An Exercise for Professional Clarity

Isaac, Praxis’s founder and CEO, had me do an exercise today that helped me clarify what the education part of our product is and how we expect customers to use it.

Think about what you do at your job, why you do it, and how you do it. Or even better, what your company’s product or service is, what need you are trying to fill, and how your product fills that need. If you are a department head or team manager, focus on what your team does, why and how you do it, and how it fits into the overall company. Turn this into a 5 minute video.

It took me a few hours of thinking about it over an evening and the next morning, then 3 different takes:

First cut, 10 minutes long, awkward phrasing as I figured out what I wanted to say.

A tighter 6.5 minute version with two areas that were solid and one area that was too detailed in some areas and too light in others.

A third and final take that was 4.5 minutes long that was clearer in almost every way. The only thing I’d add if I chose to shoot it one more time is a better 20 second conceptual framing of our why at the beginning. It was sprinkled throughout, but not laid out in one statement.

This helps you take a 10,000ft view of what you do, figure out your part in the organization, learn how to present your role in a coherent way, and figure out where you need to do some work.

Share it with your team and see what they come up with, too.