A love letter to clarity
The value of strategists is to bring clarity to any situation, but this affects more than what happens inside a person's head. Clarity is a fundamentally embodied experience that affects not only how you think, but also how you feel and how you treat others, which affects how think and feel too.
When we feel clear-minded, our bodies feel clear as well. Our gut doesn’t trip us up as much. The itchiness goes away. The compulsive snacking, sipping, or chewing gum chewing or whatever is not gone, just... less.
Clarity removes the mental fog that those of us with ongoing mental health struggles can fully understand. Depression is a veil that clouds your vision of reality, while clarity is like someone revealed something in the matrix.
Clarity is the opposite of depression. It’s not quite ‘expression’ (a beautiful opposite to ‘depression’), but it’s a gateway to it. When you think clearly, you feel clearly, and this unlocks an ability to be both more self-aware and less self-conscious about what you say next. Clarity is an act of self-care.
Clarity benefits you and others. The clarity you bring to your mind and body manifests in the clarity you’re able to project onto others. The vibes feel less off when at least one or two of us feel a bit clearer about what we’re doing, and why. Clarity unlocks a greater sense of collaboration.
Clarity helps define problems so that chaos can exist at the solution level and it all feels ok. The opposite isn’t true. A clear solution is unprovable in the face of a chaotic problem. Clarity is the seed we plant in order to reap marginally better fruits sometime soon. How soon? That is never clear.
Clarity is a companion to challenging others. When you’re unclear in your head and body, challenging is reactive. When you’re clear, challenging is responsive. An unclear starting point leads to an untamed challenge, but a clear starting point means the whole process feels more intentional for all.
Being intentional as a result of clarity means you’re more likely to respect the people you are challenging. You’re not trying to win an argument, but trying to agree on a shared territory where we can all win together. Clarity is about finding shared ways to win. Chaos tends to serve individuals.
There is no clarity without some darkness. When you don’t have darkness, you don’t feel the obsessive need to chase clarity (or to write 1,000 words in honour of it). The presence of darkness creates the humility we need in order to accept that being clear is often more important than being right.
Clarity is knowing the real problem to solve might be:
To make saving money feel as epic as finding it (Moneysupermarket)
To make wi-fi reliability mean ‘less drama’ (BT Enterprise)
To frame jabs as economic survival (Dallas Regional Chamber)
To frame the value of batteries around cost of replacing (Procell)
To show the value of mid-size stocks by taking them away (State Street Global Advisors)
To attract enterprise people by calling them rockstars (Workday)
To get kids to eat vegetables by saying they're bad (Veg Power)
Clarity is a boring killer. Boring things are the most common things in the world, so that makes them a commodity. Clarity maximises the odds of getting to a differentiated or distinctive place. This means companies win but so do customers, who get a better product or a better time using it.
Clarity, like brand purpose, is an internal thing before it goes external. You feel it before manifesting it, or you’ll constantly face discrepancies and dissonance. Clarity is either embedded before it gets expressed, or it feels disingenuous. Typically, guilt and shame follow soon after. And chaos.
Clarity is a simple word that contains multitudes, often in plain English. Anyone can write lots of things. Few can say a lot by writing very little. Clarity is a transferrable energy that turns something your mum couldn’t get into something she could get and explain to others over a second latte.
Clarity is something you can love but it can never love you back. So it is a benevolent act of masochism, because you can go through life fairly well without being so obsessed with it. Clarity is something 90% of people will say is a ‘nice to have’. Be the 10% who see it instead as a 'must have'.
Clarity is rooted in active listening. To clarify what others are saying honours their time and energy, but also helps them help us help them (clear?). “What I’m hearing is” might be the four most underrated words in the strategic process. Clarity is about feeling presence, not preached to.
Clarity is a core ingredient to strategy. Because strategy is conversational, clarity benefits from being conversational too. We can get there alone, but not without a great deal of self-doubt along the way. Clarity reduces doubt because chaos shared is chaos halved. Clarity is a team sport open to all.
Ps. If you’d like to join 200+ other global strategists finding clarity together, you should join the Salmon Crew. We're helping each other daily through a private group, member-hosted workshops, and a shared strategy swipe file. Whenever you’re ready, you should consider upgrading here.
