We are honored this week to have Aman Agarwal, the president of SANPRAM, to sit down to talk about how to communicate technical concepts and terms to non-technical people. Aman shares several actionable concepts to help any leader be a better communicator with those that they work with and are looking to influence.
ZH
Thank you so much Aman for joining us!
AA
Thanks for having me!
ZH
Yeah, so tell us a little bit before we jump into our topic about this. This whole concept of communication. We’ll talk about the whole hurdles and all that in a minute. I don’t wanna spoil the show before we get going, but tell our baton carriers really across the world, just a short synopsis about your journey as a leader, and then maybe some things that you’re working on right now.
AA
I was an engineer building self-driving trucks and other stuff in silicon valley. Before that, I was a B2B sales guy for some large tech companies. Now I run an education company that helps non-technical entrepreneurs and executives how to be more technical fluent while they build technical companies.
ZH
Yeah, that’s the big switch! So how did you make the switch from doing self-driving vehicles to leading an education and training company?
AA
While I was working among engineers and salespeople, I realized that there was a huge communication gap between the two sides. You talk to engineers and sales guys, both were saying that the other guys were stupid. It’s pretty comical. In parallel, I was also teaching as a hobby online and I was writing these long-form essays online at medium that explained cutting edge technology in simple layman words and those got really popular. That helped me realize my true passion was in teaching technical concepts. It just so happened that during COVID that I realized that this gap is real, and I can help to bridge it. So I started SANPRAM to do just that.
ZH
Very cool. Well, let’s jump into this whole idea of communication, right? So how to connect the technical for non-technical people. You know, there’s always going to be a communication hurdle for leaders and organizations to conquer. I think about a new leader that needs to learn about their team’s communication preferences, how those people process information, and then we add in the complexities like remote work and COVID as well as new agendas or technology that you’re going to speak to. It’s a lot right! So when you look at leaders in companies that are been successful is because of how they successfully communicate and connect with others.
I think that leaders sometimes struggle when they don’t know how to conquer that communication hurdle at times, and specifically when it comes around this technology piece that you’re an expert in. Many people may say “You get it or you don’t, or they’re idiots and I’m the smart one in the room”, but what are some ways that we can adapt their communication that a leader can adapt their communication to meet their audience? You had some fun things on medium, some drawings of kitchens and stuff like that. So let’s dive into that. Some practical pieces today.
AA
The goal if you’re a leader, at least how I think of it, if you’re a leader or a manager and your goal in communication with the people that you are working for is three things:
1) Clarity with respect to what they are supposed to do and what’s expected of them.
2) Agreement with the direction. Do they understand what they have to do once they leave the meeting? It’s surprisingly common how that’s not really clear. I know what I’m supposed to do and I know what’s expected of me, but do I agree where this is going? What’s the high-level strategy here? Where is this project going and why?
If you are clear on the former but not on the latter, then you’ll slowly become demotivated and lost. You may think, “You know, I’m doing this thing, but let look at a job board and Linkedin and see what else is interesting and happening out there.
4) Buy-in to the vision and direction.
These three things become your North Star in communication, especially when you are explaining a technical concept to non-technical people. This provides you clarity in the direction that you need to go.
The best way that I like to think about taking a person through this journey is to tell a story. Storytelling the cornerstone of my teaching philosophy and communication behavior. This idea comes from my background in filmmaking. Filmmakers are really good at communicating their stories. You enter a cinema, and the film is happening in a completely different universe than the one that you are living in, but by the end of the film you feel like you live in that universe yourself. You are friends with the characters, you know what going on, you feel the same things that they do. Filmmakers are really good at pulling you into a narrative by making you one of the protagonist of that story and really draw you in by revealing information piece by piece and building the whole world around you that makes you comfortable to live there.
That whole storytelling ethos that I learned as a filmmaking student forms the way that I teach today. All of my essays are all about stories, stories, stories.
ZH
You bring up a point in some of your essays too. I’m thinking about drawing from something that the audience already knows right to deliver that powerful message. Talk to us about that because that’s a great strategy talked about. You know, leading them along a journey rather than pulling them to you. You talk about the illustrations about the kitchen and some of that other stuff that you have in your essays.
AA
The analogy that I like to use is if you are telling a story then the story has to begin in a very familiar place to the listener. If you are reading Harry Potter (or watching the movies) you start in the cupboard under the stairs where there is a boy doing his own thing…and it’s all very familiar. Everything that you introduce from here on from the ogre smashing in the door to the magic wands is gradual. You slowly get used to new concepts as you go along the story.
When I talk about how computers work, I use the example of a kitchen that has a cook, some storage place, counter space, ingredients, and recipes. I then relate the idea to technical terms, so an ingredient is data, and a recipe is a software program and then I spin the narrative in a direction where the person no longer needs to remember that I’m not talking about food. They can absurd the vocabulary as it comes in.
ZH
I just love the idea of really connecting it from their point of view, by going to them and starting where they are and meeting them at their own starting place to get your message across. Whether it’s the kitchen analogy or even the Harry Potter example that you have. You start out where they are, and yeah, I can relate to you in an odd way. A kid hanging out of his house and then also in this crazy stuff happens and then it’s like, oh, it’s totally fine that there’s a Hawk with horse, legs and everything else so.
You know another point that you bring up is this whole idea of considering the words and the level that you communicate with others. So avoiding over technical and overuse of language.
AA
I think there is a huge risk in corporate cultures where you want to sound smarter and more sophisticated. In scientific literature, this has reached unprecedented levels. Research papers are much harder to read today than they were 50 –60 years ago.
I’ve had experiences myself where my academic advisors would tell me, “Hey, you are using very simple language, nobody is going to take your research project very seriously if you talk like this. You want to make it sound very cool.” I dislike the whole culture that this creates and I think that the jargon that you use should only be as complex as it takes to get the message across. If you are losing your audience then you may want to reconsider the way that you are communicating.
ZH
Yeah, that’s so true. Yeah, I coached leaders and organizations all the time on just simplify, simplify, simplify. I think sometimes we and, probably in the academic world, try to validate ourselves through our words by using these grandiose words that make us sound more important than we are.
You’re right, it’s really about just about connecting the message. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. The best messages are those stories and memorable pieces and simple things that we latch onto.
So you talk about leading the people down to a conclusion instead of trying to drag them to your position and challenging people to take small steps. You talk about this whole I + 1 concept and how you can build out people’s technical knowledge and understanding. Share a little bit about this and how we can apply that to what we’re doing today.
AA
I + 1 is a concept called Comprehensible Input. It’s a concept that has been borrowed from the world of foreign language learning. I personally am big or foreign languages. I’m learning my fourth language right now after English, French, and Chinese. It’s all about the idea that you can only absorb knowledge when it’s just a little bit out of your comfort zone, but it’s not so far out of your comfort zone that you feel like you are reading hieroglyphics or you’re listening to some exotic language where you are falling back on the subtitles. If it’s too comfortable then you aren’t really expanding your fluency.
Language acquisition, and the same for any technical knowledge or concept, is about starting with a small body of words or concepts and then expanding them one by one.
The “I” is your starting point, and you are adding one thing at a time. So, it compounds over time and before you realize it you’ve become exponentially better. It’s like the game Tetris. As the bricks keep falling into place, they become like scaffolding so that new pieces are easier to put into their place. So instead of dropping a huge block into your memory, and you think, “I can’t take this, I’m going to reject this whole thing…”
ZH
Game over instantly!
AA
Yes! It’s game over! Instead, you want to build it piece by piece to build that scaffolding so that whatever knowledge you have right now becomes the framework that you can add new knowledge on top of.
ZH
It’s very relatable because it’s a small concept where instead of trying to teach me what an engineer does or what a developer does, or whatever else outside my general expertise……it’s not me trying to learn their whole job or that whole culture or circle. Let me just learn a term here, term there, and start to connect the dots that way so that as I grow my knowledge, I can sit down in a meeting and speak intelligently about this or communicate right back to that person.
It’s going back to meeting the person where they are. So now it makes total sense. I love the idea of gaining a little piece of just understanding each time. if you try to jump in the deep end it’s it is that game over mentality for sure.
AA
Even more than words, it’s more about the concept and the narrative.
Why does this technology exist? What does it mean? Then the jargon begins to fall into place quickly. The jargon is easy to remember once you know what that jargon is about.
ZH
So you know when we think about communicating, what are some of the reasons that we miss that communication connection with the other person? What keeps us from from bridging that gap?
AA
This comes from both sides, the technical and non-technical sides, and CTOs (Chief Technical Officer) who go to the board meeting and they start talking about the sausage factory that they are running and then they realize that nobody cares about how you are making the sausages.
The key is empathy and the willingness to become aware of the other person’s perspective. This becomes another “I” in the I +1 concept based on what you think that they care about. You then slowly guide them towards what you care about.
So, if you need to talk to the finance person about technology you say it in a way that connects with them. Instead of “We aren’t adding any new features,” you say, “Last year 80% of the features that we added weren’t used by the customers. This year we are going to be more intentional about which features we greenlight, so engineers are only spending time and money on things that lead to more revenue.”
Look for ways to bridge the gap with empathy with others.
ZH
I love that. We actually just did a whole little mini-series on empathy recently. We did a show on understanding empathy, one on tips, and then one on hurdles that keep us from being empathetic to others. So great connection my friend to some previous shows not too long ago.
So, let’s talk about one last tip in communication. We’ve talked extensively at Passing the Baton about the power of storytelling. You’ve referenced that a couple of times today, and you’ve really leaned into that experience you’ve had in film, and storyboarding too, in a way to build a story to communicate to others. So how can a leader apply that concept in how we communicate with others?
AA
When you go up to the stage and you give a PowerPoint presentation, one thing that you can do is to avoid a huge amount of data or information on one slide. It’s not I +1, it’s more like 1+ 100! Instead of showing a whole flow chart, you start with the first block. It’s like the first frame of a movie. On the next slide, you have the first block and the next block, so the audience can absorb the info and begin to see what’s coming. Think of it like an animator moving the pieces around instead of just changing out to totally different pictures.
You want to go through your story without overloading your audience, so you don’t lose them altogether.
ZH
Yeah, I was notoriously resentful of the whole PowerPoint Presentations anyway, because people lean too much on it. In my couple of last years, I’ve had to use PowerPoint more so I understand the power of it when it’s used the right way.
I talk to people about thinking about your presentations as a story from point A to point B and it really helps people dial in the details in the polish to make a great presentation. Storytelling helps turns your presentation from one that’s meh to one that’s over the top and memorable. That’s what we need when we’re presenting to people; something memorable that they can hold onto and can relate to.
Thank you so much for you hanging out with us today. Before we jump off, tell us where we can find you on the web.
AA
The best resource will be our site SANPRAM.com When you go there, the listener will see the free resources and essays that we have that they can use to improve their own technical fluently. If they like what they are learning they, can sign up for more!
ZH
Thank you so much for hanging out. Love the connection pieces of connecting the non-technical with the technical. Appreciate you!
