Show, Don't Tell

Last month, I wrote about slowing down to get clarity — on who does what, by when, and what "done" actually looks like. This one is in the same spirit, but about a different kind of clarity: making sure you and the person you're talking to are actually looking at the same thing.

Earlier in my career, I sat through a lot of calls where two people would spend twenty minutes describing something to each other — a report, a slide, a data table, an email — and only realize at the end that they had been looking at completely different versions. Or different tabs. Or one person wasn't looking at anything at all and was just nodding along.

Nowadays the fix is so simple it's almost embarrassing: share your screen.

It sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how rarely it happens by default — especially in organizations where the instinct is to quickly talk through things rather than show them. And there is a real difference between describing what you're seeing and actually showing it.

When you share your screen, a few things happen:

First, you eliminate an entire category of miscommunication. There's no ambiguity about which version, which tab, which row. You're both looking at the same thing in real time.

Second, it forces momentum. When something is on the screen and a cursor is moving, the conversation becomes concrete. "Can you change that word?" is a very different conversation than "I'm not sure about the framing." One gets resolved in thirty seconds. The other can drift for weeks.

Third — and this is the one people underestimate — it keeps working sessions from becoming talking sessions. I love a good working session. Not a meeting about work. Actual work, done together, in real time. Screen sharing is what makes that possible.

One thing I hear sometimes: "I don't want to share my screen because I don't want people watching me fumble around." I get it, but here's the reframe — the fumbling is actually useful. When someone watches you navigate to something and sees you pause, click the wrong tab, or scroll past the right row, that moment of friction often surfaces exactly the confusion that needed to surface. The messy, real-time version of your screen is more honest than a polished description of it. And in my experience, people aren't watching your keystrokes — they're watching the content. 

My default now: if a conversation starts going in circles, or if I sense that we're describing rather than solving, I stop and say — "Can I share my screen?" or "Can you share yours?"

Nine times out of ten, the confusion resolves itself within minutes.

"Don't tell me — show me" isn't just a preference. It's a practice.

#consulting #communication #execution