Deliver Compelling Messages

Over the course of your career, you will have plenty of opportunities to present information to small and large audiences. Your communications may inspire or educate; they may announce the launch of new products or provide project updates to stakeholders. Whether written, spoken, or visual, ensure your messages have a clear purpose, meet the audience’s needs, and inspire them to solve a problem, make a decision, or take action.

Every message competes for the audience’s attention and must quickly engage their hearts and minds. How can you frame your message so they want to hear, see, or read what is coming next? The most compelling messages begin by creating an emotional connection with the audience. Like clinical meetings that start with a case presentation, business communications could start with a patient or customer story, detailing behaviors, emotions, and feelings. Healthcare delivery serves up an infinite number of patient stories from which to choose: formal and informal complaints, reported errors and near misses, and process and flow issues surfaced by physicians and clinical staff. Behind each complaint, error, and near miss is a story with human characters: patients, spouses, children, parents, and friends.

Storytelling engages the audience emotionally, draws immediate attention to affected parties, and creates a call for action. Lisa Cron, in her book Wired for Story, points to neuroscience research confirming that, “Our brain is hardwired to respond to the story … Story is what makes us human not metaphorically but literally.” Storytelling is crucial to human evolution.

Sharing a real patient or customer story when launching a process or system improvement makes influencing others to embrace the proposed changes easier. Patient stories explain the “why” behind the change and create the feeling of immediacy for improvement, change, or action. Storytelling aims to immerse the audience in your message, much like the “hook” a writer uses to draw the reader into their narrative.

In addition to storytelling, visualizing presented information helps your audience to pay attention, grasp the situation, and form conclusions. Visualizing supporting information, whether trial results, proofs of concept, or other facts and data, through pictures, diagrams, graphs, tables, videos, and animation, makes complex messages more accessible to the audience. When used effectively, visuals improve audience engagement, comprehension, and retention.

As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” A lot of data and textual information is encountered in medicine and business. Embedding data and long stretches of text in presentations and other communications can bore the intended audience. This is easily noticeable with dense PowerPoint content that causes the audience’s eyes glaze over or completely check out. Why do visual images keep the audience’s attention and trigger a higher level of information recall? Why do visual images compel people to act?

Research from Prezi (n.d.) shows that our visual memory is much stronger than our ability to recall both spoken and written text – a phenomenon known as the picture superiority effect … When you pair your ideas with visuals – photographs, illustrations, or even simple icons – your audience will have a much easier time remembering them.

A study published by co-researchers at the University of Minnesota and the 3M Corporation found that when information is presented visually, people are 43% more likely to act on the information. Cole N. Knaflic, author of Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals, believes that to effectively deliver your message, use story visualization through simple graphs or images, minimize words on slides and in communications, and remove any superfluous textual or graphic elements.

Ensure your messages are compelling. Pay attention to any power differential and cultural differences between you and your audience. Your goal is to not only say the right thing but to ensure the clarity of the message while setting the right tone and mood. When presenting in person or via video, be aware of your facial expression and body language – and their impact on others – especially when you feel tired, irritated, impatient, or hungry. You may inadvertently frown, demonstrating displeasure with what is being discussed when your intention is the opposite. Due to the power differential perceived by others as you advance in the organization, you may be considered unapproachable because of your title or position. A relaxed tone of voice and non- threatening nonverbal cues will create a calm atmosphere that will prevent a stress reaction in your teams.

Fear – even if triggered unintentionally – will nullify the effectiveness of any message. To muddle things further, communication may differ greatly between cultures. Diverse workplaces, such as our healthcare clinics, require heightened cultural sensitivity. As physicians, we often strive to understand cultural differences in order to be more effective with patients. As leaders, to create compelling messages, we should be attuned to cultural differences as well.

Best Practices for Delivering Compelling Messages

The trap may be this: The message is not culturally attuned, too verbose, or not focused on the audience and desired outcome.

Best Practices

• Present your case from the patient’s or customer’s perspective.

• Make your audience feel their pain, discomfort, and distress to create an emotional connection.

• Visualize your data and text.

• Be culturally sensitive.

Questions to Ponder

• Do I know who my audience is and what I want them to do with the presented information?

• Do I use storytelling and visualization to present my message in as few words as possible?

• Am I aware of the power differential between me and my audience? How can I mitigate it?

Excerpted from Physician Leader: How Exam Room Experience Drives Leadership Excellence by Hanah Polotsky, MD, MBOE, and Lisa Williams, MPPA.