want it to be. But isn’t it better to uncover the real truth now, rather than always be wondering? 

Clarity is a gift. It allows us to identify our destination and find a path to get there. By making the ask, documenting what’s been agreed to, and following up when necessary, we aren’t just saving ourselves uncertainty; we’re taking control of our journey.