The Second Key to Strong Teams: Clarity

Last week, I was talking with a business owner who was genuinely frustrated. She'd hired someone six months ago with great experience and solid references. But lately, this employee kept missing deadlines, seemed scattered during meetings, and wasn't delivering the quality of work she knew they were capable of.

"I don't understand," she told me. "They were so impressive in the interview. Now I'm wondering if I made a hiring mistake."

When we dug deeper into what was actually happening, the real issue became clear. This wasn't a performance problem or a bad hire. The employee was working hard and genuinely wanted to succeed. The problem was that they were operating with completely different assumptions about what "good work" looked like in this particular environment.

The Real Problem Behind Most Performance Issues

After years of working with business leaders, I've learned something important: most of the time, when good people aren't delivering good results, the issue isn't motivation or ability. They're trying to hit a target they can't clearly see.

Think about your own team. When someone drops the ball, what's their first reaction? If you hear "I didn't realize you needed that by Tuesday" or "I thought we were handling it the old way," you're dealing with a clarity problem, not an attitude problem.

We're managing teams that are more diverse than ever. People come to your company from different industries, different training backgrounds, different workplace cultures. That diversity brings tremendous value, but it also means we can't assume everyone shares the same understanding of how things should be done.

What Happens When Expectations Stay in Your Head

I see this pattern everywhere: a business leader has a clear vision of how things should work, but that vision never makes it out of their head and into a format their team can actually use.

Maybe you know exactly what exceptional customer service looks like, but your team is guessing based on watching you handle a few interactions. Perhaps you have strong feelings about how projects should be managed, but you've never written down the specific steps or checkpoints that matter to you.

When expectations aren't explicit, even your best people will fill in the gaps with their own assumptions. And their assumptions might be completely different from yours.

I worked with one company where the owner was frustrated that his team "never took initiative." When we looked at the situation more closely, we discovered that previous employees had been criticized for making decisions without checking first. The current team had learned to wait for direction on everything, not because they lacked confidence, but because they were trying to avoid making the "wrong" choice.

Building the Bridge from Confusion to Confidence

The solution requires some intentional effort, but the results are immediate. You need to take what's in your head and make it accessible to your team.

This might look like creating a simple checklist of daily responsibilities for each role, so people know not just what to do, but in what order and to what standard. Or documenting your customer service approach with specific examples of how to handle common situations.

One business owner I worked with was constantly frustrated with how her team handled phone calls. Instead of continuing to give feedback after each mistake, she took an hour to write down exactly what a great phone interaction sounded like from greeting to follow-up. Within two weeks, the quality and consistency of their customer interactions had completely transformed.

The key was moving from "you should be more professional on calls" to "here's exactly what professional sounds like in our business."

Why Documentation Is the Foundation of Clarity

Documentation is how clarity becomes real and accessible to your team. When expectations live only in conversations or your head, they remain fragile and inconsistent. When they're written down in a way people can easily reference and follow, they become the foundation for reliable performance.

Think of documentation as the bridge between what you know works and what your team can consistently deliver. A simple checklist, a step-by-step process guide, or a clear policy document transforms good ideas into repeatable results. Research shows that workers spend an average of 2.6 hours per week searching for documents they can't find, which highlights how important it is to make your expectations not just documented, but easily accessible.

The resistance to documentation usually comes from a few predictable places. Some business leaders worry it will make their workplace feel bureaucratic or stifle creativity. Others think their team should just "figure it out" or that documenting processes takes too much time. I've also worked with leaders who believe that if they have to write something down, they've hired the wrong people.

But here's what I've learned: documentation doesn't replace good judgment or initiative. It provides the framework that makes good judgment possible. As Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup, put it: "To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace." Winning in the workplace starts with giving people the tools and clarity they need to succeed.

The Results When People Know What Success Looks Like

When people understand exactly what success looks like, something powerful happens. They stop asking for permission and start taking ownership. They make better decisions because they understand the framework they're working within. They solve problems independently because they know the standards and procedures.

Your job as a leader becomes less about correcting course after mistakes happen and more about supporting people as they deliver consistently good work.

A medical practice I worked with was having issues with patient scheduling. Front desk staff were making different decisions about appointment types, creating confusion for both patients and providers. The office manager created a simple decision tree that showed exactly how to categorize different appointment requests. Patient complaints dropped 60% in the first month, and staff confidence went up significantly because they knew they were making the right choices.

How Clarity Connects to Everything Else

Connection builds the trust that makes people want to do good work. Clarity gives them the roadmap to actually deliver that good work consistently.

When both connection and clarity are strong, you create an environment where accountability feels supportive rather than punitive. People understand the standards, they have the tools to meet them, and they know you're invested in their success.

This foundation becomes the launching point for building a culture that sustains high performance over time.

Moving Forward with Your Team

Think about your own team for a moment. Are there areas where good people are struggling not because they don't care, but because they're not entirely sure what you're looking for?

What would change in your business if those expectations were crystal clear and easily accessible to everyone who needs them?

Up Next: Culture

Connection builds trust, and clarity creates understanding, but culture is what sustains both over time.

In the next post, I'll share how to build a culture that reflects your values, celebrates the right behaviors, and reinforces what matters most to your business success, all without needing to micromanage every detail. Read it Here

Until then, if you're wondering how to build more clarity into your current team operations, I'd love to help you get started.

Jim Heinz
Team Development Consultant
🌐 jimheinzconsulting.com
🔗 LinkedIn

Jim Heinz is the founder and owner of Jim Heinz Consulting. He understands the weight of leadership because he's lived it for 30 years in the medical industry. He's been responsible for patient satisfaction, team performance, and organizational results in environments where mistakes have real consequences. Jim has lived through the Sunday night dread, the difficult employee conversations, and the challenge of building culture while hitting targets. His approach to connection, clarity, and culture comes from someone who's succeeded and failed, then figured out what actually works.