Vague Instructions: What Am I Supposed to Do? East-West Differences in How Work Gets Assigned

When work instructions are vague, and you can’t quite understand what your boss means, it can be genuinely confusing and exhausting. You did get an instruction, but once you sit down to do it, there are times when you’re left wondering what on earth you’re supposed to do.

They may call you over suddenly and say, “Do it like this and like that.” But for any task to make it all the way to the deadline, you need a lot of information. For example: when the deadline is, who you should discuss it with and how, where to pull the data from, what form the finished report should take, which of the details the final approver actually wants, where this material needs to be delivered, and what decision it’s supposed to lead to. There are all kinds of things you need to know.

But most of the instructions we get are incredibly vague. Why do we have to start work by using some kind of mind-reading trick to figure out what the boss really meant? I once heard Professor Kyung-il Kim, a cognitive psychologist, say in a lecture that this comes from cultural differences between East and West, and it really resonated with me.

I had long thought the same thing myself: “If they just gave clear instructions upfront, wouldn’t we get started faster and make the whole organization much more efficient?”

But in Eastern cultures, it’s considered a virtue for superiors to give indirect instructions, and it’s also seen as a virtue for subordinates to quickly grasp what their boss really intends. Even in today’s fast-paced work life, this culture still holds, so people don’t explain things in detail and then ask, “Why can’t this person understand what I’m saying?” In other words, if I say something roughly, you’re supposed to catch it perfectly and produce exactly what I want.

From the perspective of an HR manager who needs to maximize overall organizational efficiency, there is nothing more inefficient than this kind of communication. Still, since it seems to be a defining feature of Eastern culture, trying to change it would run into all sorts of resistance, and expecting it to change felt unrealistic. So after that, whenever employees came to me for advice about this kind of problem, I would tell them this.

First, say, “Yes, I’ll do that,” to show that you’ve accepted the instruction, and then sit down and organize your thoughts in your own way. After that, don’t jump straight into the work. If you dive in blindly, you’ll get stuck because you don’t have enough information, and you’ll end up being seen as someone who holds onto tasks without moving them forward. Instead, say something like, “I’m working on it now, but if I had the following information, I think I could finish much more quickly. Where could I check that?” The key is not to ask the person who gave the instruction to hand it over directly, but to ask where you can find it. If you ask them to give it to you, they may think, “Are you trying to tell me what to do?”

Then, from the boss’s point of view, they’re put in a position where, even if it’s annoying, they have to explain it. Of course, because they never expected things to go in this direction, they may also feel caught off guard. But as this process repeats, both sides begin to reach a kind of agreement, and communication becomes more natural.

From the boss’s side, if they give vague instructions, you’ll come back with more questions and they’ll have to look flustered again, so they start developing the habit of giving more detailed directions. Since everyone is watching, it’s embarrassing, too. And for the subordinate, this process helps them become familiar with the “language of the boss,” so over time, they can figure out some things without even needing to ask.

In this way, we need to train ourselves to adjust to one another within Eastern communication culture. Even just using this kind of communication skill can make you seem, from your boss’s perspective, like an employee who understands perfectly and produces exactly what they want.