Relative to What?

"Make it better." "We need this faster." "Let's get it done soon."

None of those are instructions. They're placeholders where an instruction should go, and they cost more than silence, because the person hearing them now has to guess what you meant and then get blamed for guessing wrong.

Relative terminology is lazy communication. Not intentional, not constructive. Better than what? Faster than when? Soon compared to which deadline that nobody wrote down?

There are three things you can hand someone: direction, advice, or an insult. Direction has a metric. Advice has a reason. An insult has neither, and a surprising amount of workplace feedback is an insult wearing a lanyard. "This needs to be tighter" with no target is not a note. It's a mood.

The fix is boring and it works. Use numbers when you can. Use comparisons when you can't. "Two pages, not five." "Ship by Thursday so legal has Friday." "Louder than the old unit, measured at one meter." Now the other person can succeed, and you can tell whether they did.

This applies to the people you lead and the people you hire. It applies to vendors, who will happily bill you for a vague brief. It applies to yourself, because "I want to grow the business" isn't a goal, it's a wish with a LinkedIn profile.

One more thing. Don't teach people to dance your way. Learn their way and blend it. Not everyone can tango. The metric doesn't change, but how you explain it should, because direction that lands is the only kind that counts.

Relative to what? If you can't answer, don't say it yet.