"I’ve already explained this."

I've heard managers say that countless times throughout my career. Sometimes they say it out loud. More often, they think it.

A project comes back wrong. A priority gets missed. A team member asks a question the manager feels like they've already answered three times. And the manager walks away frustrated.

I used to think the same thing.

If I'm being honest, there were times I assumed someone wasn't listening when the reality was much simpler: they didn't have the same context I had.

I knew the history behind the decision.

I knew the competing priorities.

I knew the conversations that happened before the meeting.

I knew the tradeoffs, assumptions, and constraints.

The problem was that I communicated the conclusion while skipping all the context that led me there.

What felt obvious to me wasn't obvious to anyone else.

I had fallen victim to what I now call the Curse of Context.

💡 The Vault Insight: The Curse of Context means the more context you have, the easier it is to forget how much context everyone else might be missing.

They've spent months, or years, immersed in the business. The priorities, the customers, the strategy, the history, the acronyms, the politics.

Eventually all of that context becomes invisible. And that's when clarity starts to break down.

The things that feel obvious to you are often the very things your team needs explained most.

That's the Curse of Context.

The best managers learn to fight it by assuming they need to provide more context than feels necessary.

Over time, that extra context becomes trust, alignment, and a team that needs fewer corrections because they understand the bigger picture.

—Ashley Walton, CMO & Treadmill Desk Advocate