Doctors, lawyers, scientists, and academics are among the most well-educated professions out there.
Beyond their level of education and oversized egos (!), they generally share something in common: They’re not the most riveting mass communicators in the world. There are exceptions, of course, but I'm using a broad generalization to make a point.
The well-educated brain is taught to make an argument and back it up with evidence. The more data and facts, the better. The disciplines of science, medicine, policy analysis, academia, and law demand it.
But when making a case on the public stage, dumping data or evidence alone on an audience rarely works.
You’ve got to do the work —and it is that—to make a subject matter accessible to people you’re speaking to, whether in a press interview, a speech, or on social media.
In public affairs work, the only thing that matters is how your audience receives, and acts on, information– not how you want to relay it.
It's about them, not you. In other words, walk in other people's shoes--which probably aren't Jimmy Choos.
That means speaking in narrative terms. The human brain is wired for story. Stories, crafted properly, bring your audience along with you. Why? Because you need to get people's attention, which stories do instantly. People also need a narrative to connect with --one that sings with emotion, simplicity, and relevance.
I’m not talking about dumbing anything down. I’m talking about repackaging concepts, translating them into plain speak with a narrative thread.
Successful issue advocacy movements do this. Effective candidates for office do this. Corporate brands do this.
A course correction happened with promoting public health and uptake of the Covid vaccine. Drugmaker Pfizer finally broke through to the public by, as Sally Sussman said, ripping up the original playbook of scientific data and experts to convince the public to get the vaccine.
“I was wrong,” Susman said. “It’s stories, [like] I got to see my grandson at his wedding. Real stories, real people.”
Professions like science, medicine, and public policy tend to skip the step between the proverbial research lab and the public marketplace. They forgo the translation process required to bring data-backed ideas to market.
A 2017 piece in Slate by Tim Requarth of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine has stuck with me all these years later.
“[T]he obstacles faced by science communicators are not epistemological but cultural,” Requarth wrote. “The skills required are not those of a university lecturer but a rhetorician.”
Moral of the Story
Many heady professionals think they’re the smartest people in the room. But if they actually want to be the smartest person in the room, they would be wise to invest in messaging strategy and storytelling magic.