Deblurring is a habit of successful leaders that is identified in the book The Leader Lab: Core Skills to Become a Great Manager.
In it’s simplest term Deblurring is:
Understanding Deblurring
In everyday conversations, we constantly analyze the information we receive through our mental filters. And what happens in many conversations is that we use so-called “Blurry” words. These are words that are easily understood differently or misunderstood because of people’s different filters.
Let’s take an example. Jack and Jill are asked to define the word “effective” when describing a leader.
Jill's Definition |
Jack's Definition |
| “Effective” means someone who gets the job done and makes decisions fast so we can stay competitive. | “Effective” is someone who not only gets the job done but contemplates all the options to choose the best one, so we stay sustainable. |
Now imagine Jill and Jack being in the process of hiring a new CEO, and their criteria is “effective”. But Jack and Jill have two different definitions of effective and because they didn’t get on the same page about what “effective” meant for them before starting the interview process they ended up in a disagreement later on.
This is why Deblurring is a habit that can greatly help leaders keep alignment and direction in their team.
3 reasons to adopt Deblurring into your Leadership
- Deblurring Prevents miscommunications faster
Blurry words can lead to misunderstandings at any time or place. So using Deblurring can help you avoid miscommunication much faster.
For example, if you agree with your team to do a new thing “ASAP” and some interpret that as dropping everything else, while others interpret it as doing it as soon as other tasks are out of the way. You are bound to run into efficiency problems as a team, so defining together what “as soon as possible” means for this new project will help prevent miscommunication. - Deblurring improves feedback faster
Blurry words in feedback can be frustrating and even damaging. Saying “Great Work” misses out entirely on the opportunity to use feedback as a learning tool and highlight what made the work great. Or even when we have to deliver constructive feedback, a phrase such as “You didn’t try hard enough” is most likely going to leave your employee defensive and frustrated. - Deblurring improves decision-making faster
Deblurring is a great way to recognize how bias impacts your thinking and helps you improve the quality of your decisions. When you Deblur, it very rapidly increases your bias-awareness, leading to more thoughtful and fair decisions.
For example, asking yourself how do you define "professional", and what was it about that person that came across as unprofessional? What is the impact of my definition of professional/unprofessional?
Here is how you can use Deblurring Questions:
- What does _____ mean to you?
- Can you share an example?
- What’s your definition of _____?
- What do you see as the impact of ____?
- How would we measure that?
- How would we know we’ve succeeded ?
