Ever gave an instruction to someone and they just end up doing it all wrong in the end? When you ask them if the instructions were not clear, you get a response of either 'no, everything was clear.' or 'some were and some were not.' Sometimes, you will even get silence as a response which really does not give you an indication if it was a 'yes' or 'no' or 'maybe'. Whatever response you get, however, if the end result was not what you had envisioned, then something went wrong. You would probably conclude that they were not listening very well to your instructions, right? Wrong! Most of the time, the problem lies on your instructions. It could be a number of things. One, maybe you were not clear enough. Maybe you used words that did not describe what you wanted to describe. Maybe it was how you gave the instructions too. You probably gave them way too fast that the person could not keep up with steps. Or you could probably given them way too slow that the person fell asleep halfway through it. You did not ask them if it was all clear or if they have questions after giving them the instructions. Whatever the case is, if you want people to accomplish something right the first time around (so time and effort will not be wasted for both you and the other person), you need to learn how to give instructions properly. Let us start with clarity in your instructions. When I was taking Toastmasters' speech classes several years back, the first thing I learned was to be clear about what topic you will have for your speech. What do you want to talk about and how do you elaborate on that throughout your speech? It is the same with giving instructions. What do you want your team to do? Be clear at what end result do you want them accomplish. If you are doing training, instructions for activities in your program are very common and giving instructions are very critical. Your trainees need to know what the relevance of the activities are to their overall learning and how the takeaways from these activities are can be applied and help them in the workplace. Choosing the right words to use in your instructions go hand in hand with your being clear about what you want them to accomplish. Sometimes, people use the wrong words when giving instructions that it should not be a surprise if their team gets it all wrong in the end result. Words are vital in giving instructions. Do not go hifalutin words to impress them with your vocabulary. Use words they would understand, simple and effective words. One thing you do not want to happen is that your words gets lost in translation, right? You want them to understand your instructions not analyzing them because of the would need a dictionary to look up the words you just used. Be specific, be simple, be clear. Phrase your instructions well. How you give your instructions, meaning, pacing is also equally important. Do not be in such a hurry to finish the instructions because you have other things to do. Give enough time to give instructions. However, do not fall into the monotone pace either that your team would be so bored that they end up daydreaming or dozing off to never never land instead of listening to you. Be sure to have a moderate pace so that people can understand and your instructions will sink in better as you give them. Probably the most important that most people miss out on when giving instructions is to ask the person you are giving the instructions to if they got it, understood it or they have questions about your instructions. How do you know if they got it the first time around? You can even take time asking them to repeat what you said. By doing this, whatever was missed out on or not clear can be addressed beforehand. Saves you time and effort too, instead of them coming back to you to clarify something about the instructions while they are already in the process of doing them. So remember these the next time you give instructions: 1) Be clear; 2) Watch your phrasing; 3) Watch your pacing and 4) Ask them to repeat the instructions or ask them if they have questions. Once you apply these, you will be sure that you will get the end result you wanted to happen from your team.