Having finally reached substantial completion of my college textbook on innovation (many more blog entries to follow), I started into my most recent book - "Made to Stick". As a student of marketing, consultative sales and public relations, I am fascinated by the dynamics associated with interpersonal communications. On today's flight from Kansas City to Frankfurt, I completed the introduction and first chapter of the book. (with a brief 97 minute intermission to do some global power plant database queries and analysis). On page 19, I read another reference to the 1990 experiment conducted by Elizabeth Newton at Stanford (I've read about this study in at least 2 other books on marketing and communications). In the experiment, she had two participants. One was asked to tap out the rhythm of a popular song while the other was asked to guess the name of the song. Before each run, she asked the tapper to predict the odds of the listener accurately guessing the name of the song. Overall, they predicted average odds of 50%. In reality, the listener was able to guess the song only 2.5 percent of the time.
If you think about it (or even try it) it actually makes perfect sense. The tapper has the benefit of a lot more background and information than the listener - they can actually hear the song in their head as they tap. In the absence of this knowledge - the tapping is little more than a random series of beats and pauses. I see this in business EVERY DAY! As communicators, knowledge can be a significant burden. If there is a mismatch between the speaker's knowledge and the listener's knowledge, the results are, at best, an ineffective interchange and can even be disastrous.
Several years ago, a mentor of mine (gee, I miss having mentors) taught me the value of "Joe Stupid". "Joe Stupid" has a knowledge base of zero and communicates on a very simple and unassuming level. Because Joe is so lacking in knowledge, he tends to learn a lot during interactions. Recently, someone introduced me as the guy that is able to explain complex concepts in a simple and logical fashion the anyone can understand, it's even seen by some as a unique trait. In reality, it involves little more than explaining a concept from the viewpoint of the listener, not the tapper. Try tapping without hearing the music, and see how you do.....
