Signposts and waypoints

As we deal with increasing amounts and complexity of information, it’s worth remembering a golden rule: people may not be as interested in your stuff as you are. 

That means they won’t work too hard to process it, organize it or make sense of it. 

They’ve got other things on their mind, better things to do, little space to take more on. They’ve got even less capacity for poorly arranged information. 

During an online event recently, I was overwhelmed with the lack of structure in presentations. 

Overwhelmed because it became a dump of information, a series of points that were disconnected, unrelated and in no sequence, theme or logical order. 

Not everything can be important. We can’t take it all in, all at once. 

Just as we can’t complete a journey in one step, delivering information requires a step by step or chunk by chunk approach.

Waypoints and signposts can help. 

📌 Waypoints where you stop or pause along the way. 
➡️ Signposts that guide people along. 

Otherwise it’s just a dump. 

Track the patterns

Very few things happen in isolation or independence. They are most likely connected to something else. If there’s something else connected, what could you find out about it?

Look for clues ... and cues. As you gather up more information - CSI style - you’re sensemaking, connecting dots, gathering information on trends and patterns. And as soon as there are three of something, there is a pattern.

A pattern that is noticeable.

A pattern that is recognisable.

A pattern that is actionable.

What patterns are you noticing :

- with the members in your team?

- in your work and the projects you’re working on?

- with your customers and what their problems or concerns are?

Great leaders and thinkers are great pattern trackers and pattern matchers.

Even if it’s not all lined up in front of them.

Even if it doesn’t all happen at once.

Even if there is a period of time between pieces of the pattern.

Take note. Spot the pattern. Make sense. And better decisions and wiser choices will be yours. Did you spot the patterns in this post?

Empty the load at the end of the day

The overwhelm of back to back meetings is real. So. Much. Content. Words and questions and people and ideas and still more meetings.

Our cognitive load takes a beating as we shove more information in to our already overloaded brain. It’s hard work.

In between meetings is the ideal time to pause, review, move and have a kind of ‘reset’, ready for the next meeting.

Deliberately.

And then at the end of the day, another pause. Review and clear the slate for the transition to social, family or home activities.

Otherwise it can get messy and the overloaded feeling takes longer to process naturally, automatically, organically. Do it deliberately.

Empty the load - between meetings if you can; and absolutely at the end of the working day. (And the end of the week too!)

What I do when I don’t know what to do

In times of doubt, uncertainty and change, there can be situations where we just don’t know what to do next. So it can be helpful to just do something. To get going and get into motion or momentum. To start.

Changing direction or shifting while you’re already in motion is much easier than trying to get going from a standing start.

When I don’t know what to do, I just do something ... anything ... to get me into motion.

I “do”.

Decisions, ideas, confidence and clarity come more frequently and easily.

Weaving it together

As information flows and bounces around, back and forth between people in a team, how are you helping to weave it all together?

These interlacing and interconnected threads of data, opinions, ideas and decisions need to be brought together. Not everyone sees what is obvious and not everyone is able to make the connections of information that help us make progress.

A key role for leaders in times of uncertainty and change is to make sense of what the heck is going on. Taking seemingly disparate threads and finding links, relevance and connections among and between them is part of that role of leadership.

Don’t let it happen via hope. accident or default. Because it may not happen at all.

Things can become more confusing and ambiguous when you believe it will just weave itself. Take an active role to thread, weave and connect information ... even if you think it’s obvious.

It helps ease the stress and uncertainty people may be feeling as it relieves a weight from our mind ... and our shoulders.