Learning to communicate

Ann Stow
5 min readJan 29, 2024

--

On science, and broader, communiction and a lesson for me!

Photo by Francisco De Legarreta C. on Unsplash

“…none of the answers the world requires will be realised if the skills we need to communicate them have been neglected.”

On Friday, I was reflecting on the writing I did last week and considering the relevance of some of my previous writing to developing human focused organisations. I have been an advocate of effective communication for a long time; borne of misunderstandings in the workplace (or lack of communication in my workplace), across research to support information campaigns, through board communications and communicating science to non-scientists. Much of my thinking on this is based on identifying and understanding your audience and tailoring the communication language to suit them.

Identification of an audience can be challenging, especially if you are seeking to communicate broadly. So, the simple concept of clarity, jargon free communication comes to the fore. While the writing which follows is based in science communication, the words are relevant across organisations and especially relevant to leaders and to those that would communicate to the board. Consider, if your tech people can’t make your ops people understand, then frustration, to-and-fro-ing, plus questions take time and damages the relationships which are crucial for the running of the organisation. Or if the board don’t understand a crucial concept which might save both time and money, then their decision not to adopt will be driven by lack of understanding (frustrating for the person that can see the ‘obvious’ solution).

This is a short (slightly tweaked) excerpt from a booklet I produced some years ago, it is brilliant that many science courses now include a communication element, but it’s a shame that some courses still do not include a module introducing the relevance & practicality of effective communication (not forgetting that communication is as much about listening as it is about ‘speaking’).

The Challenge…

Issues in communicating science are not new; in fact, there is a wealth of information on the subject, a whole science of science communication. I could go down a deep rabbit-hole on this, as it is something which fascinates me! I’ll try not to…

Many university science courses now contain a module on science communication, and a plethora of courses, books and talks are available on the topic. Education for scientists is improving, but progress is slow and many scientists still do not feel equipped to communicate effectively with people from outside their direct sphere of expertise.

Four main obstacles to the exploitation of research have been identified:

· “Research question is not relevant to practice

· Research is not timely

· Research is not communicated in a way which is relevant to decision makers

· Day-to-day management issues trump the use of research based evidence in decision making”

So, whilst evidence-based decision and policy making is recognised as the gold standard1 there are elements of relevance, timeliness and clarity which impact upon the use of scientific outputs in practice. To help overcome this, researchers should make their research understandable (and actionable, where needed) to stakeholders and customers. This means understanding their context, maybe seeing the work through implementation; and / or presenting the work in a way which makes the implementation route clear. If this is experimental work that ‘needs further research’, be clear about the advances being made and the nest step more work will achieve — whether that is moving the science forward, discounting previous understanding, or expanding knowledge. Where relevant, applicable works should be aligned with or propose new policies / ways of working, making business benefits clear.

Effective communication improves the chance of scientific evidence being used and improves the quality of decision making23. If people understand the value and implications of what is said to them their decisions are better considered than if they don’t understand. Therefore, the language used in communicating science is vital.

Expanding and increasingly sophisticated communications networks mean decision makers can have information overload, they also face increasingly complex decisions which results in a disinclination to “wade through a 50-page document”. Additionally, increased exposure to professional communicators raises expectations. There is a clear requirement for a more relevant and succinct style of delivery if “only the clearest messages are heard”.

I believe this is about clarity, I once saw a whole room lose [interest in] a concept when the brilliant maths behind the finding was talked through step by step, across 10 PowerPoint slides… This was a life-saving finding, which was rescued by some succinct wrapping up, but it was close!

Institutional credibility

Uptake of science by the recipient also depends on the trust and credibility attributed to the scientific institution; trust, credibility and effective collaboration are regarded as socially negotiated over time. This in turn depends on the social relationships and identities that the recipient links to science; not only does the credibility of the institution and scientist matter, but also the recipient’s perception of the science itself, something can only be understood through the development of effective relationships.

With so many interconnected factors influencing how research is applied to real life problems, scientific institutes must engage in a ‘reflexive discourse’ with their stakeholders and “those they would wish to influence”.

The critical element here is that scientists need to get to know their stakeholders, develop relationships and understanding of their context to effectively frame the research. To achieve this takes good listening skills and Emotional Intelligence. This enables an appreciation of how the stakeholders best receive science, including format and language preferences and, crucially, what they think of science so that critical communication can be appropriately targeted. Scientists’ lack of reflexivity, and the impact of this on the uptake of scientific evidence, is mentioned in most of the research consulted for this work. Sometimes we don’t have time to develop those relationships, in which case out existing networks may be able to support our understanding to help us tailor our communication.

While these general points apply in most circumstances, one advantage of applied research organisations is that their work is specifically requested by a community, or decision makers. So, there could already be a natural advantage (or disadvantage?), in terms of reputation and relationships. There is a need to focus on researcher and stakeholder understanding of each other and each other’s language, something that can be facilitated through early and frequent conversation.

Reflection

I am a bit sad to have used this, as it doesn’t read as well as I had hoped…. Well, that’s developing my own communication skills and that’s what my writing challenge is all about. So, I probably won’t tell LI about this one, and just pop it onto Medium — maybe coming back to it at a later stage in my thinking!

Have a great day — I’ll look forward to seeing how I move on from this tomorrow.

--

--

Ann Stow
Ann Stow

Written by Ann Stow

Passionate about making organisations more human - one conversation at a time.

Responses (1)