Guide To Reverse Briefs.
One step better than ‘yes’, is ‘yes, with a plan’.
When in doubt, create a reverse brief.
When you’re on the receiving end of vague requests, try using a reverse brief.
It’s an excellent way to lower overwhelm and even more helpful when dealing with colleagues who communicate differently to you.
People want to hear a yes when they ask something of you at work.
One step better than a ‘yes’ is a ‘yes, with a plan’.
To give your stakeholders confidence, make it explicit what you’ll deliver and when they can get what they want.
By doing so, you buy yourself more time, credibility and studies show: more investment in your future career prospects.
The tool is managing expectations, by making it explicit what they can expect from you.
You can do this by creating a ‘reverse brief’.
What’s a reverse brief?
A reverse brief is when you ‘interview’ your colleague until you know what they're wanting and what they’re hoping you will do.
It’s called a reverse brief because you’re repeating back to them what they want.
It’s helpful for people who don’t communicate like you or people you find really tricky to understand. It’s also helpful when you’re not confident that they know what they want.
It’s a checklist for yourself so you know where to focus your energy and not waste time deciphering what someone wants.
It lessens the gap between your colleague’s expectations and your execution, and increases the likelihood of you succeeding.
People aren’t vague because they want you to fail.
It’s because they don’t have time to think about how to communicate clearly or it doesn’t occur to them that they aren’t being explicit about what they need.
We all assume we’re clear communicators. Your colleagues additionally might not appreciate that you inherently want to impress them, and that being clear about what they want helps you do that.
What does a reverse brief look like?
A great reverse brief makes it clear to both parties what is being asked of you, why you are doing it, and what will be able to happen as a result of you doing it.
It can be as formal as a document, a follow up email, or as casual as a quick message or verbally repeating what you understand the person is asking of you.
All a reverse brief needs to do is give you and your colleague confidence that you’re on the same page.
Sometimes you’ll try a few different things to figure out what's expected of you and over time, learn what format gives the other person confidence too.
Asking clarifying questions, or playing back what you understand, helps not only you get clarity but also gives your colleague confidence.
Part of the gig at work is reminding people that they’re in safe hands. A reverse brief is one way to do that, regardless of what kind of communicator you both are.
Play back the request to get clear.
One technique you can use to get clarity when feeling flummoxed is to repeat to the other person what you understand their ask to be.
It sounds like:
“What I’m hearing is that you’re keen on some form of visual that showcases the milestones and the work remaining, is that the idea?”
“I’m hearing the cover page is the most important part of this document, is that right?”
“So the CEO needs a report by tomorrow outlining the RAG status, and you need a draft by 4.00pm tonight so Sarah can give it a look, yeah?”
If you aren’t sure what the task is, don’t be afraid to ask for an example.
If you’re not sure of the intent, clarify it. To help you get there, you might pose a few clarifying questions.
Questions might include asking for context, content and scope.
For example:
“When you say challenges, what sort of things come to mind?”
“Who would the audience be for this?”
“What do you see being the main milestones that are important to consider?”
“Is there an example that you think is really good that I could emulate?”
“What sort of indicators would show you this is successful?”
“When were you thinking?”
Reverse briefs are experiments, until you figure out what works best.
You don’t need to agree with the ask. But by putting requests into your ‘reverse brief filter’, by getting clarity on what the person you’re working with wants, you’re giving yourself a checklist for what you personally need to feel confident that you can be successful.
As a bonus, being really clear on what you understand is expected of you, and then doing that thing, is a great way to build trust.
Your reverse brief toolkit.
Here’s 4 principles you can use when receiving a request.
Confirm your understanding before you start. Our instinct is to say yes and scurry away. Instead, spend a few minutes confirming your understanding to get their confirmation that you’re on the right track.
Figure out what good looks like. Ask for an example of what good looks like. If they don’t have one, source a few examples from the internet and ask them to confirm which is what they’re looking for before you start.
Show an example early. Show your thinking before the deadline, to get feedback you’re on the right track. Think of it as a ‘proof of thinking’ to get their ‘okay’ before proceeding further.
Bonus: deadline before the deadline. Never rely on someone else being a good planner. We get mad when people give us changes and we don’t have time. Make the time by creating a false deadline for yourself and save the stress.
You never need to say ‘yes’ on the spot.
Instead, you can get more info by going into reverse brief mode.
By verbally, or writing down a reverse brief, we’re getting data to figure out whether we can actually help our colleague or not.
And if you were the colleague asking, wouldn’t you want that?