What’s Your Default Setting for Detail?
I do a lot of one-on-one coaching. And in most cases, I will conduct some background interviews to gather information… what are the strengths and weaknesses? What gaps can I help fill? Gathering the perspectives of people around those I coach is essential to understanding the purpose of the assignment.
One of the most common weaknesses that I hear during those interviews is that the person I am coaching gets “too far into the weeds.” In all the background interviews I conduct, that feedback comes up about 60-70% of the time. In other words, for the vast majority of professionals I work with, “too much detail” is a huge communication weakness.
Based on this reality, our team spends significant time in nearly every workshop discussing the role of detail in 21st century communication.
Does detail matter? Of course it does.
But how much detail is necessary? That depends on many things: who your audience is, how familiar they are with the topic, how much time you have, how senior they are, how mission critical the situation is… The “necessary” amount of detail is variable.
Making consistently good choices about how much detail to include is a critical component to being a consistently good communicator in today’s business world.
So, if the amount of detail you must include is variable, then what should your default setting be? We all need to have one. But what is the correct one? For most people, the default is “more detail is better.” If I am not sure how much detail on this topic they want, then I’ll just give them plenty to make sure I satisfy their need.
But this is the wrong default setting… dead wrong.
Detail matters, very much. If you are going to be seen as credible, and as a subject matter expert, then you need to have a grasp of some detail. You need to be able to answer questions when they come up.
But you also need to be able to summarize, because not everyone wants or needs the same level of detail. Not everyone has the time or tolerance for lots of detail. And giving them too much details automatically will hurt your credibility, and cause people to tune you out.
Our best advice for you is as follows:
Lead with the summary, always.
Prioritize the key issues: risks, benefits, implications, why the issue matters.
Once you have summarized, then you can always go deeper, if time and audience interest allow.
Lead with summary, lead with relevance, and back it up with detail when time and interest allow.
More is not always better, especially in our fast-paced, attention-starved world.
Have a great day.
