The Big Power of Simple Talk

For months now, my wife has had an ugly new task. Her father has cancer. They talk regularly about the reports and recommendations from his current oncology team and she (as a “neutral” observer) suggests things that he might want to ask them. This morning, she listened to an audio recording from his latest oncology visit.

According to her, everyone on the team is on top of their game. But one of the doctors – a younger guy – consistently dominated the conversation. He used a lot of jargon and he spoke quickly. He knows his cancers, but he doesn't know his people. In the end, the more he talked; the more he confounded.  

My wife's research has been published in places like the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and the Annals of Allergy Asthma and Immunology. She's modeled whole healthcare systems at the World Bank and yet she has to listen and re-listen to this doctor explain things. Medicine is a world that she understands and yet, even she has a hard time following him. She said, ?I can hear that my dad is completely confused.“

At various points throughout the hour-long recording, the second doctor would chime in. ?In two seconds, he would clarify things that would take the other doctor (potentially) days to explain,“ she said. For example, to explain how the cancer had spread, he drew a simple picture. It wasn't about sophistication – it was about communication. Same patient. Same disease. Same prognosis. Two different approaches.

The younger doctor was not communicating the chances of survival and the available treatment options as much as he was communicating his superiority and insecurity. The way he communicated was for display. This, in contrast, to the older doctor's style which was in service to the patient – the goal was that that my father-in-law understood the details about the disease that threatens his life. The difference was that the older doctor knew his people, knew his cancers and knew himself. He was secure in his knowledge, his abilities and his limitations, and it had a dramatic impact on everyone involved. After listening to this for an hour, she concluded, ?I should tell my dad to ask that these meetings just involve the older doctor.“

We live in a small country of big talkers. Our politicians talk for hours, but say nothing. We watch countless hours of political debate, but rarely hear anything smart. Most of these people are highly credentialed and have a deep and rich vocabulary, yet spend most of their lives painting fuzzy pictures. After an hour of listening to them you can't remember what they said. That is the point, and the problem, of much of this flowery complicated talk. They don't know what to say, they don't know what kind of picture they want to paint, yet they insist on being the painter.

I see this all the time here, in business, in politics, in the media and in the cafes. Lots of talk, but very little said. So, if you hear someone use three words to describe something that requires one, or talk for twenty seven minutes when it actually require two, know that you are not listening to someone who knows more than others, or cares, or respects you. Their talk is about themselves, not the problem, not the solution, and not your best interests. Time to get a second opinion.

Image Credit: Reuters

This is a translation of an original column that was published in Croatia's largest newspaper, Ve?ernji List, on June 25, 2018. See my pearl trees for a complete gallery of my articles for Ve?ernji List and other publications, including The Wall Street Journal.