Clarity – In Life, Business and Communication

Clarity of thought is a lesser acknowledged business enabler. If you know what you want to do, why you want to do what you want to do and how you will go about doing it, that means you have a fair amount of clarity. Having a clear mind or enabling space for a clear mind is important. This helps chart the course forward.

A person with a clear mind who has a fair idea of what needs to be done and how to deal with situations and circumstances, has better leverage over driving outcomes.

Business clarity means knowing what you want from the business both short term and long term and knowing what it will take for you to get the desired outcomes. It needs some amount of outside-in thinking. It also needs balance and a deep understanding of the market and competition and what direction the business is taking.

Clarity brings in structure and structure can drive focus and focus can be translated into processes and tasks to enable the business. It also helps to percolate the larger vision across the levels of the organisation into tangible roles and responsibilities.

I have seen early-stage businesses with a lack of clarity grapple and stumble as their journey is a lot harder when it comes to knowing what course to chart. This leads them into some amount of confusion and they also tend to deal with more ad-hoc issues and failed experiments that don’t yield good results. Large businesses and large teams also suffer when there is no clear plan and multiple stakeholders drive teams in different directions, which again leads to an ill-managed business situation.

Translating what the business stands for and what it wants to achieve to peers and the other layers of the organisation also becomes difficult with a lack of clarity. Conviction and passion from others involved, can only come when you truly believe in the idea and the business vision and can pass this on in clear, simple and well-defined terms.

Confusion, lack of direction, inability to communicate what we want as outcomes to be driven are all things that we will have to deal with in the course of our careers and as business leaders. What helps in a situation like this is to do a few things to drive some clarity:

• Bounce off ideas and have conversations with people and peer groups both inside and outside teams and workplaces across levels so you know what the CEO thinks and what an executive thinks too.
• Immerse and invest in research and get an idea of the entire landscape of the business so you know what it is in all forms.
• Articulate clearly what it is for the consumers, what it means for the people involved, what it is for the stakeholders, what is it going to do for society or what impact is it creating and what problem it is solving.
• Understand the pace of progression that you want the business to adapt. This will help define the operational journeys and outcomes.
• Have back up plans and be ready for failures too.

Context is very important when we look at working on a clear mind. Having a mental map of what you need to do always helps sort things out. This can be also be an extension in physical form as notes or to do lists. But more than all, clarity is knowing at the core what is needed as a business and how this can be communicated hence bringing in positive outcomes at all stages is what counts.

Clarity isn’t something that simply comes to you, it’s something that needs thought process and work. So, work at it and see the results it can bring for you…

Shreya Krishnan

Vice President - Marketing and Communications at Aon India Insurance Brokers

Shreya is a CSR Specialist and Corporate Grooming Consultant. Her interests lie in Activism, Dance, Theatre, Poetry, Blogging, Modelling, Acting. She considers herself an Earth Warrior and is an Event Anchor and Trainer. She is a Pageant Winner and public speaker.