So, we are all communicating all the time, in our day to day life. We write. Whether that's writing reports or scientific manuscripts, or grocery lists, or to-do lists, or anything else, we're all speaking to our friends, to our family, to our professional colleagues, and we're all communicating all the time with our bodies, with our faces, with our hands. These nonverbal cues that are part of the language that we all use. That might make you think we're all good at this, right? We go through life communicating, but the truth is we're not. Well, okay. In one sense we are. We actually do get through life for the most part, using our words, using our bodies, using our voice to accomplish our goals. The groceries get bought, the boss understands what it is we are doing or what the project is, but the problem here is people actually tend to be particularly bad at communicating scientific concepts, data, or complex ideas. In other words, doing most public health or medical data communication. So, a good place to start thinking about how do we be better communicators is to look at problems, to look at the ways things go wrong, so that we understand how to prevent them. So, let's start. I'm just going to go through a list. The first one here. Sometimes, communications don't have a point. I mean, honestly, how many times have you been to a presentation or a lecture, and the persons talking on and on and on, and you know there's stuff there, but you don't actually know what they want you to remember, you don't actually have any idea whether what it is that they're point was. If we don't have a clear point that is the goal of our communication, we can say all the right stuff, and we're not going to accomplish something. Now, even if you do have a point, you have to think about is that the right point for your audience. Sometimes, I've seen great presentations that were perfect for let say talking to one group of faculty who had a particular background and set of training, but the person took that same presentation and delivered it to a different group, and it didn't make any sense. It just was wrong. Another kind of problem that's related to this is all the pieces might be there, but they don't fit together. So, you know that's relevant, and that's relevant, and that's relevant, but you don't actually see how the different points fit together. That's a problem of thinking about the macro structure of your communication and thinking intentionally about it's not just is this true, but how does it connect to all the other points that you're trying to make? Now, sometimes the communication problems are really just about word choice, and I use a word that's misunderstood, maybe that's a language problem. Maybe that's a jargon problem. Maybe that's because the word has different meaning in my context versus your context. Either way, being careful and intentional about thinking about which words makes sense for this audience, can help prevent problems. Also, just thinking about how do you interpret the words you're using versus your audience. On a broader sense, it's not just about words, it's about examples. It's about thinking about who your audience is. Sometimes, people present stuff in a really inappropriate context or framing. Usually, that's because they've made some kind of assumption that's just wrong. They assume that people know something but they don't know. They assume that they behave a certain way when they don't. They assume that they believe something that they don't. Now, this can be sort of innocuous things like, I assume that you know how to do this particular let say statistical test, but I don't know what that is. So, if you're basing that knowledge, basing your talk about prior knowledge and I don't have it, well, we have a problem. But of course this can be a huge problem when we stereotype people. When we assume facts about each and every person we're reaching out to, that is just wrong, and often even offensive. So, we have to be very conscious about how do we shape the words, and the framing, and the examples we use, to not be offensive, to not stereotype, and to respect our audience and their perspectives. Now, even if you get all that stuff right, sometimes you can just deliver it in the wrong format. Right? Here's a great example. Doctors got a lot of information they need to communicate to a patient, but they say it all verbally. The patient let's say just got diagnosed with cancer. They're all emotionally upset about that for reasonable reasons. They're not able to process all that information even if it was perfectly presented. It's the wrong format. They need it written down so that they can look at it later and follow up with it, or they need it presented at a different time, when they might be better able to process it and remember it. Again going back to something I mentioned earlier. Sometimes the problem is, you've got a perfect presentation for one group, can't take it to another one and assume it's going to work there. There is no one size fits all communication. You have to think about tailoring what you're saying for different audiences. So, just because it worked one place doesn't mean that it's going to work someplace else. Now, what I've gone through here is not by any stretch of the imagination a complete list, but it is a pretty good start. The more that you pay attention to these types of things, to what can go wrong in your communications, the more likely you are to be able to prevent them, and that's the key. Paying attention to what can go wrong is always a really useful strategy. The honest truth and I've seen this happen many many times, is that we don't spend enough time thinking about it. We spend all our time thinking about what is it I want to say. We don't spend enough time thinking about the ways in which the way I'm saying it, or when I'm saying it might affect whether or not people can get it.
