People want information. Team members want their leaders to keep them informed, customers want you to send more information before they make a decision, and the public wants political parties to explain policy before they decide who to vote for.
A lack of detail is cause for concern — reason enough for rejecting an idea. For example, you may have had a stakeholder reject a proposal or a customer baulk at buying because they just didn’t have enough information.
This is because an absence of detail is often construed as an absence of thought, and by extension, an absence of answers.
To avoid this, we often shovel vast amounts of information at our audience. We hope thick slabs of text will be thin-sliced as due diligence. Gosh, they must be thorough because look at how many pages there are!
But there are significant costs with assuming more information is better — assuming that in order to convince people to proceed all we need to do is provide more detail.
These costs include:
So why do people think they need more detail?
The most obvious reason for requiring detail is to be informed. People want to have the same facts and information as the person suggesting the change because it levels the playing field.
But while information is about being informed, what’s the point of being informed?
To avoid a bad outcome.
When people are asking you for more information, what they’re really seeking is confidence. They want to feel comfortable that they know what’s likely to happen and what it means for them.
Thinking of it this way, more information is not the answer. More confidence is.
We’ve already noted the costs involved in assuming more information is the answer. It costs you time and money to create the information and costs your customer to engage with it.
There are other costs, as well. When you give people more detail, and more detail, and more detail, this opens you up to two more problems.
First, they get overwhelmed by the information. Rather than confess they haven’t bothered to read it or understand it, they either avoid taking your calls or point to flaws as a reason to walk away.
Second, they use the detail to poke holes in something they never planned on doing anyway. They use the detail to attack your proposal. While you provided ‘x’, they complain you didn’t provide enough detail on ‘y’, framing you as incompetent.
Our task isn’t to give them more information, it is to give them the feeling of comfort that having lots of information provides.
The heavy lifting is not in creating the information, but in curating it. Focus on what the information does, rather than what it is. What do I mean?
Does the information engage them so they are interested enough in what you are sharing? Does the information make clear who needs to do what? Does the information diffuse fears about proceeding while provoking fears about not proceeding?
More specifically, focus on these key elements:
Synopsis: Overcome information overwhelm by providing a summary upfront. Explain what’s in it for them to bother even reading this.
Scope: Be clear on what the purpose of your document or proposition is. This avoids the criticism that your information overlooked a topic.
Sequence: In structuring your sentences, use my “Get before give” and “Done before do” rules. In short, tell them what they get before what they have to give you, and explain what you’ve already done before asking them to do something.
Subject: Use first and second-person pronouns (I, we, you) to be clear on who is doing what. Avoid passive language and equivocation.
Style: Provide moments of visual relief for your reader (e.g., breakout boxes, headings) to improve the odds they will want to engage with the information, and match how you present content with your objective. For example, a less polished, more organic style can help signal your desire for input.
Say it: If there are unknowns — pieces that require input from the people with whom you are sharing the information, mark it out as that. Don’t be silent, hoping they won’t notice or they’ll infer what’s required. Let them know that you know what you don’t know, along the lines of: ‘Here’s what we know’, ‘Here’s what we’ve done’, and ‘Here’s what needs to happen’.
Bri Williams is an authority on behavioural economics applied to everyday business and personal effectiveness.
