"Make It Look Like Wet Paint"

I asked my students to read a McKinsey Report article that featured an interview with Chip Heath, co-author of a great book, "Made to Stick." They also read a Harvard Business Review article about Heath entitled, "The Curse of Knowledge," where he talked about our assumptions that our audiences know what we know.

In the class discussion we talked about Chip's advice to use Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, and Emotional language in the form of Story to make messages stick and not to assume that audiences will know what we're saying simply because we said it. During the discussion, one of my graduate students, Laura Miller, told the class this story:

"I work at 21st Street Coffee and Tea. Our milk comes from the local Brunton Dairy. Ed Brunton delivers the milk every week in glass bottles and picks up our 'empties'.

We steam the milk for our coffee. Steaming milk at 21st Street Coffee and Tea is done differently than just about every other coffee shop in town. We do not re-steam milk. The milk we steam will be used for only one drink for one person; in other words, we do not steam large quantities and let the milk sit. We steam milk to be between 140 and 150 degrees; this way the milk tastes sweet and good for every drink, rather than waxy or burned if the milk reaches a higher temperature.

Lucas and Alexis Shaffer own 21st Street Coffee and Tea and work as baristas side by side their employees. I worked at 21st Street Coffee and Tea for four weeks before they began to train me to steam milk. They waited four weeks to train me so that before I steamed milk I would already have an idea of the rhythm of the coffee shop. I knew what a good drink tasted like, what steaming milk right sounded like, and I knew what a good drink looked like when finished.

Steaming milk the right way is difficult to learn. The balance of air, milk, and heat must be just so in order to create a uniform micro-foam which is the signature of a perfect latte. Rather than have me worry about all of the small details I needed to know in order to steam milk (precise temperature, micro-foam size, texture, etc), Luke said, 'Don't worry about all of the details. Just make it look like wet paint. Pretend like you are going to paint with it.' When talking about milk temperature he said, 'Put your hand on the side of the container. When the container is hot enough to be uncomfortable but not burn you, it is done. That is a latte temperature.'

So when I make lattes at 21st Street Coffee and Tea, rather than thinking I am making a latte, I first picture myself making wet paint. It works every time."

And, that, my friends, is language working at its best! It uses a simple, concrete, unexpected image to communicate to an uninformed person a concept that the expert clearly knows. The result? A great tasting latte - with the texture of wet paint!

What would you do?

I met Chad Varga a few months ago. A handsome, enthusiastic, 6 foot 7 inch young man, he starred in basketball at the University of Pittsburgh in the late 90's, had a tryout with the Dallas Mavericks, broke his hand, and went to Europe to play professionally.

At 25, at the height of his talent and physical development, Chad walked away from the sport he loved. He walked away from the fame, adulation and money (he had a large six-figure income on the boards, complete with incentives) to pursue another calling - to helps kids in trouble.

Why did Chad Varga walk away from fame and fortune (and a shot at coming back to the NBA) to help kids? He did it because of his own screwed-up childhood. When we say "screwed-up", it's an understatement. Chad's childhood was tragic, affected by drugs and alcohol addiction, not his addiction but his mother's.

What is screwed-up? Try this: Chad moved 17 times in his first 18 years. Chad's mother came in and out of his life every few years without announcement. Once, when she did visit, she stabbed him in the hand with a butcher knife because she thought he had poured her alcohol down the drain. When he was just a toddler, she took him and his sister Wendy to crack houses to get a fix and some sexual pleasure. When his mother was at home and partying, she locked the kids in a closet. At one point in her life, she ran drugs from South America and, as a result, Chad had a chance to visit her in federal prison.

You'd think that a guy who had Chad's childhood would either become a criminal or an addict himself. You'd think that if he ever made anything of his life, which he and everyone else probably doubted, he'd take the money and run. But, he didn't. In fact, he ran from the money, taking his family with him. Imagine being his wife, son and daughter when he said to them, "Let's leave this beautiful home on the Mediterranean Sea, leave the nice clothes and cars, leave the greatest comforts money can buy and go back to America so that I can start a non-profit to help kids who have lives like I had."

Well, it turns out that he had a beautiful and understanding wife and two great kids who stood behind him 100% in his decision as they returned to America to begin a non-profit organization called "Inspire Now", dedicated to taking a message to teenagers that they have greatness within them, that they can succeed, that they can transform their lives, that they are not alone.

Chad has spoken to over 1.5 million kids in the last eight years, more than any other motivational speaker. He goes anywhere he is called to speak with any number in an audience from 4 to 52,000. He seldom touches a basketball. Instead, at 34 he struggles to keep in shape and keep the weight accumulated from the airlines and speaking circuit away from his middle. But, he still has the deep, reverberating passion of a man who knows he made the right decision, especially when he recites the statistics on how many kids write suicide plans every year, how many kids carry guns to school, how many girls are raped or become pregnant. At those time you see in his eyes that he knows he made the right decision to walk away from basketball.

Few of us ever have to make a decision like that. But I wonder? What would you do?

Do you have a partner?

I taught Professional Writing to a class of working people Tuesday evening in the Masters of Public Management program at the Heinz College of Carnegie Mellon University. The class began at 530pm and lasted with no breaks until 800pm. It made for a long day, especially because I began teaching at 900am that morning.

I gave my introductory lecture and used my best jokes with the audience of 17 students, most of whom, like me, had been working all day at hospitals, insurance companies and other businesses around Pittsburgh. The students in this class, as befitting the CMU profile, consisted of people from Japan, China, Turkey and, of course, America.

Near the middle of the class as part of a lengthy discussion of communication, I asked the students to find a partner, one to be the sender of a message, the other to be the receiver. I was going to ask them to replicate a study done at Stanford University whereas the sender, using a pen or pencil, taps the melody of a song to the receiver who must identify the song solely by the tapping.

The experiment works beautifully to demonstrate several issues about communication. For one thing, when nine or ten people start tapping on their desks, they create a lot of NOISE and distraction, typical of any communication environment. Usually in my classes the students are from varying countries and they don't know the same songs. And, always the students demonstrate the problem known as "The curse of knowledge," that is, the problem that occurs when senders of messages who know their messages too well try to communicate with audiences who may know little to nothing.

In the Stanford study 50% of the senders thought they could successfully tap the song to the receivers, but only 2.5% succeeded, proving that most of us are, indeed, cursed by our own knowledge. We send messages and assume that the audiences have the same knowledge, interest and enthusiasm that we have. The curse is so strong that when the students tap the songs they can hear them in their heads and don't understand why the receivers can't hear them as well. Typically, in my classes the success factor mirrors the Stanford success rate, about 2%.

So, as I was beginning the exercise, one that the students always find enjoyable, I said, "Everyone get a partner." After saying this, I noticed that a few students were not moving. So, I addressed them directly and said, "Please get a partner." A few of them looked at me with blank expressions. Finally, as a result of the late hour, I suppose, I became a little irritated and looked at one man from Turkey and in a little louder voice said, "Get a partner. Now" He didn't move.

Frustrated, I asked, a little too harshly, "Do you have a partner?" He looked at me and said quietly and humbly, "Yes, my wife."

I was shocked and embarrassed and immediately understood that I had suffered the curse of knowledge. I assumed he defined the word "partner" in the same way I did. And, I learned a valuable lesson from the exchange. We can not assume that even the simple word "partner" in the context of a classroom means the same to everyone. When I told him to get a partner, he must have been tremendously confused. "How do I get my wife here from Turkey?" he may have wondered. He was confused, I was irritated, the class was watching - the situation could have escalated...over a single word.

We had trouble communicating and I imagined what must happen on an international stage as countries and their diplomats struggle to understand each other and struggle to maintain peace among each other trying to use language as their medium. I learned a valuable lesson, one that I won't soon forget. Don't assume that any word or symbol has the same meaning to everyone and be patient. If you don't, you won't have a partner!

You only need two words.

When we were in school, our teachers made us write 100-word essays. Or, we applied for scholarships that asked for 500-word essays. This unfortunate practice has led many of us to search the dictionary for long words so as to create long sentences and even longer paragraphs. Ultimately this gives rise to the kind of business writing we see, filled with jargon, buzz words and incomprehensible gobbledygook. We think that if we use long words in long sentences we'll appear smarter.

Our teachers should have told us that we only need two words to write a great sentence. I use as proof that wondrous sentence from the King James Bible (John 11:35), "Jesus wept." You will recall, if you've ever read about Lazarus, that he and his sisters were greatly loved by Christ. But, Lazarus died. Jesus learned of the death from Mary, Lazarus's sister, who approached him crying. When Jesus saw this, the Bible tell us, "Jesus wept." How profound is that! Two words! "Jesus wept."

A simple two word sentence conjured a full image of the entire scene, and the great compassion of Christ, for each of us. No further description was required. Two words covered it. Great writing does that: it creates full color images for the reader in simple, concise language. The writer engages the reader and the message is clearly heard and received.

I hereby offer some other two word sentences (granted, not as profound as the last example) that prove that you only need two words to make an impact:

1.) I quit.
2.) Mom died.
3.) We won!
4.) That rocks!
5.) Girls rule.
6.) I do.

Now, those were declarative sentences and you may be thinking of some imperative sentences with two words such as:

1.) Get lost.

But, those two word sentences don't count. They don't count because they're really three word sentences. They have an understood subject - you. So, "Get lost" is really "You get lost" - three words.

Three word sentences can be powerful, too, and we will explore that in the next post. But, for now, I ask you to suggest some two words sentences that make a strong statement and require no further elaboration. Remember: you only need two words!

Don't write if you have nothing to say.

A few friends have asked why I haven't posted for a while. Simply, I have had nothing interesting or useful to say.

I have done interesting things: I taught writing to 13 graduate students from Mexico (who challenged my notions of communication); I taught "Writing Better RFPs" to employees from one of the most successful technology solutions companies in the world (they, too, provided interesting communication challenges). I taught some of the most engaging adults in Pittsburgh in a Heinz School program called Master of Public Management for students who work all day and go to class at night(and demand value for their time and money). But, I haven't had anything of instructive value to add in a blog to you.

So, why waste your time and de-value this blog? With the estimated 1000 blog posts per minute, you have much to keep you busy (and much to ignore). Besides, I have spent the last three months reflecting on the heart surgery of a nine-year old boy, a little boy who has amazed me with his courage and fortitude. This boy, my son Nicholas, who had open heart surgery on May 21st, was predicted to be in the hospital in Boston for four or five weeks (and in intensive care for one week) but spent only two days in intensive care and only one week in the hospital. He has now been to the beach boogey-boarding and he has been to the park riding his bike. These actions (and the nine-inch scar down the middle of his chest) have spoken more than any words in a blog could ever say. Indeed, his courage and the magnitude of his experience make the word "blog" pale.

But, that said, I will share this one comment on communication: When asked about his surgery, without any false bravado, Nickie said, "Oh, they put you to sleep, cut you open, do their surgery and then you wake up wanting the tubes out of your mouth." I thank the spirit in him every day for his attitude and resilience.

I guess I'm saying that words can be powerful tools but they can't substitute for the subtlety, nuance, and sublimity of an experience like Nickie's. Words can be powerful or they can be powerfully useless. With that I suggest to anyone blogging that he or she not write unless they have something to say. Write not to write but to serve some purpose (especially as defined by their insights into, or reflections from, their readers). Or, don't write.

What messages are you sending?

First, I apologize for the lack of posts over the past few weeks. I experienced something so profound, with the surgery of my son, that anything else seemed insignificant. But, now I'm back in the groove. I feel a renewed passion about communication, and I want to share a story.

For the past few years I taught in a summer program, the PPIA Fellowship Program, also known at Carnegie Mellon University as the "PPIA Junior Summer Institute at Carnegie Mellon." The acronym PPIA stands for Public Policy and International Affairs.

In any event, students from around the USA in their junior year of college who are interested in public policy and international affairs are recruited to attend PPIA on a number of different campuses, CMU included. The students tend to come from very diverse socio-economic backgrounds and circumstances. For example, one of my students had been living in a car because he had been awarded a protection from abuse against his parents. He was passionate about public policy, as are most of the PPIA students, the majority of whom reflect a minority background.

The courses CMU offers include Policy Analysis, Economics, Quantitative Methods and Professional Communications. My CMU colleague Chris Labash and I taught the Professional Communications to the 30 students who comprised the summer class. He taught the Professional Speaking and I the Professional Writing.

So, last summer I'm standing in class talking about communication - sender, receiver, message, medium, noise and so forth - acting every bit the professor and expert at communication. I'm stressing the need to understand the audience and I'm using business examples and a student in the back row raises her hand and says, "You don't understand us at all."

As you might imagine, that remark caught me completely off guard. I stammered some inarticulate response and completely lost my concentration and flow, struggling through the rest of my presentation wondering how I misjudged the audience and how I might ever get them and my credibility back.

Well, at a moment like that one learns the value of feedback, so I asked the student to stay after class and tell me what she meant.

"How could you understand us." she said (it was not a question). "You are older than us, you wear the Polo clothes, you probably live in the suburbs. You talk to us about communicating and you use examples from your consulting and your business; we don't know anything about all of that. We want to hear about Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama and people we admire."

I knew instantly that she was right about the content of the lectures. I had taken my regular Professional Writing course and tried to teach it to these underclassmen (women). And, I had been called on it. But, the other part really puzzled me and I tried to explain to her why.

"I grew up in a small town in a lower middle class family whose father was often laid off and usually ugly drunk," I said to her. "We ate surplus cheese and drank surplus milk when we lived on welfare. I have felt shame and deprivation and I know exactly where you are coming from because I have lived it. I was the first person in my family to go to college and I had to face the jealousies and questions about whether or not I would think I was better than everyone else. They actually asked me if I would still talk to them. So, I think I can understand and communicate with anyone who is marginalized."

"That may be," she said, "But you don't send that message when you're standing in front of the class. You don't seem like us at all."

"I understand what you mean about the content," I said, "and I will adjust the content according." And I did. I used the Obama/McCain messages, I used King's "Message from Birmingham Jail," I used Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."

But, I was too far gone to change the subtle messages I was sending, messages about my education, my socio-economic status, my business background. However, I came face-to-face with something I should have understood - we give messages even when we don't know it. What we wear, as much as the vocabulary we use, sends a strong message. Often those messages conflict with the messages we want to send. If we want to relate, or fit in, as we always do, we need to think about everything that creates our message because we are always sending messages, consciously or not!

Don't tell me the health care system doesn't work.

I have been following the news on health care reform. Today, for example, the NY Times reported on President Obama's speech to the AMA. The president told the physicians' group, "Today, we are spending over $2 trillion a year on health care – almost 50 percent more per person than the next most costly nation. And yet, for all this spending, more of our citizens are uninsured; the quality of our care is often lower; and we aren't any healthier. In fact, citizens in some countries that spend less than we do are actually living longer than we do...Make no mistake: the cost of our health care is a threat to our economy. It is an escalating burden on our families and businesses." He even blamed the high costs of health care for, of all things, the GM collapse.

An editorial in that same newspaper is titled, "Doctors and the Cost of Care" and it is among the most e-mailed articles on the NY Times website. Among other things it says, "There is disturbing evidence that many (doctors) do a lot more than is medically useful — and often reap financial benefits from over-treating their patients. No doubt a vast majority of doctors strive to do the best for their patients. But many are influenced by fee-for-service financial incentives and some are unabashed profiteers." It tells readers, after reporting on a study in McAllen, Texas, "Doctors have been complicit in driving up health care costs. They need to become part of the solution."

As someone who worked in health care for twenty years, and who is a parent who recently saw his nine-year old son treated for heart repair, I have an informed, and at the same time admittedly prejudiced, view of health care in America. I think it's great. I think most of its doctors are above reproach.

How great is in health care in America? Imagine - replacing someone's face. Imagine - replacing someone's severed hand. Imagine - stopping a baby's tiny heart, operating on it, and re-starting it to save that baby's life.

How hard is that? We are told that our hearts are the size of our fist. Think, then, of a newborn baby and the size of its fist...and its heart. Think of operating on that tiny and life-giving organ. When my son was born with a heart abnormality nine years ago, Dr. Frank Pigula saved his life by stopping it, repairing it, and re-starting it. I have seen open heart surgery, yet I can't imagine doing what Dr. Pigula did.

Dr. Pigula operated on my son again, last month, using a similar procedure to stop my son's heart, get inside it, repair one valve and place a porcine valve where one didn't exist, and then re-start his heart and his life. Dr. Pigula has now given my son a better life on three occasions. I can't imagine ever telling him that he makes too much money or that he orders too many tests. On the other hand, I admired his thoroughness and attention to detail. It has had a significant bearing on my son's recovery and will affect the rest of his life.

This same Dr. Pigula recently served a tour of duty in Afghanistan, leaving his wife, three children and a good income to help the people of that country, one of whom was a small child who was shot by accident by her little brother (and not by an American soldier). You can read about him here: http://www.childrenshospital.org/clinicalservices/Site471/mainpageS471P6subl

I thank God that Dr. Pigula survived his tour of Afghanistan. He operated on my son four weeks ago and now my son stands beside me as I type, growing healthier and stronger every day. He wants on this computer so he can google Transformers, Bionicles, Halo, and Star Wars stuff. Later when we take a shower together because he is not yet allowed to take a bath, I will see the raw, red scar that runs straight down the middle of his chest to his stomach and I will be reminded of both the horror of such operations and the miracle of his recovery. I will see Dr. Pigula standing in front of me at Children's Hospital of Boston telling my wife and me that Nickie's surgery went well and that he will have a full recovery. I will see evidence of the greatness of health care in America in the eyes of that humble, dedicated and talented man.