Concise, Clear and Compelling is NOT Dumbing Down

Recently, National Public Radio’s Science Friday did a segment on the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Book University.  Stony Brook’s journalism school offers a fantastic slate of one-credit courses for STEM graduate students (at no cost to full-time PhD students).  Here are just a few:

·        JRN 501 COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: DISTILLING YOUR MESSAGE

·        JRN 503 COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: IMPROVISATION FOR SCIENTISTS

·        JRN 502 COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: WRITING TO BE UNDERSTOOD

·        JRN 504 COMMUNICATING SCIENCE: USING DIGITAL MEDIA

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      Jargon is great for precise communication within a discipline, but it also separates insiders (the people in your tribe) from outsiders.  In the early years, students work hard to learn the lingo of their fields, and they emulate their professors.  Over time, they may forget how to speak like normal people.  That’s fine when professionals are speaking to others within their disciplines, not so good if they are trying to communicate with non-specialists.

      Why does this matter?  Because the taxpaying public pays for most breakthrough research, and they need to understand what they’re getting for their money.  Because elected officials need to understand the implications of their policies.  Because potential funders (government agencies, foundations, and – of course – equity investors) need to understand the scientific and (increasingly) commercial potential of research-based innovations. 

These are not stupid people, but they are generalists.  They don’t know the secret handshake of a discipline’s jargon.  They don’t have the background to infer the real-world implications of a process or mechanism or invention unless they are spelled out. 

Dropping the jargon is not dumbing down!  Being concise is not dumbing down!  Being compelling is not dumbing down! 

At the end of each semester, many MIN-Corps teams pitch to local investors and industry partners.  These pitches will range from just ok to great, but they will all be better than their first attempts at the beginning of the program.  While we focus on honing a pitch for potential funders, it’s always a good idea to learn how to present your ideas in a concise, clear and compelling way.  Here’s a video with good advice.  Also, Silicon Valley guru Guy Kawasaki offers an effective template. 

Communicating with a generalist audience is a skill that takes practice, and it can be frustrating.  We especially see this with part-time MBA students who have undergrad degrees in the sciences and engineering  and who feel stuck in their careers.  One issue is that they don't know how to communicate with busy senior executives.  The advice is the same:  be concise, clear, and compelling – and start with the real-world implications not the background or analysis. 

In other words, treat your audience like a very, very, very, very, very, VERY intelligent individual with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Customer Discovery Can Help (Not Hinder) Intellectual Property Protection

Too often, university-based innovators say that they are not yet ready to do customer discovery because they haven’t yet applied for a patent.  They assume that customer discovery entails sharing their solution with potential customers, i.e. selling.  Scientists and engineers generally do not like to sell; they prefer discovery and development, so they tend to avoid customer outreach.  In fact, these innovators have it backward:  outreach to potential customers is totally about discovery and development.  It’s all about discovering customer problems so that you can develop meaningful solutions.

To quote one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a self-help book published a generation ago, you initially should Seek First to Understand.  If you share your proposed solution too early in the customer discovery process, then you’ve cut off conversation.  You get a narrow discussion, while what you need is a broad-based understanding. Open-ended early conversations will help you refine your technology and potentially strengthen your patent application.  With these customer insights, you can refine a technology and also better articulate how your invention is useful, novel and nonobvious, several required characteristics of a patentable invention.

And the nice thing, is that you haven’t prematurely revealed anything that could jeopardize your patent.

Justin Wilcox’s video (embedded above and taken from his Customer Development Labs blog) is a useful guide to what to ask in a customer discovery interview.  Note his first rule of validating your idea:  don’t talk about your idea.

Of course, as customer discovery proceeds, you will start revealing your solution, because you need direct feedback on how effectively you are addressing customers’ problems. That’s where the Minimum Viable Product comes in.  An MVP is simply a way to depict your solution so that potential customers can wrap their heads around it enough to respond.   It may be a diagram or a video or a wireframe or a crude nonworking prototype or a working prototype.  In fact, as you gain more customer insights and experience with your technology, your MVP will become more robust. As Eric Reis, one of the primary evangelists of the Lean Startup movement puts it, an MVP is “an experiment on the way to excellence.”

When you start sharing an MVP, or presenting at academic conferences, or publishing journal articles, then premature disclosure can be an issue. Sometimes, you’ll want to patent first, publish later. Other times, you can determine specific boundaries within which you can share in academic settings without undermining patentability.  Sometimes a nondisclosure agreement will be appropriate. Often an NDA will not be an option, and you’ll need to decide what and how much to reveal.  Don’t try to figure this out on your own!  Get help from your university tech transfer office or an IP attorney.

Psychological Safety: The Foundation for Innovation Team Success

From re:Work:  "The Five Keys to a Successful Google Team"

At Google, the human capital analytics team has  studied empirically what distinguishes their best innovation teams from the rest.  They found that the foundation for successful teams is psychological safety.  While this may seem "soft" and surprising at first glance, it makes perfect sense.  Have you been on a team where you experienced any of the following:

• It's not clear what the meeting goals are but someone just keeps talking and no one asks for clarification;
• You felt it was risky to share your point of view so you opted to sit in silence; 
• The project leader said something you knew was wrong, but you didn't feel comfortable saying anything;
• Several people do all the talking while others remain quiet and simply "nod" in presumed agreement.

These are subtle but powerful behavioral indicators that team members don't feel safe to take personal risk.  When team members don't feel safe, they withhold and "comply" rather than engage and "commit."  And the opportunity cost is significant.  At Google, individuals on teams with higher psychological safety are less likely to leave the company, they’re more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they bring in more revenue, and they’re rated as effective twice as often by executives.

So, how can each of us create a team culture of psychological safety?  Here's one best practice:  get curious, not critical.  As Stephen Covey said so well, "Most people don't listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply."  When someone says something you don't understand, or you don't agree with, suspend judgment and ask a question or request more information (e.g., "How would that work?) rather than stating an immediate opinion (e.g., "That won't work.").  When we immediately evaluate, judge or criticize others' contributions, they tend to stop contributing.  As Andy Stanley noted, "Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say."

What additional practices for creating psychological safety would you recommend?

High Performance Teaming Happens by Design, NOT by Default

Work requires us to participate in many forms of project groups and teams.  We’ve all had (many!) frustrating experiences working on teams that are poorly led and managed.  If you want to be a great team leader who delivers strong results AND attracts the best talent, you’ll need to do an ‘About FACE’.  High performance teamwork happens by design, not by default.  Great team leaders understand the architecture of high performance and take deliberate action to set their teams up for success.  They also sustain high performance by helping the team continuously learn, adapt and develop.  The legacy of a great team leader is a track record of strong results AND a team that has developed the will, capability and conviction to carry on—even without the leader.  Here are the ‘About FACE’ practices that in my experience distinguish the best team leaders from the rest.  

F = Focus and Fit.  High performing team leaders refuse to lose by ensuring the critical few priorities and expected outcomes for the team are clear and compelling.  They clarify both longer-term vision / intended business outcomes AND the critical few intermediate milestones/tasks that will ensure progress and momentum in the near-term.  They inform AND inspire team members by clarifying (1) which few priorities matter most, (2) what success will look like in tangible terms, AND (3) why our work matters—to our stakeholders and to each of us. Beyond establishing clear focus, great team leaders actively recruit members who are a great fit for the work at hand, especially in the few ‘pivotal’ roles that will have disproportionate impact on team success or failure.  They don’t settle for mediocre players in these pivotal roles.  They realize that these few people will set the tone and create a “wake” of momentum for the rest of the team.  Finally, they ensure that the team as a whole has the capability, credibility and commitment needed to deliver outstanding results AND represent key stakeholders whose support is critical to success.

A = Alignment and Accountability.  Next, high performing team leaders ensure that their goals and deliverables align in support of higher-level business and customer priorities.  Aligning the vectors is critical to delivering outstanding results that exceed the sum of the parts. They also clarify which team members are accountable for what tasks and decisions because when everyone is responsible, no ONE is accountable and friction, confusion and underperformance is the inevitable result.  Architecting alignment and clear accountability sets the team up to be supported, productive and successful—individually and collectively.

C = Capability and Communication. Clarifying goals, roles, work processes, and ground rules for sustaining positive interpersonal relationships (GRPI) provides the architecture or structure for effective teamwork.  Beyond this enabling structure, leaders must identify any motivation, ability, and support “gaps” within the team and take action to close these gaps and optimize the individual and collective capability of the team. Finally, great team leaders identify critical interdependencies with other individuals or departments that will support or limit team success.  They ensure the team proactively engages these stakeholders to understand their needs, interests and concerns and identify opportunities to develop win-win solutions, or at a minimum, to invent an implementation path of least resistance. Sustaining ongoing, two-way communication with each key stakeholder is a critical responsibility of assigned team members.   This structure, capability building and proactive two-way communication help teams succeed by building a capable and committed guiding coalition up front rather than being surprised, and potentially derailed, by inevitable resistance later in the game.

E = Engagement & Execution. Engagement research has shown that individuals who feel valued, challenged, and able to make meaningful progress give significantly more discretionary effort. High performing team leaders sustain engagement by establishing clear short-term milestones, monitoring progress, course correcting as needed, and celebrating successes. Beyond “checking on” task progress regularly, great leaders continuously “check in” to understand how members and key stakeholders are feeling and what can be done differently to improve effectiveness and efficiency.  They “lean into discomfort” early and often to surface inevitable questions, concerns and frustrations before they disrupt progress and undermine relationships.  As they uncover issues, concerns and ideas for improvement they take action to help the team learn, adapt and overcome or avoid obstacles.  This leadership support builds motivation, improves ability to get things done and demonstrates the support that drives commitment and turbocharges execution.

“About FACE’ represents a “go slow to go fast” approach that helps team leaders deliver better results by design rather than defaulting to mediocrity or average performance.  Because we all want to be part of a winning team, it also ensures team members have more fun in the process and feel more committed to the project and the leader. And last but not least, these leadership practices help build strong intra and inter-team relationships that can create competitive advantage:  a culture that embraces real win-win collaboration and commitment to winning versus one where people default to compliance, complacency and minimal cooperation.