When you’ve spent years building experience, and you get to the point where working harder isn’t changing anything, you start to wonder if the issue is how you’re explaining what you do.
You start thinking, maybe I just need to say this better.
So you refine it. You simplify the language and try a few different versions. Each one feels like an improvement, at least on the surface.
The Pattern
And for a while, that feels like progress. It sounds clearer and more considered. It even feels more accurate.
But when you actually pay attention to the response you get, the conversations don’t really change.
People understand you, but they don’t quite engage. Nothing really shifts.
The Question
And that’s the moment when you start to feel uncomfortable. If the explanation is better, why isn’t anything different?
Most of us presume: if I can explain what I do clearly enough, people will see the value.
And that seems reasonable. Until you realise that clarity on its own doesn’t actually create anything.
And then it hits you… What if this is not a communication problem? What if it’s something else entirely?
The First Example
You see this all the time. Someone asks, ‘What do you do?’ And you reply: “I run leadership programs,” or “I help organisations with strategy and transformation.”
And that’s often true and accurate.
But what happens when you ask a slightly different question: What actually changes for someone?
And that’s when things start to get vague. Your answer becomes more general, and there are no specific results to point to.
What’s Missing
And that’s when you realise something is missing.
It’s not that it’s unclear, but that nothing specific is being created.
And this is the piece where many experienced professionals miss: It’s not that you don’t have a program. It’s that nothing inside it is designed to create a specific change.
And that’s what makes it so hard to describe. You can talk about it, share the intention, outline the themes and all of the work and experience that went into creating it.
But if there isn’t something inside it that causes a shift, then there’s nothing there for someone else to engage with.
The Difference
Most of what gets described sounds like this: here’s what I do; this is what I’ve done; and this is what I know
That’s interesting, but none of that guarantees anything will happen.
There’s a difference between describing something and designing something.
And the difference is simple and obvious when you hear it.
Design creates deliberate change.
If nothing in what you’re offering is designed to change something specific, then nothing will change. No matter how clearly you explain it.
The Second Example
So if someone says, “I help leaders think more strategically.” While that sounds right, it’s still incomplete.
Because the real question is: what happens that makes that true?
And now we can explore the specifics: What do you do with them? What shifts? And where does the change come from?
If that part isn’t clear, then there’s no mechanism, and if there’s no mechanism, there’s no usable unit of value. And without that…
A Different Question
So the issue isn’t: “How do I explain this better?”
It’s: “Is there something here that is deliberately designed to create a specific change?”
Once you see this… It’s hard to unsee. You’ll see it everywhere. You’ll start to notice how much of what gets said isn’t designed to do anything. It just talks about things.
And that’s why the explanation doesn’t land. It’s not because it’s unclear, but because it’s pointing to something that isn’t doing anything yet.
And once you start trying to shape that into something real, another question shows up. Not how to explain it, and not even what it is, but how to make it stick over time.
And that’s where things start to shift again.
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