If no one understands you, are you a genius?
You probably hear it so often, especially in the tech world, that it’s a total cliche. “X person is so smart, I don’t understand her at all.”
The fact that you can not understand what someone is talking about is not actually a sign that the other person is smarter than you. At best, it’s a neutral indicator. It does show you that the person is a terrible communicator. Because even the smartest people working on the trickiest, most complicated problems should be able to explain things in a way that anyone could understand. There is always a way to go up a level and simplify your description so that even the most non-technical person can understand. It is possible to explain nearly all concepts in technology to a five-year-old who knows what a computer is.
Nobody likes to be confused
There is a concrete problem with our general assumption that someone who can’t communicate clearly is smarter than us, especially when the poor communicator is the leader of a business. Confusing ideas do not attract investors. They do not inspire even visionary prospects to write checks and become investors. If employees leave the all-hands meeting scratching their heads, trying to figure out what the CEO meant… not only is it demoralizing, but it defeats the whole purpose of an all-hands meeting, which is usually about giving team members direction.
Know your audience
Good communicators are able to adjust the way they talk depending on their audience. They can tell a group of SREs how this debugging tool helps decrease time to recover and tell a group of five-year-olds how they help make sure the iPad games work correctly. They are able to adjust the level of technical specificity appropriately and… here is key… highlight the outcome that the audience members would be interested in. SREs —> want to decrease recovery times. Kids —> want their games to work smoothly without any crashes.
How does this relate to positioning?
Actually, quite a lot. The ‘genius’ who no one understands is often someone who can’t make the translation from features to value / outcomes and who is doesn’t really understand who the audience is. Positioning is all about creating context for your product and reducing confusion. If the public spokesperson for your company leaves people confused, this is problematic.
If you find that prospects, colleagues, industry journalists or potential investors are confused after talking with your company leadership, it is likely a sign of a positioning problem. Solid positioning involves:
A way to descibe your product/service that makes sense to your audience
Ability to clearly articulate the value / outcome that your product provides, in a way that makes sense to your audience
If you can’t do either of those things — or if your company leadership has trouble doing either of those things — it’s not a sign that you are too much of a genius. It’s a sign that you need to work on the product’s positioning.