On Experts Trying to Communicate

This story came to mind that I think captures elements of communication that technical leaders frequently miss. Let me tell it then explain.

On a river flowing through a forest there lived Beaver. One day while swimming he notices a concerning sulfur-like smell. He realizes water flow has been slow lately, so he heads upstream to investigate. Sure enough he finds that fallen debris has created a stagnant section of the river.

As an ecological expert, Beaver recognizes what's happening. The water is now stratified into thermal layers and no longer mixing. Oxygen isn't reaching the bottom, causing a change in bacteria make-up and the smell of hydrogen sulfide. He knows that if nothing changes, nutrients trapped in the sediment will no longer stay there. In a single night it all could be released, causing an algae bloom that will kill the animals.

The debris needs to be cleared, but it's too much to remove by himself. Beaver concludes he'll find help in the forest.

He first comes across Deer.

Beaver: "Deer, there's debris in the river that needs clearing! Can you help me?"
Deer: "Why does it need to be cleared?"
Beaver: "It's causing hypoxia! If the low-oxygen state continues and nutrients get released, the algae bloom will be massive."
Deer: "Okay... that's too bad, but I'm busy, sorry."

And Deer prances off.

Next Beaver finds Bear.

Beaver: "Bear! There's debris blocking part of the river, I need your help!"
Bear: "Uh oh, so is there flooding? Could that flood my den?"
Beaver: "No, there's no flooding, but it's causing hypoxia in the lower layers and a potential algae bloom. The animals might experience phycotoxicoses!"
Bear: "Oh. Sorry to hear about the phyco... whatever that is. Anyway, that river is pretty far from here. Is there someone closer who can help?"
Beaver: "Not so far."
Bear: "Well, if you REALLY need me, let me know, but I'm still finishing my lunch."

Bear lumbers back into his den, and Beaver is becoming frustrated that no one will listen.

Finally Beaver has traveled so far he hits another small river and encounters Otter.

Beaver: "Hey Otter, I'm not sure if you can help but I don't know who else to ask. Can you help me clear debris from the river a mile that way?"
Otter: "I'm happy to help Beaver, but if you can't clear it, then I probably can't. Did you ask the bigger animals for help?"
Beaver: "Yes... nobody seems to care! I explain the problem but no one seems motivated to help me."
Otter: "Hm, what is the problem?"
Beaver: "Well, hypoxia is going to lead to a huge algae bloom."
Otter: "Okay... so what?"
Beaver: "What do you mean so what? Phycotoxicoses is what."
Otter: "Which means...?"
Beaver: "What do you mean? Algae will make the water undrinkable, that's what I mean."

Otter now recognizes why Beaver hasn't been able to persuade the animals to help him.

Otter: "Okay, Beaver, I have an idea. Take me to the animals you spoke to."

Beaver agrees. Together they return to Bear's den.

Otter: "Hey Bear, I've got some news you might be interested in."
Bear: "What's up Otter?"
Otter: "I learned the fish you eat out of that nearby river will be dead soon. You might have to walk almost an extra mile to go fishing. Did you hear about that?"
Bear: "What!? No. But that would be horrible, I hate walking. How do you know this?"
Otter: "Beaver told me. If the debris blocking the river doesn't get cleared, it'll eventually poison the water and kill all the fish."
Bear: "Well let's go clear it!"

And off they went. On the way they encountered Deer once again.

Otter: "Hey Deer, I heard there's a new danger for the fawns around here."
Deer: "What? Nobody told me that."
Otter: "Yeah, it's a little scary. The river water may be poisoned soon if we don't clear the debris. I just hope none of the little ones accidentally think it's safe and drink from it."
Deer: "Goodness, no! Can I help?"
Otter: "Why, yes! We're off to do that now."

And with help from both Bear and Deer, the debris was quickly cleared.

When the job was done, Beaver spoke with Otter.

Beaver: "I don't understand, Otter. Why wouldn't they listen to me?"
Otter: "Well, for one, you were cursed."
Beaver: "What!?"
Otter: "Haha, I mean, you were cursed with knowledge. You knew what this debris would cause, down to a science, and how it would impact everyone. You knew it so well you forgot what it was like not to know. So when you spoke to those creatures, you acted like they knew too. It's a common expert's mistake."
Beaver: "Wow. So how did you overcome that?"
Otter: "I won't say it's easy, but the important thing was to put myself in their position. They don't care about algae blooms; they care about fish and drinkable water. Instead of forcing them to do the interpretive work to know why my information matters, I did the work for them. That's how you communicate so people will listen."

The Curse of Knowledge is a well-studied phenomenon I find critical for technical leaders. To lead you must communicate well. I find technical people fail to communicate most often because of this curse, much like Beaver.

Here are 3 tips for avoiding this problem.

Suppose you are explaining to a stakeholder why your system causes weird behavior for users. You pull up architecture diagrams with many arrows highlighting the historical reasons certain users lack some piece of metadata. 20 minutes later your stakeholder is mystified, because you gave them too much information.

Experts often care too much about accuracy. When we try to communicate nuances and exceptions to an audience that will not understand them, we need to recognize it really does detract. In these situations, less is more. Keep it simple.

(As anyone who has drawn software architecture diagrams knows, they are all inaccurate. The key is not to fix that, but to be accurate in the right ways.)

It is tempting to say things like the following: "My change will reduce latency for low-bandwidth users. It will scale horizontally. And the design decouples the components." To a fellow expert these abstract terms might be fine. But almost all of the time you should say the following instead: "With my change, people in rural areas will experience pages loading in 200ms instead of 500ms. It will stay fast even if users quadruple. And it's structure so a junior engineer could make further improvements." This is concrete.

When we communicate we usually do only half the work, figuring out what we want to say but not what others want to hear. It's like trying to find the overlap in a Venn Diagram without discovering where one of the circles is.

Everyone cares about something different. Engineers care about what will help them build. Project Managers care about who else needs to know something. Executives care about why they should spend any time to care. Product Managers care about what something will do for users. Finance people care about financial impact. Sales people care about whether something can give them leverage with a customer.

Whether you're writing an email, a ticket, a code comment, or giving a presentation, ask yourself:

For further reading see Chip and Dan Heath's book Made to Stick.