60. Communicating Uncertainty: How to Connect With Your Audience, Even When The Answers Aren’t Clear
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We have a lot to learn from science and from medicine, yet sometimes it can be difficult to understand exactly what we know and what we need to know. I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today, I am super excited to chat with Dr. Lloyd Miner, Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine.

Lloyd is a scientist, surgeon, and academic leader. He is the Carl and Elizabeth Noman Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is also a professor of head and neck surgery and a professor of bioengineering and neurobiology. In 2020, he wrote the book Discovering Precision Health, and he is also the host of the Minor Consult podcast.

Well, hi, Lloyd. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast and look forward to our conversation. Thank you, Matt. I'm delighted to be here and I too look forward to our conversation. Great. Let's go ahead and get started. First, to begin, congratulations on your podcast, The Minor Consult. I've listened in and I enjoy it very much.

I'm curious, what led you to host a podcast and what are you hoping to accomplish with it? In the early days of COVID-19, when there was a lot of information coming out, a lot of science being done, a lot that we didn't know, I started doing some media appearances really to try to explain

what we do know and what we don't know to serve, I hope, as a trusted information source. And I enjoyed doing that and got good feedback on it and really continued to do that throughout the pandemic. Not that we're out of the pandemic yet, but throughout the, shall we say, the pre-vaccination stage and vaccine rollout stage of the pandemic. And so I was looking for a way to continue that process of communicating with

a large group of people, anyone who wants to listen. And hopefully through the podcast,

also learn from the guests. The podcast is about leadership. It's about leadership in a crisis. And I've had the privilege of interviewing guests from different professions and interests. And I've learned a lot from it. Hopefully the listeners have as well. I think one of the central messages of the pandemic to me, and I'll be processing these past two plus years for the next how many ever years. I think we all will, yeah. Yeah. But one of the central messages is

we need to be more thoughtful about, more engaged with the way we communicate. And I think that's particularly true, um, in the science and medical communities where I, I don't think our communication has always served the public. Um,

Well, or the scientific interest? Well, I hope we can start that conversation today, given that we focus a lot on communication. And I just want to give you a personal nod and thank you. During the pandemic, you certainly provided a steady hand and some good advice.

Thank you for that.

I'm very curious to learn how your introversion has helped you be successful. And further, I'd love to hear your advice, tips or tricks you have for many of our listeners who consider themselves introverts. And for those of us who might not be introverted, what we could do to help our colleagues and our friends who are. If one adopts the definition of introvert extrovert is in terms of how you recharge. So classically extroverts recharge by being introverted.

immersed with others and introverts recharged by being with themselves or a very small group of people or person that they have as a particularly trusted advisor or spouse, in my case, my wife. And I think that describes my personality in terms of how I recharge. Now, what I've learned about myself and leadership in particular is –

You know, one of the reasons I feel like I have the best job on the planet is that I interact with such a group of amazingly bright people on a daily basis through what I do at Stanford University and Stanford Medicine. And then more broadly, as a representative of Stanford and as a leader in biomedicine. And

I derive a lot of energy from those interactions and from learning from others. But in order to process and really sort of plan, then I need to have time to think and sort things out individually or with a small group of others.

Thank you for sharing that. I think for those who listen in who are introverted, to hear that their approach is equally valuable and in some cases more valuable, it can be very affirming. And to recognize that we need both types of people, those who are extroverted, and I fall into that category, and those who are introverted, to make things work well. You mentioned listening in your response to my question about introversion, and I was really struck by a quote I heard of yours. It went, one of the most active things that I do is to listen.

to process what I'm hearing, and to come up with informed questions that bring us together. Can you share your thoughts on the importance of listening beyond what you've already shared around introversion and provide us with any best practices you personally use to listen well? Sure. I think the most valuable clerkship

that I had in medical school was my psychiatry clerkship. And it's because of something that our preceptor did for the, there were two of us students rotating with our preceptor at that time. And for the, it was a six week rotation for every day, at least three days a week, each of us would interview a patient. We weren't allowed to take notes.

and the other person would be listening. And after the interview, each of us independently would write, we were asked to write verbatim what we heard during that 30-minute interview and discussion with the patient. And at first, it was extraordinarily difficult. I mean, it was just the hardest thing in the world. And

But it became, I wouldn't say easy, but it became easier with time of experience. And the point is, you really have to concentrate and focus if you're going to really listen. And I've tried to deploy that in the other things I've done as a surgeon scientist, as a leader. It really does help. First, it helps to build trust in others if they really can see that you're listening. It helps to really have a dialogue if, in addition to

what you're saying, you're actually heeding what others say, and that comes back in the way you converse with them, that they know that you're listening to them. I've always emphasized that I think listening is the most important trait and characteristic of leadership and undergirds the success in every other area of leadership. And I don't think it receives enough attention as we're talking about leadership training and as we're talking about communication. Certainly what we say is important,

But it's even more important that what we are saying is,

is based upon what we're taking in from listening to others. So what I'm hearing you say really is that you need to take the time to listen, really focus and concentrate on it. It is an important and an act that requires a lot of attention and that it can really breed connection and validate others. And that's an important part of leadership. And I agree as somebody who teaches communication, a lot of what gets taught is how to say your piece, not necessarily how to listen to what the other people are saying.

During your tenure as the Dean of the Stanford School of Medicine, you've had to address many significant issues happening on campus and beyond. What are your thoughts on the role of leaders in communication in times of ambiguity and challenge? Any insights that you've learned? I think one insight is when someone doesn't know the answer to a question or when the answer to the question is simply not known, we need to say that we don't know. And I think

A lot of experts early on in the pandemic, that was problematic because that really wasn't being stated. And there was so much we didn't know. And in a sense, it's not reassuring, but it's far more of a problem if we try to pretend we do. And then later on, of course, we didn't. So I think being honest, being forthright, following through. If it's a specific question I simply don't know the answer to, but the answer is out there.

Then I should be finding out the answer and then relaying that back. The idea is to, rather than pushing ambiguity away, we should lean into it and use it as a stimulus to

to guide our communication in more effective ways. One of the things that I really respected about you and some of your colleagues who became front and center in the news on a regular basis was the level of transparency that you would admit we don't know or we're learning or we said this one day and now we know this as well. So in addition to saying I don't know, I think it's important to put a

a focus on transparency as well. And I saw that played out often in your communication. I've heard you talk about authentic leadership. Can you tell us what you mean by that? And why is this type of leadership so important to you? To me, authenticity means...

You know, being forthright, being honest, being empathic, for sure. It means putting yourself in the shoes of the other person. It means earning the right to be a leader, which is something, it doesn't come with a title. It doesn't come with resources.

To be an effective leader, you need to earn that right, that privilege, that trust from the people that you're leading and that look to you for leadership. I think authenticity is something today that, particularly given the impact of social media and the immediacy of social media, oftentimes...

Authenticity is not represented in a soundbite or in a tweet. In fact, if anything, it gets us further away from authenticity. I think there's a basic yearning today in society to have some bedrock truths, to understand our differences better than we do today, and to be authentic, expressing those differences and expressing those views differently.

But hopefully from the authenticity, when it exists on both sides of an issue, when that authenticity is there, that will actually help people work together even though they disagree.

And I think we're sorely lacking that right now. I'm curious, as you think about authentic leadership, what's the role of feedback? It seems to me that feedback would be an important part of that. I'm curious how that works for you. It's essential to building trust. Another trait that helps in building trust is to be vulnerable. And goodness knows, we were, all of us, but particularly those of us in leadership, have

throughout COVID, whether or not we acknowledged it or not, we've been extraordinarily vulnerable. And I think to acknowledge that, look, we may not get this right, and we depend upon your feedback to recalibrate and get it right, that that's just absolutely essential. By discipline, I'm trained as an ear surgeon and lateral skull base surgeon. And those are

highly precise fields. And when I became provost at Johns Hopkins, I stopped operating because if you're not doing it regularly, you shouldn't be doing it. The point is that your best opportunity to do good for your patient is the first time you do something and do it

absolutely textbook right the first time. And there is a clear right and wrong with most things in my clinical field. You know, leadership is very, very different from that. I find myself, rarely do I get it right the first time. I depend upon the feedback of others, unless this is, you know, a critically important time-sensitive decision. And we were faced with many of those during COVID. And

In those cases, you do the best you can and you recalibrate very quickly. In cases that are not as acute as they have been during COVID, you can put up a straw person. You can float an idea around.

You can express your opinion and your belief about this is the way I think we should go. Some of that will be embraced. Some of it won't. But if you take the feedback, it's not going to affect your credibility as a leader. It's very different than a surgical procedure. You don't want to tell a patient before you do a surgical procedure, you know, I think I'm going to do it this way today. But that may not work. And so, you know, we'll then do something different tomorrow or next week. I mean, no one wants to hear that. And for me, that was –

That was a recalibration as a leader. And I feel really fortunate to have had kind of both sides represented. And I think it's made me able to act definitively when the circumstance requires it and when people around me expect me to act definitively and also to be more graduated and incremental when the situation justifies that approach.

I think it's great that you take the time to reflect on feedback and to be so open to it. Before we end, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joins me. Are you up for that? I sure am. Excellent.

If you were to capture the best communication advice you ever received as a five to seven word presentation slide title, what would that be? Empathic listening for impactful leadership. Oh, I like it. And it even has some rhyming to it. Question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why? Ruth Simmons, former president of Brown University, current president of Prairie View A&M, a

I got to know Ruth when she was president of Brown. As a Brown alum, Ruth asked me to serve on a corporation committee on medical education many years ago. And I think Ruth's ability to lean into complex, controversial topics and to, through the strength of her personality and her intellect,

really get people to do their best thinking around an issue and come up with recommendations. I think she's extraordinary at that. Final question. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? Listen, learn, recalibrate. I think to learn, you have to listen. We talked a lot about that today. But you also had to be willing to

To say, look, I probably got that wrong before. And you've got to be willing to say that first to yourself. And then you've got to be willing to say that to others. And then seek the input from others that help you and others get it right moving forward. Well, Dean Miner, thank you so much for being here. The work you and all of your colleagues do at the Stanford Medical School is so important.

And a personal thank you for all that you and everyone there did during the pandemic. I appreciate your time and your thoughtful and thought-provoking ideas and actions around effective leadership and the importance of communication in science and medicine. Finally, best of luck on your podcast, The Minor Consult. Everyone listening in has a lot to learn from you and your guests. Thanks a lot, Matt.

You've been listening to Think Fast, Talk Smart, The Podcast, a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business. This episode was produced by Michael Reilly, Jenny Luna, and me, Matt Abrahams. Find more resources and connect with us online by searching for Think Fast, Talk Smart on LinkedIn. We'd love to connect there. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn as well. Download more episodes and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts.

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