“A real straight shooter”
“Doesn’t beat around the bush”
“Speaks their mind”
“Cuts straight to the chase”
“No Bullshit”
These phrases describe an individual that is very direct. I am here to you, there is a compelling case to getting to the point.
My wife and I were having a discussion about the habits of people at work. After a while a common thread appeared:
Much of the aggravation at work can be avoided by people being direct. And many of the highest performing coworkers seemed to have a habit of being direct. My wife should know, as she’s a subject matter expert when it comes to being direct. Here is a picture of her proofreading my blog posts:
Don’t Be a D*&k About It!
First a disclaimer: While being direct has several benefits as I will outline below, you can also overdue it. It’s bad form to take joy in being the messenger of bad news. Additionally, being direct is different then not having a filter on your mouth and spouting the first thoughts that enter into you head. Be direct in your response, but be measured and well reasoned.
So with that out of the way, what kind of benefits can be had by being direct?
Let People Know Where You Stand
In our short attention span world dominated by text messages, emails, and conference calls, the nuances of conversation can be murky at best. How many different ways can one sentence or statement be taken? Quite a few to be honest. At worst, we can wholly misinterpret the signals and take or cause unintended offense. This uncertainty can lead to slow or flawed decision making since the parties are not confident on the other’s stance.
Being direct means clearly stating your position. This takes the guesswork out of the equation for the other party.
Don’t Waste Precious Time
You can always earn more money, but you can’t make more time. It’s one of the reasons that quick digital communication by way of text and email has become so widespread. You can easily email an entire company or even an entire industry through email lists and group texts. But when executed poorly this can result in mass confusion and hours of lost time.
As an example, I am part of a couple statewide email lists for transportation consultants. Periodically an email gets inadvertently sent to the entire email list. This email is almost always intended for a single recipient but is never directed to a single person. As an end result, hundreds, if not thousands of emails pour back and forth. “Who is this intended for?” “Is this fraud?” “Take me off this mailing list”. Pure. Madness.
If only the original sender actually addressed the email to the recipient in the body of the email and provided a reference to the specific project or request. A little direct information that could have gone a long way.
On a less ridiculous, but just as serious note, emails between work groups can often be the source for poor performance due to vague language and a failure to directly delegate tasks. If you email two people and ask if someone can help, it seems nearly guaranteed that they will both assume the other is handling it and alas, the task is not completed in time. Or… they both start working on the same task, duplicating effort and wasting time.
This is a major pet peeve of mine. In a consulting business where every 15 minutes is billable and margins are razor thin, one “to whom it concerns” email can torpedo a project and lose a client.
For all that is good and holy. Address your email to 1 person. It’s OK to copy others, but actually say “John Doe, please do X by Y time”. “John” may end up delegating the task, but there is no questioning who has ownership of the issue now. When action items come up in conference calls or meetings, it is vital they are clearly delegated to specific folks on the call or in the meeting.
Another situation where people often avoid being direct is delivering bad news. Be it critical feedback, delays, errors, or bad luck, it seems we concern ourselves with the “don’t shoot the messenger” narrative.
While it is never fun to bring bad new, it simply just is what it is. Whatever bad thing happened, has already happened, and you can’t change that. Obscuring the news only delays any important actions to mitigate the damage. Being direct allows the recipient to quickly grasp the problem and start to address it.
Head Off Breakdowns
Over the course of a workday, various tasks will come your way. Some you can handle, some you cannot, some you just don’t have time for. An indirect person will accept all the tasks and waffle over them. Some will get done, some poorly, some late, and others forgotten.
A direct person would quickly triage the task requests and turn down those outside of their abilities or workload capacity. While turning down tasks sounds bad at first, consider that they are now free to skillfully address the tasks within their expertise while the others are rerouted to folks who are better able or qualified to address. In the end, the least amount of time is lost, and the quality of the work is maximized.
Signal Confidence
Confidence is very important to being successful in your career and personal life. Being direct in your communication indicates you are confident in your abilities and your role. It broadcasts to your supervisors and associates that you can handle tasks and can be a trusted resource.
Get What You Want
We all have wants. Whether it’s a raise, work from home privileges, or a day off, you have to ask the question to get an answer. Guess what? People are not mind readers, and are, at best, pretty terrible at riddles. If I wanted a mind bending experience, I would read a book on string theory or stare at artwork from M.C. Escher. I don’t want to waste precious time and energy trying to devine out from the vague clues that you would like to work from home.
If you are looking for an answer to a question, you need to be direct! You might not get what you want, but your supervisor will at least respect that you had the courage to ask. But in my experience, if you have an established reputation for being direct… chances are you just might get what you want.
In Closing…
I hope I made it clear why being direct is to your benefit to those around you. I understand that it certainly can be daunting to stroll up to someone and speak your mind when you know they don’t want to hear what you have to say. Just pick one area to start with, such as how you address emails, then progress to face to face conversation as your comfort grows. And for goodness sake, be careful using “reply all” on emails!
