The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand

Chapter 18

Explanation Culture and Your Life as an Explainer

Throughout this book, we've worked to define explanation and put it into practice. We've learned about the curse of knowledge and discovered how context, stories, connections, and descriptions are all tools we can use to make ideas easier to understand. These are not just tactics; they're a way of approaching information and communication. Hopefully, you now have confidence in your ability to explain an idea.

You have the potential to become known as an explainer—someone who has built up their explanation skills and is ready to use them to solve problems. In some ways, this means building a type of brand within your organization, team, or even family—a specific brand of communication that focuses on making ideas easier to understand. My hope is that every organization will see the potential to take a step back and consider the role of explanation in how the organization communicates. For that to happen, however, people like you need to push the envelope and make explanation a priority. To see how to do this, consider the following story.

Meet Naima, an executive assistant to the CEO at her company. Naima recently learned about the art of explanation and feels confident that she can make a difference in how her company communicates.

Being a member of the executive suite has given her access to a wide range of projects ...