One of my clients had a big event planned with her team coming up soon. She was really excited to be leading this and wanted things to be ready to go when everyone arrived. She started getting questions from the group about what they were going to do. It was surprising to her that they were asking all these questions because she had never held an event that wasn’t well thought through and planned.
Sometimes we make assumptions in our head that other people know what we are thinking. In her situation, she assumed that people knew what the topics of discussion would be because she had verbally shared them a few months ago. For the people attending it wasn’t entirely clear if they should prepare things or just show up. Did they have the flexibility to do other things that they may want to do? How much time would be spent on some of these topics?
In my client’s case, we talked about how she could be more proactive with her communication to let the rest of the team know what was happening. She sent out an agenda that let them know what would be discussed which helped to proactively address the questions that she was getting. For the rest of the team, they could now proactively be prepared for the topics of discussion and not react to them in the room.
Are you making assumptions that people know what is going on with you and your work? What information is in your head that you have chosen to share or not share? Are there opportunities to proactively share a status report or an email so you can keep others in the loop? It is good to proactively promote your work and address questions that you are getting. In addition, how much time you could save by putting out a proactive communication instead of answering a bunch of questions? I bet it is more than you think!