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# A negative focus avoids disimprovement — Kelford Labs Daily
- URL: https://kelfordinc.com/a-negative-focus-avoids-disimprovement-kelford-labs-daily/
- Published: 2026-02-20T11:28:39.000Z
- Updated: 2026-02-20T11:28:39.000Z
- Description: By asking what’s missing.
- Author: Joel Kelly
- Tags: clarity, creative, Daily Labs, messaging, mistake, presentation, process, rangefinder, writing

Recently, during a day-long [Marketing Rangefinder workshop](https://kelfordinc.com/a-complimentary-content-workshop-for-my-readers-kelford-labs-weekly/) with a client, I ended the session by writing a sentence on the board.

It summed up everything we’d talked about during the day, in one simple line.

But I knew it wasn’t ready, I knew it wasn’t quite *right*, and I wanted the people in the room to provide feedback that would improve it.

What I *didn’t* do, though, was ask them how to make it better.

**Instead, I asked, “What’s *missing* from this?” and “What does this *not* include?” and “Why is this *not* right?”**

A lot of people make the mistake of asking a group of people how to make something better, which leads to “[disimprovement](https://kelfordinc.com/the-danger-of-disimprovement/),” which Howard Gossage described as, “making things worse by trying to make them better.”

But when you phrase something negatively, you focus not on what *might* be made better, but on what is *definitely* wrong.

**That allows me, the person who’ll be doing the copywriting, to focus on what *needs* to change rather than on what everyone in the room would simply like to see.**

So if you’re working with a group or committee on your marketing, and you’re struggling to get buy-in or consensus, I suspect the problem is that you’re looking for *additions*, which will never stop once invited.

Instead, you want to look for *negatives*, real problems that need to be resolved.

**And then *one person resolves them* and returns to the committee to ask again: “What’s *wrong* with this?”**

Once most agree that there’s nothing missing any longer, then the polish, the finesse, the [style](https://kelfordinc.com/style-is-what-they-see-first-kelford-labs-daily/) can be finalized.

Remember: The goal of the work is to improve it by identifying what needs to be fixed.

**Not to disimprove it by asking what could be better.**

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[***Kelford Inc.***](https://www.kelfordinc.com/) ***shows you the way to always knowing what to say.***