what this is; what it isn’t

When you’re talking to your team, you’ll often be making an affirmative case for something. There’s a new push, a new rule, a new experiment at hand. 

Useful over-communication ties the new thing to the old things: your mission, your values, your big goals for the year or quarter or season. You tell your people clearly: this is what this is and this is how it fits into what has always/already been.

I’ve found value in adding in a negative case, too. Tell your people what this isn’t, what this doesn’t mean. This can be a way to achieve precision and allay (or at least address) suspicion about your new thing. 

-Eric