Why communicating like an Astrophysicist could help you during a crisis
And why breaking down complex topics is a skill we should all learn.
The vast expanse of our universe has mesmerised me since I was a kid. When sleeping becomes difficult, it isn’t meditation or ASMR that shuts me off. It’s imagining the true expanse of our known universe that brings me peace.
As I’ve aged, I’ve discovered more details about physics and astronomy. I’ve studied the readings of Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkins, and Galileo Galilei. And I’ve found that simplifying their work in order to make it digestible can often discredit the true value of their groundbreaking theories.
It takes effort to grasp concepts like time dilation and length contraction. And most people don't have a reason to concentrate their attention there.
Take Professor Brian Cox who - for me - has painted pictures of the universe I never thought possible for the human mind to comprehend. Images I am able to remember and share with others to further inspire.
Let’s take the size of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s about 100,000 light years across. That’s the distance light can travel at 299,792,458 metres per second.
Explaining these numbers to those less engaged in astronomy often falls flat. But then I came across Epic Spaceman on YouTube. He put the scale of our Milky Way into a visual understanding that is truly mind bending.
Imagine our Milky Way is reduced down to the size of the United States, about 9,833,517 square kilometres including water; a 5 to 7 hour flight. If the centre of our Galaxy was Kansas, our solar system would be where the city of Denver, Colorado is based - 554 km as the crow flies.
All of the stars we can see in the night sky are equal to the city lights of Denver. With this picture, we’re starting to comprehend the scale of things.
But if the Milky Way is the US, and we’re in Denver, how big is our solar system?
Well, our sun (which is comparatively small compared to the average) has an area of about 1.3 million Earths. If an Airbus A380 would take 44.5 hours to circumnavigate the Earth in one go, it would take this plane 119 years to do the same around the sun.
It’s enormous.
But on our hypothetical U.S. scale, the sun would fit between the crease of a fingerprint. It would be half the size of a red blood cell. Our entire solar system is about the size of the end of your finger if you were to stand in the centre of Colorado.
Prof. Brian Cox provides solace in that these scales are simply incomprehensible to the human mind. No one can truly picture what anything behind a few million light years looks like.
For example, the distance between the Milky Way and our nearest neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, is 2.5 million light-years away (light, which moves at 299,792,458 metres per second would take 2.5 million years to reach it). There is no comparative scale available that we can picture that distance, not to mention the two trillion other galaxies we have estimated in the observable universe.
The complexity of this topic is similar to how none-technical people struggle to grasp the advancement of artificial intelligence. Or how operational focused staff seldom understand the importance of a business impact analysis.
Simplifying a topic is where Prof. Cox inspires me in the work our team does. He holds the mantle passed down by greats before him; the ability to articulate the complex nature of our universe so that anyone can imagine it.
But from my experience, this skill is seldom shared in the business world.
We often use a thesaurus of acronyms and industry lingo to communicate internally, expecting colleagues to understand. This is completely ineffective during a crisis.
So, what is Brian Cox doing differently and what the hell has astrophysics got to do with communication in the workplace?
Tone of voice
In music, melody is everything. Notes are fundamental to creating a bar of music, but it’s the melody that truly sells the song. The same can be said for how we communicate with one another. Melody is what can be attributed to Ted Talks most successful speakers.
Listen to Simon Sinek’s How great leaders inspire action and hear him serenade you with reason. Watch Brené Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability and harmonise with the stories of someone you’ve never met.
The energy of a person can be what draws you in long before you know their values, and a person’s tone of voice - their melody - is the psychological trigger to this.
When Prof. Brian Cox speaks, you feel as if he is talking to you. He wants you to enjoy the words that make up the facts as much as he loves sharing them. But most importantly, he wants you to fall in love with science.
Like a seasoned call centre rep, Cox talks through his smile. You sense a continuous level of bliss when he has the opportunity to discuss what he’s passionate about.
This is the opposite of being spoken down to, or what Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks call “hard messengers” (commonly seen from overly confident male egos).
Whether we’re speaking to a subordinate, or selling our services to a buyer, we can engage the listener through the melody behind our words. When it comes to training, or responding to a crisis, deciding on the tone of your voice could be the difference between shared confidence, or confusion.
Do not patronise your audience
When reading Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Small Answers to Big Questions, you experience an expert writing for the common man as much as his industry peers.
His writing delicately balances on the technical, and the entertaining. It ensures that it inspires those seeking a life of astrophysics, and honours those who have had one.
Sharing the wonder of the universe is euphoric for Astrophysicists and Physicists alike. It’s a topic so complex that simplistic descriptions are a necessity when sharing knowledge with others. Without it, these professionals would have far fewer people to share it with.
But there is a very fine margin between how we explain our subject matter expertise and how we prevent ourselves from patronising the audience. Media facing physicists would simply be out of a job without this skill.
Setting the science aside, I am drawn in by Hawkins’ ability to communicate a subject in a way that makes me feel comfortable and engaged.
It’s understanding that if you can’t describe what you do, and why you do it at an 8th grade level, then it’s too complicated. Most are polite and unwittingly nod along to your foreign abbreviations, but that’s not good for training people on how to respond in a crisis.
Talk like an astrophysicist, keep it simple but exciting. Remove abbreviations that save you a fraction of a second in favour for understanding. Do those you’re training the honour of dumbing down your vocabulary, the entire room will thank you.
“We don’t really know…”
Communication style, persona, and emotional intelligence all play a huge part in why I decide to digest any Brian Cox content. But it is the universally shared rule between scientists that makes me trust him:
We don’t really know why that happens…”
When Cox explains something like Black Holes to Joe Rogan’s 14.5 million listeners, he has no hesitation in admitting that we don’t have answers to everything.
Declaring the same in a business situation can often be construed as incompetent, when perhaps it should be evidence of trust: I’d rather admit my lack of knowledge than lie to you. During a crisis, facts versus assumptions are crucial in how you respond. Saying “we don’t know” could save your business.
Despite the galactic difference between Brian and I’s experience, by admitting that physicists still have much to understand makes me feel as if I am part of that journey in some microscopic way.
I urge decision makers and leaders to be more comfortable in accepting that not everybody has all the answers, and if they say they do, they’re probably lying.
“We are a way for the universe to know itself” - Carl Sagan.
Arguably one of the most beautiful quotes in the Astrophysics community. As “nerdy” as this topic can seem, the scientific community comes with the focus of reason and truth. This is portrayed in their communication.
But what is most compelling, is the dialect available to everyone interested in astronomy or physics. It is both complex, and simple, but it starts from how we communicate it. It's this deep rooted passion for work that sells itself.
In business and crisis management, we could learn a lot from physicists.