Vagueness is the enemy of progress
When we don’t have infinite resources, the way we intend to allow progress is the only part we really need to understand.

Let’s take a vision or mission or goal and exaggerate its vagueness for dramatic effect.
Make the world a better place for people.
It’s a statement. It makes sense. However, it’s laughably vague. There’s no meaningful way to design or build anything with it.
It needs more … what? Clarity? Specificity? For which parts?
I’d suggest ‘make’ is the only word that matters in that statement. It’s the way we intend to allow progress. We can ignore the rest.
- What do we mean by ‘the world’? Doesn’t matter.
- What do we mean by ‘better’? Doesn’t matter.
- Who do we mean by ‘people’? Doesn’t matter.
Of course all those things matter when we have unlimited time, money, and people. When we don’t have infinite resources, the way we intend to allow progress is the only part we really need to understand.
What does ‘make’ mean?
Unfortunately, the way we intend to allow progress is typically the last part we tend to — if at all. It’s the most difficult to untangle.
It’s easy to get more specific about the people we intend to help. For example, medical professionals or office managers or restaurant owners. We can spend a lot of time fleshing out the nuances of these roles without meaningfully reducing the vagueness of our statement.
Make the world a better place for restaurant owners.
It feels more specific. It feels more clear. But why?
If we have relevant domain knowledge, it’s tapping into our intuition. We think we know this particular audience. We think we can speak for them. We think our ideas will benefit them.
We might be right … but watch out!
The statement didn’t become any less vague.
When ‘people’ were the target of our thinking it was obviously too error prone — we can’t possible speak for everyone. The subset of ‘restaurant owners’ is different. By setting a constraint that fits to a familiar area, we now have the confidence that our ideas are worthwhile.
Spot the trick?
Our brain notices that the statement is vague and becomes cautious — too risky. Then, some specificity shows up. Our brain’s sense of caution flies right out the window. Ideas start to percolate. We no longer notice the risk.
Don’t fall for it.
We haven’t learned anything more from this statement than the previous statement. It is still too vague to act on in any meaningful way.
We can continue adding specificity to every word in the statement. It will continue to feel better and generate more ideas. Let’s change ‘the world’ to ‘restaurants’ and see how it feels.
Make restaurants better places for their owners.
We’ve reduced the scope of the statement. We’ve localized it to a specific place. We’ve made the world smaller — only restaurants.
But have we made the statement any less vague? No.
At this point, our brains are probably buzzing. Our creativity is heating up. Ideas are coming fast and furious.
This is dangerous. We still don’t know anything!
On and on we go. Carving out smaller and smaller pieces of the world to work within, without making the statement any less vague. We can do this all the way down to our daily work.
My favorite part in this statement is ‘better places’. The most tempting part to explore and refine. We can put just about anything into that part of the statement and it will feel like progress.
Make restaurants more efficient for their owners.
That feels good. It seems like we could come up with some great ideas now. Confidence is high. How could we go wrong?
Making a restaurant ‘more efficient’ is explaining the future. It’s explaining what happens after the ‘make’ has been provided. It’s still giving little to no clues about what needs to be done in the present.
It’s still laughably vague. It just doesn’t feel like it.
All we have done, so far, is reduced each piece of the statement to a subset of the original. In our efforts to make the statement more meaningful, we’ve limited the areas of work. All without reducing the vagueness of the statement in any significant way.
Any ideas that come through this statement should be treated with extreme caution. Our brain is tricking us into believing our own bullshit. Our intuition is feeling validated, therefor, it must be right.
Just remember … we still have no clue what we’re doing.
We have ideas. We have plenty of ideas. We are overflowing with ideas.
But still no clue.
Make restaurants more efficient for their owners.
What’s the way we intend allow progress? Not the result of the progress, but a description of progress itself. What does ‘make’ mean? Until we answer this question, we’re wasting our time.
So how should we describe progress? I don’t have a short answer for this, yet. Here’s my best attempt so far: Why we Should Focus on the Present (And Stop Trying to Predict the Future).
More coming soon. Thank you for reading. Hope you 👏 it.
