What I Meant Was...
The most expensive sentence in business.
Chris March
July 27, 2025
In partnership with
A strategic misstep rarely starts with bad intent.
It starts with this:
“That’s not what I meant. “
It sounds harmless. But it’s costly.
Because when clarity is missing, everything else breaks down:
Projects stall
Decisions are misaligned
Morale dips
Trust erodes
And in high-stakes environments, miscommunication isn’t just a matter of soft skills. It’s a performance risk.
This is top of mind for me
I’ve recently taken courses on change management, and it’s driven one lesson home:
Even a single ambiguous word can create weeks of confusion.
As I revisit frameworks on change leadership, one pattern keeps surfacing:
Most strategies don’t fail because they’re wrong.
They fail because they’re unclear.
The Cost of Poor Communication
According to a 2023 Grammarly Business report:
➡ Teams lose an average of 7.47 hours per week to unclear communication.
➡ 72% of business leaders say ineffective communication reduces productivity.
➡ The estimated annual cost? $1.2 trillion in the U.S. alone.
This isn’t just about missed memos.
It’s about misaligned execution.
The Three “What I Meant Was” Moments
Here’s where I see clarity break down most often:
🟥 During Change
You think you’ve explained the shift.
Your team hears uncertainty, not direction.
🟧 During Strategy
You believe everyone understands the goal.
They don’t, and start rowing in different directions.
🟨 During Feedback
You think you were candid and constructive.
They felt blindsided or unclear about the next steps.
In each case, your intention doesn’t matter.
Only what they heard does.
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The CLEAR™ Model
A checklist for high-stakes clarity
✅ Context: Set the stage. What’s changing and why now?
✅ Language: Avoid jargon. Use specific, concrete words.
✅ Emotion: Acknowledge what people may be feeling.
✅ Action: Be direct about next steps, ownership, and expectations.
✅ Repetition: Repeat it. Then again. Then again.
Clarity isn’t what you say once.
It’s what your team remembers when it counts.
Want to Go Deeper?
Here are a few excellent resources that explore the mindset and mechanics of clear communication:
→ Simple, Clear, and Wrong – Roger L. Martin, HBR
Why oversimplifying strategy creates failure, and how to avoid it.
→ Why Communication Goes Wrong and How to Fix It – Tim Pollard (TED Talk)
Powerful framework for intentional speaking and conscious listening.
→ The Pyramid Principle – Barbara Minto
The gold standard for structuring ideas clearly, taught at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG
Looking for more insights?
Here are a few newsletters I read and recommend:
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Reflection for the Week
→ Where are you assuming you’ve been clear, but haven’t confirmed?
→ How much could your team accelerate if everyone aligned faster?
→ What message needs reinforcement, not revision?
Clarity creates speed.
Clarity prevents waste.
Clarity builds trust.
Your team doesn’t need more meetings.
They need more meaning.
Until next week:
Say less. Mean more.
And repeat the message until it lands.
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Catch you in the next issue.
With appreciation,
Chris
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