Chris Fenning explains the grandparent test: a way to check if your explanation is simple enough. Ask yourself three things: Would they understand the concept? Do they know the words? Am I being respectful? He shows how it works with nuclear fission and fusion.
Chapters
Hi and welcome to How to Talk to Non-Experts Tips Course. This is tip number 12, and this tip is use the grandparent test to stay simple. When you are describing a topic, talking about something to a non-expert audience, use the, the idea that you are talking to your grandparents To help you stay simple in what you're explaining. Now, you may have heard the common advice of explain it like you're talking to a child, but I don't think this is the best advice. It's much better if you change child to grandparent. Why? Well, what happens if you don't change child to grandparent, or what happens if you don't use the grandparent test at all? Well, It's harder. It's harder to explain things. And the reason being, well, let's take the grandparent versus child test. If you're explaining something to a child, they have a limited range of experience to draw on, and they have a smaller vocabulary. But if you're explaining to a grandparent, they have more experience and more vocabulary. That means you have a greater range of things that you can draw on to use as examples and analogies. And you have literally more words you can use to help explain it. Plus, and this is quite important, there is much less chance of being patronising if you imagine you're talking to your grandparents than talking to a child. Whether we intend to or not, it can be quite easy to be patronising when talking to a child and oversimplifying things and assuming they don't know stuff, whereas when you talk to a grandparent, we tend to be respectful, and usually more respectful than when we're talking to somebody who's much, much younger than us. So how do you do this? How do you use the Grandparent Test? Well, there are 3 questions you can ask yourself. First is, if I'm talking to my grandparents, would they understand the concept that I'm explaining? Do they know the words that I'm using? And am I being respectful? And if the answer is no to any of those, you're using too much expert language and you're not framing it well enough for a complete non-expert. So if you ask, like, would they understand this? If they don't, you have to find a simpler way to describe it. Draw on a different analogy, break it into smaller pieces. If they wouldn't know the words, they're from a different generation, they're not familiar with the technology or the specialty that you're talking about, If they don't know the words, then they won't understand what you're talking about. So you need to use more common language. And if you're not being respectful, well, we should be respectful. So if the answer to this is no, then we need to change that and be respectful in all our communications. I want to give you an example of this. I'm imagining that I'm talking to my grandparents about the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Now, maybe you are completely comfortable with what these 2 differences are, what these 2 different things are. Maybe you have no idea what the difference is, you think they're the same. Wherever you're at, I'm aiming to explain these 2 things to you in a few sentences in a way that passes the grandparent test. So nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is how the atomic bomb works, and it's what's happening inside nuclear power stations today. Nuclear fission is how we get energy from power stations. Sometimes people call it fusion, but it's not. Technically, it's called fission. Now, the way that fission works is we take one big atom and we blow it apart into smaller pieces, and that lets out energy. We turn that energy into electricity. So one big thing, break it into smaller pieces, energy comes out. Nuclear fusion You start with two small things, and you smash them together and create something that's bigger, and energy comes out. So in both cases, energy comes out. But fission is blowing something up; fusion is smashing things together. Now that is here ends the description. That explanation should pass the grandparent test. They're familiar with what an atomic bomb is. They know that there are nuclear power stations. They know what an atom. Is, or most people know what an atom is. If I was talking to a 6-year-old, they might not know what an atomic bomb is or what an atom is. They might not be familiar with any of these words or really understand nuclear. So, by— if I'd used the child test, I'd have a much limited range of vocabulary, and then I would have to have explained what an atom is, and I'm then drawing out my explanation and making it harder To get my point across. Whereas the Grandparent Test, I've got more words I can use. I've got more life experience I can draw on, and I can explain 2 things in a way that they will understand. And the same thing is true for you and whatever your expertise is. So remember, if you are an expert and you are talking to a non-expert, use the Grandparent Test to keep your message simple.
