Communication and Quants

One of the biggest areas I focus on as helping students and professionals with is communication. There is always a negative view of "quants" and communication and I don't blame people. Those who are typically super quantitative lack communication skills because they have spent so much time learning quantitative skills.

Now that being said I feel there is another cause that many quants feel. It starts off with a quant talking to either another quant or a non-quant. The person responds with "I don't understand." The quant then starts from the beginning of the concept and gets about 10 words out before being told, "I already that." So now what do you do? The other person clearly doesn't understand the topic in depth but if you try to give them more underlying information they assume you think they are dumb. My latest YouTube video covers this issue in more details however here are two ways to improve yourself.

1) Realize that you too get frustrated when people start from the beginning BUT you should work on listening instead of interrupting them and explaining you already know this. I am confident the person will complete the explanation with you learning a few ideas that you were missing.

2) Learn to ask exactly what you don't understand. I see a lot of people who are told to do something at work and they shake their head and say, "okay thanks I'll get right on that." Only to find out later that they didn't understand it and so they waited until you checked on them again. If you don't understand something learn to ask. You might feel dumb but it's important to learn. Even I struggle with telling someone that I don't understand. If you get over this fear you will learn a lot more.

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