A doctor once told me something I’ll never forget.

“The secret to being a good doctor,” he explained, “is the right combination of three things: clinical knowledge (CK), work ethic (WE), and communication skills (CS).”

“Most medical students think the formula is: CK + WE + CS. If you have enough of the first two, you can get away with poor communication skills. But in reality, the formula is:

Doctor ability = (CK + WE)^CS.”

If your CK and WE are 1000 but CS is 0, you get a score of 1. But if CK and WE are 10 and your CS is 50, your score becomes 1.1 * 10^65. That’s a huge difference. Good communication skills trump everything else.

Clearly you still need some level of clinical knowledge and work ethic. 1^100 is still 1. But a strong CS will take an average CK and WE much further than the inverse.

It makes complete sense. Clear communication is crucial for ensuring plans are understood, questions are answered, and building rapport between teams. If you fail to achieve these things, it doesn’t matter how strong your clinical knowledge or work ethic is: your potential to treat a patient is diminished.

I think this idea applies outside of medicine as well. Knowing what to say is often less important than how and when it is said. We’ve all seen instances where a quiet team member fails to make their brilliant idea heard, advice that is given too readily or aggressively, and jokes which only work because of the delivery. The problem is rarely in the content but rather how it is communicated.