Good communication is not a "fill-in-the-blank" test.
You have good, smart, talented people around you. Maybe your players, your teammates, your direct reports, your peers/colleagues. They know their stuff. Do you really need to connect the dots for them? We often use lack of communication as a tool to test talent, intuition, understanding. But life is not a “fill in the blank” quiz. The more talented, smart and accomplished the people around you are, the more likely they are going to fill in that blank with what they think, which may not be what you are thinking. It is not inefficient to clarify, to ask if what you have suggested is understood, to ask for a reflection back, to repeat yourself on instructions. These small actions can mean the difference between a play, business transaction, report, project, initiative, being completed correctly versus incorrectly.
A 2024 report from Harris Poll and Grammarly found that miscommunication resulted in approximately 1 lost day of work a week. Moreover, a recent report from Harvard Business Review describes how greater stress and tension leads to increasingly more communication mistakes among leaders.
Yes-we have to say things over. Yes, we need to keep things simple. Yes, we need to fill in the blanks to present information that has no room for misinterpretation. We have to do this because we are human and those, we are interacting with are human. None of us, no matter how talented are assured that we will understand what the other is asking or wanting 100% of the time.
So, get away from using fill in the blank as a litmus test for talent. Just say way you need, say it clearly, repeat it if needed, and ask for a confirmation back. It is the most efficient way humans can interact with humans and still execute successfully