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Chief Change Officer
#412 Mark Bayer: From Ivory Tower to Power Play — Helping PhDs Get Heard (and Hired) — Part Two
00:28:31
Mark Bayer went from briefing U.S. Senators to coaching PhDs—and the common problem he saw in both worlds? People with deep expertise couldn’t explain it fast. In this two-part series, he exposes why most scientists lose the room, how policy and research actually connect, and what it takes to turn insight into influence—without losing your edge.
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- [00:13]
Vince Chen
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show. Chief Change Officer, I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Oh, sure. IF is a modernist community for change, progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today's guest is Mark Bayer, former U.S. senate chief of Staff, now a communications coach for scientists, researchers and policy leaders. He spent two decades on Capitol Hill and now works with people at Harvard, MIT and beyond to help them get their message across clearly, confidently, and without losing their voice. For this interview, I was so excited, but I also got nervous. I'm talking to someone who's worked with politicians and policymakers at the highest level two decades on Capitol Hill. His experience goes way beyond mine. And now here I am on the other side of the table interviewing him. In this two part series, we talk about the art of translating complexity, what most PhDs get wrong about persuasion, and why your audience probably tuned out after the second sentence. Let's get started. You've pointed out some of the undertrained skills, like speaking and writing that many PhDs struggle with when they enter the private sector. How exactly do you help them bridge those gaps? Do you have a specific approach or method you use? Can you walk us through what that looks like?
- [02:42]
Mark Bayer
Sure, glad to. And I have different ways of explaining and different elements. But one thing that I do is, and this is difficult for people to do regardless of their background, which is really distilling complexity and complicated things. You have so many details that you know and you have to figure out how do I convey the thing that is going to be most important to the person receiving the information? And so I created this free infographic. It's called 11 Keys to Translating Complexity. And anyone, any listener can pick it up. It's at complexity made clear.com you can download it and you'll see it's a free resource. You'll see these 11 things that over my 20 years of work in the US Congress, I've really found to be helpful in conveying your points in ways that are first accurate and then also that are interesting, that are understandable and that are short. Shakespeare said, brevity is the heart of wit. And it can be really hard to get a brief piece or soundbite, for example, in our world that that really reflects it. I also would just say that's the kind of beginning of a conversation, people. Sometimes my students will say, yeah, that metaphor, that simile that you're, that you want me to use, it isn't exactly the thing that I'm talking about. It's, it's similar, right? And I say, exactly. It is not the thing. It's to get the person oriented to your idea, like on the same page, or maybe, if you want to think of it, you want to bring these people into the ballpark, right. And so they're outside. They don't know what it's like inside. So you don't just sit them in the front row, right behind home plate. In the baseball analogy, you have to get them oriented first. Right? This is what the game is about. Before, you obviously say, okay, you're on the field and you're playing now, because it's too big a gap to try to bridge.
- [04:47]
Vince Chen
So far, we've talked about the underdeveloped areas and how you help bridge those gaps. But at the same time, people with strong academic background have real strengths. I believe that even weaknesses can be reframed or turned into strengths, and strengths can absolutely be maximized. From your experience working with so many scientists and sharp minds over the years, what are some of the strengths they might overlook or undersell? What would you say to encourage them? Hey, you've already got this. Now lean into it, play to your advantage and believe in yourself.
- [05:39]
Mark Bayer
Absolutely, Vince. And that is so important, particularly since I've heard of PhDs, when they apply for a job beyond academia, they will leave off the fact they have a PhD, which to me is heartbreaking because not only for the skills I'm going to talk about in a second to signal that you have those, but also as you reference, the blood, sweat and tears that went into years and years of training. And then you're just going to leave off the PhD in your resume because somebody told you that an employer, say, at a big company, at an investment house or whatever it is, will see that and think, oh, this person's too theoretical, or somehow that training isn't relevant. That training is so relevant. And some of the things that make it particularly useful, one of them is curiosity, figuring out, like, why does this happen? Why does it work like this? Maybe it could work in a different way. Because when you're, for example, in the policy world, you're doing that all the time. You're looking around the landscape and you're saying, oh, I see that the United States doesn't require the screening, the physical screening of all the air cargo that goes on a passenger plane. So this is a real example that I worked on really intensely over years with my boss. And you say, why is that? What do they do instead? Is that a good idea? What are the risks of doing that? No, actually, it's A terrible idea. It's a huge loophole. What should we do instead? These are questions that scientists ask themselves all the time. So much of the scientific method is applicable beyond academia and curiosity is just one little thing. Then the analyticals you can also talk about, okay, I have all this data. One thing scientists are very careful about, is this data sound? Is it credible? People like to make arguments with facts all the time. And one question from a scientist in a meeting on Capitol Hill asking, oh, it's interesting you're presenting that. What was the sample size? Right now that's a question that scientists ask all the time and are aware of. Right. But if you were to ask that in a briefing on Capitol Hill with all these policymakers, there might be a silence because they would want to ask that question. And then if it was a small sample size, the data that this expert just presented or somebody just cited is garbage. And so that is a huge thing. For example, just one it has could have a huge impact. And somebody coming from a PhD program might say, oh, that's probably already thought of that. But the answer is they didn't think of that, most likely. And so that kind of analysis, the, the ability to, to, to really. This gets into an attribute, as you suggested, the tenacity. Like I worked on this air cargo project to change the law with my boss. Now we ultimately succeeded. It took five years. And that's a long timeline. In, in many ways an academic might look at that and say, yeah, we're in it for a little bit of a long haul here. Right. And the ability not to get frustrated when there are setbacks, and there were a lot of setbacks to figure out new ways of doing things. Something that, oh, that hypothesis that we had, actually, it's not accurate. Let's find a different way. These are all things that, within a scientific environment that PhDs and researchers are doing all the time. And they're so applicable in so many ways, even in industry. You could say, we're going to try this. We got to make sure if it doesn't work, you know, we don't, we want to abandon it and try something new pretty quickly. So just a lot of skills and attributes that scientists have, everything from the analytical to the mindset are so valuable in careers beyond academia.
- [09:12]
Vince Chen
I totally agree. And take the example you mentioned, the woman from China who went to John Hopkins and Chicago. One thing that really stands out about person like her is the pros and cons, cultural skill set and mindset, especially in the medical field. That's huge. I actually have a friend, or rather the wife of one of my good friends from Yale, mba. She's also from China and now a practicing doctor in New York. She did her PhD in medicine at Yale. Now, learning medicine in China is already tough and different, but then switching to the US is not just about language. Think about the medical terms, the different systems, the teaching style. And on top of that, she has to build relationships with professors, with colleagues, adjust to a totally different culture, and eventually practice medicine at one of the top medical centers in the country. To me, that kind of cross cultural adaptability and agility is a real strength, especially for those who come from overseas and trade in the us It's a hindered superpower that often gets overlooked.
- [10:44]
Mark Bayer
I'm so glad you mentioned that because there are a couple different levels as to how that's a strength from my perspective. And so I've had a podcast when science speaks for quite a while. And one of the things I do, we talk all about these issues. And one of the things I do is I look for scientists who are phenomenal scientists and phenomenal communicators, right? We talk about some of the gaps and some of the benefits, and then those people are out there. And one of the early interviewees that I had, this scientist and a professor named Elizabeth Wayne, and Liz Wayne is phenomenal in a variety of ways. She's a cancer researcher. And the innovation and creativity that she's bringing to that to try to cure various types of cancer is phenomenal. And she's a great communicator. So I became fascinated in this question of how does this happen? Because I am. I focus on verbal. It's all of, I'm a communications guy. I don't do experiments in the lab. I never did. After high school, I stopped really taking science. And so here you have someone in Dr. Wayne who has both. So I always ask people who have both these parts of their brain kind of firing at full power, how did this happen? And there, over the years, I have found that there are really two variables that often keep popping up. One of them is that they're the first in their family to go to college. And I can talk a little bit about that. I think. I guess the reason why I think that is if we accept that hypothesis could actually be accurate or true, is that someone who has their PhD now, who went through school and their family really has no one else who, say, graduated college, sometimes even was in college or enrolled in college, that person probably took a lot of challenging and difficult subjects as they were Going through, even starting in middle school, maybe they're taking biology, they're taking these subjects, and their parents, their loved ones, their families, they want to know, so what did you do in school today? And the person needs to explain what they did, maybe in a calculus class or a physics class. And their audience, their family, doesn't have a good frame of reference to a lot of what they're talking about. And so that young person, maybe 13, 14, 15, starts to figure out how to explain complexity in ways that are, number one, not condescending, because they're talking to authority figures and also that are accurate, give a reference point and really help illuminate what they're doing. So you can imagine if somebody starts doing that as they're 13, 14, goes into high school, continues to do that, goes into college, and then a PhD program, that person gets really good at doing this kind of distillation, figuring out what's important, how to make it interesting, memorable, accessible, all of those things. They had a lot of practice. So that's one of the reasons why I think that is a common trait for scientists who are fantastic communicators. Sometimes they're first in their family to go to college. The other is something that you reference, which is being bilingual, because as so many words, expressions that exist in one language just don't have that in another language. I lived in Paris for a while. I was speaking French gradually, fluently, in the beginning. However, you try to translate word for word, some idea in English, right into French or back, and you find out very quickly, sometimes in embarrassing ways, as I did, that that doesn't work. We don't say it like that. The word, for example, this is. A friend of mine told me this who was in a similar situation. If you're at the dinner table and someone asks you if you are finished, like you're done eating, and you say you're full, and you try to use a word, which is something you might say in English, and you try to use a word in French that is full, that actually means pregnant. So you don't want to say that. So what you learn these idioms, you learn these devices that express an idea, but they're not a word for word translation. And that really, when you get to that level in science, when you get to that level in any language, you know that you're on the way to fluency. So it's really exciting. Then, of course, you mentioned cultural practices and values, and that is a third layer. So it's. It's something that is a big challenge. And the good news, I would say, in my experience, is it's something that can be learned. It sounds like your friend's wife really has excelled. And so I'm very optimistic about this. And I would also just say how important it is for society to have people like that because particularly in the US we're going to be heading into another phase, it looks like, where science and scientists are denigrated. So the question is, how do they still have a voice in the public square, so to speak. And really that's what got me into this whole thing in the first place.
- [15:50]
Vince Chen
Sure. I think this is the perfect way to conclude our conversation. Today. We've talked a lot about communication, language and culture, skills that are more important than ever. But now we're entering the age of AI, right? With large language models. Some people even say, oh, you don't need to learn another language anymore, just type in English and it will translate for you. I'm bilingual myself. I'm also learning a new language, Japanese. And honestly, sometimes I test it for simple stuff, it works pretty well. But for more complex ideas, not quite. And even if it gets the meaning right, it's not my voice. It doesn't sound like me in Chinese. So back to PhDs and students preparing to enter the workforce. A lot of the skills they've built, such as deep analysis, complex writing, and some people may argue, oh, AI can do that now, but in a world that's moving so fast, with tools evolving every day, how should they think about staying relevant? How do they future proof themselves, not just compete with AI, but stand out because they are human? What would your advice be for those stepping into this next era of work and change?
- [17:37]
Mark Bayer
Wonderful. Great question. And I think a lot about this and I think first of all that AI certainly has its place. It could be a great first cut at something. However, I would say reflecting what you were talking about with the Chinese translation. So if you think about AI, you think about, okay, what's going to happen is the language or the response that you get back to your query is going to be stitched together from pre existing content that could have been around for a long time. So one of my main messages is to get attention, you need to present things in ways that are fresh and new and inventive and, and maybe counterintuitive that are surprising. Right. So you don't want to try to. How are you going to get a content that really hits that when the building blocks that you're asking AI or the AI is going to pull from are really stale, they're old, they've been around for a while. Right. And so that's one thing to think about, right. Is okay, I can get some sort of orientation perhaps through AI, but. But the finished product using retread content to try to get someone's attention doesn't really seem to me to work very well at the final stage when you really, during the job interview and so forth and teachers will say, I can tell exactly when someone uses it at this point. And I know AI will be getting faster and better as you move forward. The other thing is something that you mentioned about voice, right. Which I talk about a lot for presentation. So it just doesn't sound, sound like you, it doesn't read like you, it. And so it feels more artificial. Yes, it is getting better. Nonetheless, I think that injecting that kind of surprise and that kind of creativity, I generally call it artistry to your communications is not something at least right now and maybe perhaps for the near term you're going to get from AI. The other thing that you touched upon that I talk a lot about is the need to connect before you communicate and by that connect on a human level before you get down to the substance. And this is something that many people don't actually think about. But the way I talk about it, and this really relates to AI because obviously AI is not human and probably, I don't know, who knows what's going to happen as we move forward. But I will just say that humans want to relate and interact with other humans that they feel, understand them and get them and have similarities with them, understand their experience, maybe have some shared experiences. And I also think that goes way back to our wiring when we were needed to make sure that we were among people who are going to be friendly to us. And one of the ways we determined that was did they have similarities with us? And so I think in the modern day there's this free stage that I talk about before communication. Most people actually think about. I'm going to go right to the message and how do I sequence and what do I say? Get my 90 seconds in like all that. And I say, actually there, there's something really important. You need to open the channel of communication before you actually develop the content that communicates it. So what does that mean? It means just trying to interact in a human to human way with your audience or with your interviewer. I've had interview. Someone telling me saw a story about a woman who was interviewing for an engineering job and they spent like all the big part of the interview talking about how they both love to play classical guitar. And you might say, oh, that has nothing to do, it's just small talk. But see that I would say that's a misconception in a mindset that's not helpful to you because I want to be different and differentiate myself from all the other people who are looking for that job, for example. And sometimes that comes by understanding just the human aspects of the person you're talking about. And where there are overlaps, you have a similar someone in common, right? You think about how you get whether you open an email or whether you connect on some with somebody you don't know personally. On LinkedIn, if the subject line of an email says referred by and inserted a person, that you're probably going to open that email, right? Even if you don't know the sender coming from somebody that whose name you don't recognize. And why do you do that? It's because some of that familiarity with the mutual contact is leading you to do that. And I sometimes call it the transitive property of relationship building. It's I don't know you, but we both know the same person. So therefore I know you in enough of a way for you to give me a chance to communicate something important to you.
- [22:10]
Vince Chen
Yes, that's exactly how you and I got connected. It wasn't just through a mutual friend, it was also the topic. I saw that you were talking about transitions, especially for PhDs, and I realized, wow, that's something I haven't really covered on my show yet, but it's such an important topic. So that instantly caught my attention. This is a great example of how real opportunities often start not through cold applications, but through warm conversations. That's been true for me throughout my own career. I didn't work with headhunters much. Most of my roles came through personal referrals. Of course, I still had to earn it, do the interviews right, show I could do the job. But getting in the door, that came from relationships. One thing I always remember when I was in business school at Yale, the alumni helping us prep for interviews used to save you know how bankers decide who to hire? It's not just your gpa. Everyone's is smart anyway is this. Can I sit next to you on a 14 hour flight and not go crazy? That always stuck with me. At the end of the day, people want to work with people they connect with. And that's something no resume can teach you, but a real conversation can.
- [23:58]
Mark Bayer
It absolutely does. It absolutely does. And I think it's overlooked. And part of it is this focus on technical skills. And you could argue that in many ways. And you're suggesting this, I think in your example too, Vince, that those technical skills are a commodity. Do we know how? This person either knows how to do it well or they don't know how to do it well. And if you're recruiting from these best business schools, they're all going to know how to do it well. So what differentiates one from the other? And it's the types of things you're talking about. 100%.
- [24:27]
Vince Chen
Exactly. Firms like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stany, they can teach you finance even if you studied history. The technical skills are easy to train. But people skills, leadership, adaptability, agility, that's much harder to teach. That's why they often look for people from the military, because they bring real leadership experience that can't be replicated in a classroom or by other candidates. So if you are in a PhD program or have been in a PhD program, here's what I'd like to say. Dig deep into your human story, into your human history. Go beyond the research, the credentials, share your lived experience. That's where your power is. Those human moments, those challenges you've overcome, those are the stories that stick. They are what people remember about you and they just might be what lends you the job.
- [25:40]
Mark Bayer
Absolutely. And it's funny because this idea of soft skills versus hard skills, and I think oftentimes people denigrate soft skills, they're fluffy. The first thing I would just say on that is I was curious as to how this whole terminology came about. And it turns out, and I've got research that was cited by someone that I was actually talking to through a podcast. And basically the reason why things are called hard skills and soft skills is because the United States military at one point needed to classify the jobs that people had. And they decided that anyone who worked on a machine which was made of metal most likely was that was a hard skill because it was a hard metal. And so that person had a hard skill, meaning they could work on a machine. Now if you didn't work on a machine, you. You just didn't have a hard skill. So therefore you had a soft skill. I think over time. So there was no judgment, there was soft skill was not a prep pejorative. It was not something that was a nice to have. It just was a way of classifying the job somebody had. Over time, I think it's become more of a kind of viewed less seriously. But as you're pointing out I think we're total agreement here is that those kind of skills while they are vital I talking about the spreadsheet or the modeling or whatever in certain ways they are commodities right but what is really that magical factor is what we're talking about that really differentiates yourself which is the human to human connection.
- [27:20]
Vince Chen
And dusty n of our conversation Mark's work reminds us that when it comes to influence your credentials alone aren't enough. People connect with people not bullet points you've ever felt dismissed, overlooked or misunderstood. Maybe it's not about speaking louder maybe it's about leading with your human story, your lived experience and the values that drive you because that's what sticks. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard don't forget subscribe to our show leave us top RA rated reviews Check out our website and follow me on social media. I'm this Chen your ambitious human host. Until next time take care.