Creating Work for Someone Else

The burden of uncertainty usually falls on someone else.

Most days, I have difficulty remembering where I left my keys or, even worse, what I was going to do when I walk into the kitchen. I suppose that's simply part of aging, that slight forgetfulness. However, every once in a while, someone says something that just sticks with you. Not because it's especially profound or a statement you agree with, but because it causes you to look at something differently.

While planning one of our Promocations events, Josh Robbins and I were finalizing details for two optional excursions. While we had buttoned up the location, transportation, and overall experiences, we hadn't been able to lock in every attendee, and we were up against a tight deadline. We reached out to the final unaccounted for attendee by email and text, simply asking which excursion he'd like to participate in. We weren't trying to sell him on one option over the other; we just needed an answer so we could provide an accurate headcount.

No response.

About two weeks before the event, we held our standard pre-event webinar, where we covered transportation, what to pack, what to expect, and answered any questions people might have. Our lone holdout for declaring the excursion of choice was in attendance, so I politely asked if he had decided on which excursion he and his wife would like to join. His response, delivered curtly in front of everyone on the Zoom, caught me completely off guard.

"No response is my response."

I was more than a bit taken aback and, candidly, didn't handle that moment as well as I'd like to have. In fact, I responded with something along the lines of, "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot to take my mind-reading pills." As I said, it wasn't my finest moment, but the exchange has stayed with me ever since, not because of the obvious awkwardness or rudeness, but because of what it revealed about him and his assumptions.

In his mind, he had communicated. At the same time, in ours, he hadn't.

Looking back, it's truly fascinating to me how often we assume other people know what we know and understand what we understand. We convince ourselves that silence sends a specific message, that someone will "take the hint," or that our lack of response speaks for itself. The problem is that it rarely, if ever, does.

Silence doesn't create clarity; it creates assumptions. When this Promocations attendee didn't respond, it left Josh and me trying desperately to interpret the silence. Did he see the email? Do we have the right email address? Is he still deciding? Should we follow up? Did something happen? Should we hold his spot on both and just eat the cost on the one he doesn't go on?

In that moment, one person's silence became someone else's work – namely, Josh's and mine.

I don't think most people intend for that to happen. And, being honest, I've caught myself doing the same thing. There have been emails I meant to answer but didn't, invitations I intended to decline but never got around to, and conversations I avoided because saying nothing felt easier than saying no.

Looking back, I wasn't communicating as much as I'd hoped someone else would figure it out. That's an unfair burden we place on people more often than we realize. The reality is that good communication isn't measured by what we have or haven't said; it's measured by what the other person actually understands. If they have to guess what we mean, we've likely left too much unsaid.

This is true in business, but it's also true in friendships, marriages, families, and everyday relationships. Clarity in communication is more than a courtesy – it's respectful while acknowledging that other people's time, attention, and effort matter just as much as our own.

This blog has nothing to do with excursions or Promocations. It's about something much bigger: recognizing that silence is rarely neutral because it often leaves someone else wondering, waiting, or making decisions without the input they need.

Contrary to what our attendee said, "no response is my response" isn't really a response at all. It's really a responsibility we've shifted to someone else.