What makes smart people dumb?
Elizabeth Newton, a psychologist, conducted an experiment on the curse of knowledge while working on her doctorate at Stanford in 1990. She gave one set of people, called “tappers,” a list of commonly known songs from which to choose. Their task was to rap their knuckles on a tabletop to the rhythm of the chosen tune as they thought about it in their heads. A second set of people, called “listeners,” were asked to name the songs.
Before the experiment began, the tappers were asked how often they believed that the listeners would name the songs correctly. On average, the tappers expected listeners to get it right about half the time. In the end, however, listeners guessed only 3 of 120 songs tapped out, or 2.5 percent.
The tappers were astounded. The song was so clear in their minds; how could the listeners not “hear” it in their taps?
That’s a common reaction when experts set out to share their ideas in the business world, too, says Chip Heath, who with his brother, Dan, was a co-author of the 2007 book “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.” It’s why engineers design products ultimately useful only to other engineers. It’s why managers have trouble convincing the rank and file to adopt new processes. It’s why the advertising world struggles to convey commercial messages to consumers. And it’s why many presenters struggle to plant their ideas deeply in the soil of the listeners’ mind.
Part of the problem for expert speakers is their expert language, the terms that their specialized disciplines develop to speak in short hand. These highly specialized languages confer an identity on the initiated, who may be reluctant to relinquish this hard-won identity when speaking to the uninitiated.
Another problem is simple over-familiarity with the terrain. Researchers have been over and over their data and their findings in preparing for publication. It’s hard for them to see it through the eyes of a child, or the eyes of someone new to the terrain.
A parallel from my own experience: I find it difficult to give new friends directions to my home, even though I’ve lived there for 15 years. I’m on automatic pilot everyday as I drive away from and then back toward my house. I don’t pay attention to the names of little roads, or make note of landmarks. I know where I am, but my knowledge is tacit–I struggle to make it explicit.
I often ask scientists I’m working with to prepare a talk explaining their work to 5th Graders. It’s a difficult exercise for them–they make so many assumptions, the most obvious being, “Why are you studying the P54 gene and why does it have that name?”
They forget they have to start at the beginning. I.e., “Once upon a time, there was a Daddy who got very, very sick. He went to the doctor and….”
And suddenly they’re following the Golden Rule: “Speak to the audience, in the language of the audience, about what’s most important to the audience.”
What could have been an incomprehensible talk in a foreign language has become a story about a heroic effort to save somebody’s Daddy.
Everybody can understand that!
And while this may seem overly simple for expert speakers addressing sophisticated adults, the core truth remains valid. An audience needs to know why they should care about the information they are about to hear–they need to have their emotions (or at least their curiosity) engaged in order to listen.
And then they need clear outlines and headers as they’re led through the material. They need all extraneous information eliminated. And they need a good story line, as the speaker brings drama and suspense to the struggle to overcome obstacles and capitalize on an opportunity.