If we get into our heads, we're not able to assess what's going on in the moment. A lot of communication is responding. And so I need to be present enough to see how my audience is responding. Are they looking confused? Do they look upset? Then I can adjust and adapt. So we have to be in that moment enough to be present so we can respond. And the preparation work we do in advance helps us be better prepared. Now, I would argue that in the example you just gave with your former graduate student, part of the issue that I think she might have been having is when you relayed the information, it was just a list or litany of things. And our brains aren't very good at remembering lists. I mean, I always will joke with my students, when you go to the grocery store, how many items do you need to buy before you have to write something down? For me, it's three. I just can't remember much in lists. If you provide a structure to the information, it makes it much easier. It increases processing ability.
So a structure is nothing more than a logical connection of ideas. Everybody listening has seen structure. If you've ever watched a television ad, most ads are in the structure of problem, solution, benefit. There's some issue or challenge in the world. The product or service makes it better and you benefit in some way. That's a structure. There's a logical connection. It's like a story. It's a beginning, middle, and an end. And our brains are wired for that. We understand story better than just a little random list of things. I'll joke with my students, bullets killed. Don't put a lot of bullet points on a slide because you're not helping yourself. So, in that interaction you had with your graduate student, I wonder if she would have understood it better had you structured the information in a way that's logical. A great structure for that might have been three questions: What? So what? Now what? Here's what I want you to do. Here's why it's important. Here's the next steps to help you accomplish it. All of a sudden, it becomes easier for me to digest and understand. So, structure is critical to helping get messages across.
Yeah. Across those first five years of having my lab, I learned that the best way to interact with students and postdocs, the most effective way was to have them stand at the whiteboard in my office and write things down as we talked about a project. And the things they would write down, we would eventually cross some things out, maybe make some edits, but those were the, as we call them, the do-outs that they were going to take to the next phase of experiments.
By putting them in control of what the critical information was, right? They could also stop me and say like, what would happen here? So, that's a very dynamic interaction. It's not a typical lecture-type interaction, but I've found that that works really well in other types of situations, too.
Yeah, where the person can take notes, can ask questions about things that were unclear, but where I get a strong sense of what their takeaway was and also where I fell short or perhaps in rare cases succeeded in communicating what I was trying to communicate, right?
I love that you are taking the time to have those interactions where you get feedback in real time, and there are things you can build into more formal or bigger types of communication situations. I can take polls. I can have people partner or pair with each other and share some information back. Virtual tools allow you to do lots of things. People can give you reactions as you're communicating. There are ways to get feedback in real time that allow you to adjust and adapt, but one, you have to build in those opportunities in the structure, and two, you have to be present enough to pay attention to what's going on.
Do you recommend people tape themselves giving lectures and then review those videos?
Absolutely. I make all of my students, as part of the work that they do, anytime they do a public presentation, it could be a panel simulation, a meeting simulation, a speech, they digitally record themselves and they have to watch it three times. Once with sound only, no video, once with video only, no sound, and then once both together. And anybody who does this will notice different things, both positive and negative. I tell everybody it's like going to the dentist. Nobody likes going, but everybody's really glad they've been because you see so much and you learn. And I know many great communication teachers. The best teacher is watching yourself communicate. I assume you've watched yourself. Have you learned things when you watch what you see?
Yeah. Well, yeah. I will listen to podcasts with guests. Yes. And I do listen to solos to try and see where I can improve, right? I have one or two people who I seek feedback from, and I have always done my best to implement that feedback. Yeah.
I mean, I'm not going to share what some of the things were because some of it was subtle, but I never would have observed in myself, and then it turned out to be very useful. I mean, when I think of effective communication on stage or in a podcast or in any form really, I feel like it's really about getting outside the self-judgment, right, and at the same time you have to be connected to your audience. I mean, this is especially difficult on podcasts where it's a solo podcast, I'm talking to a camera, but I just imagine it's an audience like a classroom, and yet hands aren't going up, at least not then. They go up when we post it and you see the comments and critiques from time to time as well, and those are very useful.
I mean, coming from the landscape of teaching in the classroom, large lectures, small lectures, and doing peer-reviewed science, you get a very thick skin. And yet nothing quite prepares you for being public-facing. And now everybody's public-facing unless they block their comments section. I mean, most everybody out there, the mom posting the cake she made for her kids and the kid posting the birthday party photo, everybody's public-facing now, right? And so I think it gives people a thicker skin, but I think for a lot of people it can be damaging for them.
