The Power of the Back Brief
A major challenge in effective delegation is ensuring that what you want is clearly communicated and understood by your team.
Leaders spend a lot of time thinking about what to communicate. But often, the bigger problem is not what you said, it is what your team heard. Even with the clearest instructions, assumptions and interpretations can drift. That’s where the back brief comes in.
A back brief is a simple but powerful tool: after you delegate work or communicate a vision through a process like a GRANTS memo, you ask the person (or team) to briefly restate what they heard, what they believe success looks like, and what they’ll do next. It’s a way to close the loop and ensure alignment before time and effort are wasted.
What Is a Back Brief?
The concept comes from military and emergency response practices, where clarity can mean the difference between success and disaster. A back brief is essentially a structured restatement:
What I heard: Restate the instructions or vision in their own words
What success looks like: Define the outcome or the commander’s intent as they understand it
What I will do next: Lay out the immediate steps they will take
It’s not a test and it should not come off as patronizing. It’s a dialogue that surfaces misalignment early, when it’s cheap to fix.
Why Back Briefs Work
Expose hidden assumptions: Both leaders and teams carry unspoken assumptions. A back brief exposes them and opens the door to define all important key areas
Builds accountability: Everyone leaves the room knowing exactly what’s expected
Reinforces ownership: By putting the plan in their own words, the team takes responsibility for execution
Saves time later: A short check today prevents days or weeks of wasted effort tomorrow
How to Use the Back Brief
Here are some practical ways to integrate back briefs into your leadership toolbox:
When delegating a project: After explaining the goals, ask the person, “Can you walk me through how you understand this project and what your next step will be?”
When communicating vision: After a big team meeting, have managers or team leads restate what they’ll take back to their teams and any specific context or nuance that might be different from what the initial vision covered
When receiving feedback: if a team member is giving feedback or presenting an idea, restate what you heard back to them to make sure you fully understand
This doesn’t have to be formal or long. A quick summary is usually enough to uncover misunderstandings.
Back Briefs and Culture
Back briefs only work in cultures where transparency and understanding why is safe and supported. If people fear looking foolish, they won’t be honest about what they understand. Embedding this practice requires:
A culture of transparency and trust
Leaders modeling the behavior by doing their own back briefs to what their teams tell them
Treating misalignment as a shared problem, not an individual failure
Final Thoughts
The back brief is a simple tool a leader can use, that is also quite effective. It builds a culture of clarity, accountability, and shared understanding. It also builds a strong trusted communication relationship with members of your team. The better your team gets on brief backs, the better all other communication will flow.
Next time you delegate a task or communicate your vision, don’t just assume you were understood. Take the extra two minutes and ask for a back brief. The time you save later will far outweigh the time you spend today.