NEW Blog Location: ListenWritePresent.com

Our blog has moved: please check us out at ListenWritePresent.com.

"You've Got Cancer": How to Deliver Bad News

I just watched the movie, Moneyball, where Brad Pitt plays the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. In this movie, he tells his newly-hired assistant to go fire a player they traded to another team. The assistant is shocked at having to do this task and asks, “How?” Brad Pitt tells the assistant to be as quick and painless as possible, saying, “Would you rather get one shot in the head or five in the chest and bleed to death?”

This analogy is exactly how I felt last year when my general surgeon broke the news to me that my breast biopsy was cancer.

I knew bad news was coming when my husband and I sat in the dreary treatment room for over an hour, waiting for the doctor to deliver the result. When he finally arrived--looking as if a Mac truck had ridden over him in the hallway--neither he nor his nurse was able to make eye contact with us. After he worked up the nerve to speak, it was just a whisper. “It’s suspicious,” he said.

“What?” my husband asked.

“It’s suspicious. Uh. It’s cancer,” he blurted.

I’m sure delivering bad news on a regular basis must be hard for physicians. I cannot imagine having to tell someone he or she has cancer, and I doubt it gets easier over time.

We all have to deliver bad news occasionally, and, while every situation is different, there are a few communication tips to try when it’s your turn:

    1. Get straight to the point. This doesn’t mean you should enter the room shouting “You’ve got cancer,” or “You’re fired.” It does mean that you may cut out the fluff that sounds patronizing. I knew the tumor was suspicious already; that’s why we did a biopsy. Hearing it from my doctor again annoyed me. Maybe he could have said something like, “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this…the tumor is cancer.” (Also, it would have been nice for him to apologize for the wait.)

    2. Speak clearly. I know this tip sounds ridiculously simple, yet I’ve observed mumbling people in many difficult-to-communicate scenarios. When my surgeon mumbled to me, the logical part of my brain thought, “Well, this guy is having trouble delivering bad news.” Meanwhile, my Holy-Cow-I-Have-Cancer part thought, “Come on now, the least you could do is speak so I can understand you.”

    3. Show empathy. When you have a job to do, such as deliver bad news, it can be hard to look sincere. My kids bust me all the time on the “Mom’s fake smile” expression. In fact, they do an imitation that’s better than the real thing. Obviously, I’m working on that one. You can, too, by thinking about and, if possible, practicing what you are going to say before you launch into a bad-news situation. This rehearsal will help you concentrate on looking and sounding sincere to others while refining the most appropriate wording.

We’d love to hear your techniques on delivering bad news, so please email us or post your ideas on this page.

Thanks for reading,

Steph

Stephanie@listenwritepresent.com

Don’t Get Burned with Your Own Social Media Posts

Let’s face it: if you use a computer or a Smartphone, you probably use social media. Posting pictures of your vacation, your thoughts on politics, or even your dinner plans seems benign. But is it?

Time and again HR specialists and residency coordinators tell us when they Google potential candidates—which they all do—they mine TONS of “private” info. For example, one woman who applied for a job at a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company had posted pole dancing photos of herself on her Facebook page.

But that’s supposed to be private, right?

Not anymore. Even if you don’t share beyond your personal FB page, your friends might be sharing for you. The same is true of Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.

How do you avoid mishaps? Here are a few suggestions for posting online:

1.  Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother or a Wall St Journal reporter to see. If this tip sounds obvious, just remember the pole dancer. Our tip: write your post in a Word file and save it for tomorrow. Still want to post it? Then go for it.

2.  Become a resource. Share smart stuff, especially when it’s not your idea. The Internet is a researcher’s gold mine. When you find an interesting article that’s relevant to your colleagues, post it.

3.  Lift others up. Pass along kudos, articles, and information about others. Reposting your colleagues’ work successes such as job changes, articles published, and promotions will lead to reciprocation.

For more communication skills tips, please refer to the book, Listen. Write. Present. The Elements for Communicating Science and Technology (Yale Press, 2012).

Find us on FB for a collection of other relevant articles.

Top 5 Comma Errors

Check any style guide and you’ll find page after page of rules for use of the comma. Below are five of the most common comma mistakes we see as we review papers and the web:

1. With quotation marks

RULE: Put a comma that follows a closing quotation mark inside the last quotation mark.

EXAMPLE: The baby’s three new words are “Dog,” “Hot,” and “No.”

NOTE: In the US, (unlike the UK) commas and periods go inside the quotation marks. 

2. Comma splices or run-on sentences

RULE: Don’t put a comma between two independent clauses.

EXAMPLE: I used to love tofu, now I can’t stand the stuff.

NOTE: When you have two independent clauses (phrases that can stand by themselves as sentences), separate them with a semicolon, a period, or a comma and a coordinating conjunction, eg, I used to love tofu, but now I can’t stand the stuff. 

3. In a series

RULE: Use commas to separate items in a list or series

EXAMPLE: I picked up the dry cleaning, dropped the dog at the groomer’s, and met my husband for lunch. 

NOTE: Although some style guides say that using a comma before the last and in a series or list is optional, most style guides suggest using one to help avoid reader misunderstanding

4. To set off nonrestrictive clauses

RULE: A nonrestrictive clause can be left out of the sentence without changing the meaning. Nonrestrictive clauses usually are surrounded or preceded by commas.

EXAMPLE: Carrie Phillips, the girl we often see walking alone on the beach, won the science award. 

NOTE: Often the word which precedes a nonrestrictive clause. For example, Mark lives on Elm Street, which is only two blocks from my house. In this case, use the comma before which.

5. Commas with dates

RULES and EXAMPLES: 

- Use a comma between the day and the year: August 4, 1969.

- When writing the day as well as the date, use a comma after the day and date: Thursday, May 23, 2013.

- Do not use a comma when it is just the month and the year: December 1977.

- Do not use a comma when using an inverted date: 20 June 1990.

Deborah

How can I overcome nervousness when I present?

This question is the number one concern we hear from our audiences.

Believe it or not, even though we’re “professional public speakers,” we sometimes get nervous before we present, too. 

Preparation and practice are key to moving through your talk because you can shift to auto-pilot if needed. We put a lot of value in “working the room,” and find that arriving early and speaking on-to-one with the people who will listen to the presentation helps us see them as “regular people” and not the rock stars we imagined. Plus, we can use these conversations to connect with the audience during the presentation.

Remember these premises:

• The people who come to your talk must see value in the topic, or they would not attend.
• Someone invited you to present because you have shown expertise in your topic.
• You are the master of your topic, even if other experts attend your talk. Your peers would not attend if they did not want/need to learn something from you. 
• Your audience wants you to succeed. They are on your team. 

Over the years, many physicians and pharmacists in our audiences have suggested various forms of beta blockers and antihistamines to prevent the appearance of nervousness. Instead of therapeutic intervention, we recommend that you get plenty of rest the night before your talk, exercise in the days preceding your speech, and cut back on your caffeine consumption the day of your presentation.
 

A few other relevant tips:

• Visualize your goal: see yourself presenting your talk, answering questions, and hearing the applause. This Stephen Covey tip really works! Many pro athletes use this technique with great success.
• Don't forget to breathe. Take your time when you present.
• Practice in the room where you will present. This Billy Graham tip is fantastic. We have rehearsed in the room beforehand and even planned where to look at certain points in the talk.
• Don't try to tell everything you know. Instead, streamline your talk so that you can focus on key points. This technique will help you plan your talk and prevent you from rushing through it.

We hope these tips help you prepare for your next presentation. 

Let us know how it goes!

Steph & Deborah

Resume Round-Up: How to Create or Update Your Resume for Pharmaceutical, Biotech, or Medical Device Sales Jobs

Last week, while sitting on my front porch reviewing a pharmaceutical executive’s resume, I jotted down a brief list of tips for writing resumes. Deborah St James edited and expanded the list. Here are our top tips:

DO

• Use active verbs immediately after the bullet points used to describe your job: organized, planned, supervised, coached, completed, etc.
• Be consistent. Find a good template and follow it. Also, use a style guide for correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
• Put all necessary information in the heading. Make it easy for the reader to quickly find you.
• Put your job title FIRST, then the company name, and then the dates of employment. If you’ve held multiple positions with a company, list the company name and total dates of service at the top of the heading, and then offer separate listings for each job.

For Example:

ABC Company, June 1993-present

Director, XYZ Product, April 2009-present

• Manage sales and marketing of XYZ Product, a (disease state) medicine…
• Oversee $X budget…

District Sales Manager, December 2003-April 2009

• Managed X Sales Representatives for X Drug…
• Coached representatives in developing business…

Hospital Account Manager, October 1996-December 2003

• Managed $X territory with X hospitals…
• Achieved formulary status for XYZ Product in every hospital in territory…

Sales Representative, June 1993-October 1996

• Detailed ABC Medicine to physicians in (specialty areas)…
• Earned President’s Council recognition…

AVOID

• Using adjectives and adverbs to describe your work as these can detract from your claims. For example, “significantly improved” could mean many different things. Instead, offer specifics such as percentages and rankings.
• Claiming anything you cannot back up in writing or with a reference.
• Using distracting or difficult-to-read type: unusual fonts, type that is less than 11 points, all caps, italics, and too much bold.
• Putting periods at the end of each bullet. These phrases don’t usually warrant a period because often they are not complete sentences.

For more resume writing tips, check out our book, Listen. Write. Present. The Elements for Communicating Science and Technology.

Please send us questions and blog topic ideas: Stephanie@ListenWritePresent.com

Cheers,

Steph