Laws of Professional Communication (IEEE)

IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 45, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2002 291

The Three Laws of Professional Communication

Interface Index Terms—Asimov, audience, laws, noise, principles, redundancy,robots, signal.

—Feature byJEAN-LUC DOUMONT,SENIOR MEMBER, IEEE

Manuscript received May 9, 2002;revised July 23, 2002.The author is withJL Consulting,B-1950 Kraainem, Belgium(email: [email protected]).IEEE DOI 10.1109/TPC.2002.805164

Isaac Asimov,The Complete Robot.London, U.K.: HarperCollins, 1983.

Fantasy stories, whether magictales, science fiction, or others,are often strikingly inconsistent:wizards, aliens, and othermarvelous or monstrous creaturesseem to be endowed with largelyad hoc powers. Even celebratedepics such as Lord of the Rings,best selling novels such as HarryPotter, or famous television serialssuch as Star Trek leave the criticalreader or viewer with an uneasysense of illogic: “Well, if he has thepower to do that, why didn’t heuse it in this other case?”

One science-fiction author,however, stands out for the logic ofhis narrative and, especially, theconsistency of his robot stories.Isaac Asimov’s robots indeedhave “positronic brains” that aregoverned entirely by three “laws ofrobotics” (Fig. 1). These three lawsare enough to explain the behaviorof any robot at any time in any ofAsimov’s novels or short stories.Far from restricting the possibleplots, they are the building blocksof rich, complex, varied scenarios.

The search for simple,fundamental, “atomic”

constituents to explain complexphenomena is, of course, atthe heart of science: physicalchemists have establishedthree laws of thermodynamics(Fig. 2); physicists are lookingfor elementary particles andfor fundamental interactionsbetween these particles, etc. Thescientific slant in Asimov’s literarycontribution should come as nosurprise: Asimov was an AssociateProfessor of Biochemistry at theUniversity of Boston School ofMedicine before retiring to full-timeauthorship. In turn, the number oflaws, three, is no surprise either:the shaping of knowledge intoaxioms and principles is but aconstruction of the mind, and aset of three simply communicateswell [2].

The search for fundamental laws,unfortunately, has seldom, ifever, been applied to professionalcommunication. Most how-tobooks on the subject seem contentwith long lists of phenomenologicalprinciples. Useful as each of thesemight be, a long list of them willalways be hard to assimilate, atleast without some perception ofa simpler underlying logic. Even

Fig. 1. Isaac Asimov’s famous “three laws of robotics” appeared explicitly for the first time in his short story“Runaround,” first published in , March 1942 [1].

0361-1434/02$17.00 © 2002 IEEE

292 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION, VOL. 45, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2002

acclaimed guides such as Strunkand White’s Elements of Style [3]offer no less than 11 rules of usageand 11 principles of composition,globally numbered from 1 to 22.Such a succession of 22 itemsnot otherwise structured into ahierarchy is hard to comprehendand hard to remember.

This article, then, proposes threefundamental “laws of professionalcommunication,” on the model ofAsimov’s three laws of robotics. Itmotivates them on the basis of asimple premise, illustrates themwith examples of oral, written, andgraphical communication, anddiscusses their precedence andtheir subordination to a zeroth law.

GETTING MESSAGES ACROSSCommunicating professionals andprofessional communicators alikerather readily agree that effectivecommunication is about “gettingmessages across.” This robuststarting point nevertheless leavesus in need of two definitions: whatdoes “getting across” mean and,especially, what is a “message”?

The expression “getting across”necessarily implies an audience,an “other person”—a statementof the obvious that we too easilyforget when this audience isout of sight, as when we draft a

Fig. 2. The three laws ofthermodynamics can be expressedin many different ways; here is asimple one.

written document. It also suggeststhat we get our audience tounderstand something. Whileunderstanding is usually centralto communication, it is but onecomponent of the process. Toensure understanding, we firstneed to get our audience to payattention to our content. In turn,the audience’s understandingis usually but a means to anend: we may want our audienceto remember the content, to beconvinced of it, or, ultimately, toact or at least to be able to act onthe basis of it.

Similarly, a message can beseen as differing from rawinformation in that it presentsintelligent added value, that is,something to understand aboutthe information. A messageinterprets the information for aspecific audience and for a specificpurpose. It conveys the “so what,”when the information merelyconveys the “what.” It thus differsfrom information the way thatconclusions differ from results ina research paper. As an example,the statement “our sales droppedby 15%” is information, perhapsthe result of a bookkeepingconsolidation exercise; it conveysno message. By contrast, theconclusion “we should advertisemore” is a message: it clarifieswhat a sales drop of 15% meansfor the marketing department. Fora different audience or purpose,the same information can leadto a different (if compatible)message, for example “we shouldimprove our product” to the designengineers.

Getting a simple message acrossis hardly a challenge. Difficultiesbegin when the messages to conveyare either numerous (quantity) orcomplex (quality), especially whenthe situation moreover carriesnumerous or severe constraints.Among such constraints arespace (a 150-word limit on anabstract), time (a 15-minute limiton an oral presentation), andaudience (background, motivation,language, culture, etc.).

Effective communication canthus be seen as an instance ofoptimization under constraints(Fig. 3). We try to maximize, notwhat we write, say, or draw, buthow much our audience gets outof our documents, presentations,and graphs, in quantity or inquality—all this with a specificpurpose in mind and underspecific constraints. Because ofthese constraints, we cannotbe perfect. We can, however, beoptimal.

The notion of optimization underconstraints applies, of course,to any professional activity.In a sense, its application toprofessional communication isalready self-evident. Even so, it isthe premise on the basis of whichthe three laws can be establishedand motivated.

FIRST LAW:ADAPT TO YOUR AUDIENCEA straightforward embodiment ofthe idea of getting messages acrossis a Shannon-like communicationmodel (Fig. 4), displaying me,my audience, and the channel(or possibly the coding) betweenthe two. The model, clearly, issimplistic; for example, it suggestsone-way communication, withno feedback from my audienceto me. Yet it satisfactorilydescribes at least part of thecommunication process. Insynchronous processes, such aspublic speaking, it matches formal

Fig. 3. The three laws ofprofessional communicationcan be established on the basis of asimple premise: optimization underconstraints.


presentations, when the speakerspeaks and the audience doesnot interrupt. In asynchronousprocesses, such as written orgraphical communication, itdescribes the designing anddrafting (or drawing) part, beforeany audience feedback. Withall its limitations, it still allowsone to derive useful principlesthat engineers, among otherprofessionals, can easily relate to.

The first law of professionalcommunication, ADAPT TO YOUR

AUDIENCE, is one of empowerment:it states that I should takeresponsibility for the success of myacts of communication. Indeed, tooptimize under constraints, I mustidentify what is and what is notunder my control, and, of course,concentrate on what is. As aconsequence, if I want to optimizethe communication, I am the onewho should adapt, simply becauseadapting to my audience is anaction under my control whereastheir adapting to me is not. Takento an extreme, this first principleimplies that, if the audience doesnot get the message, it is my fault(or, more positively, my problem),not theirs. Perhaps more simply, ifI am the one who wants somethingfrom my audience (our premise),then I should be the one makingthe effort and not the other wayaround.

Adapting to my audience alsosuggests that, if one strategydoes not work, I should tryanother—again, an apparentlyobvious statement that we so easilylose sight of. If the audience did

Fig. 4. If I want to optimizewhat my audience gets out of thecommunication, I must adapt tothem.

not understand what I said, merelyrepeating is unlikely to help: Imust rephrase. As the saying goes,if I always do what I always did, Iwill always get what I always got.

The first law may seem instinctive.Spontaneously, for example,we do not address childrenthe way we address adults: weadapt. Yet failures to adapt areamazingly frequent: teacherswho stick to what they hadrehearsed—no matter whetherstudents pay attention, no matterwhether students understand, nomatter whether students developskills—are simply not adapting totheir audience.

SECOND LAW: MAXIMIZE THESIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIOThe model used so far (Fig. 4) isideal: it suggests that informationsent from one side reaches theother side intact. In practice,however, information falls victimto interferences, perturbations,atmospherics—in a word, noise(Fig. 5).

Noise is more than unwantedsound: It is anything that candistract the audience. In oralpresentations, it can come fromthe room (audience memberscoming in late or chattingamong themselves, a noisy airconditioner, mobile phones goingoff), from the visual support(irrelevant clip art, dazzling colors,hard-to-read fonts), or from thespeakers themselves (verbalhesitations, a constantly fast rate,meaningless gestures). In written

Fig. 5. To prevent losses, I mustfilter out the noise and increase thesignal.

documents, it can come from thetext (inconsistent paragraphs,complicated sentences, faultyspelling), from the page layout(unclear structure, inconsistenttypography, unusual fonts), orfrom the illustrations (too manydetails on a schematics, too manyrules in a table, too many tickmarks on a graph).

Noise can be a major impedimentto communication. In oralpresentations, numerous fillerwords such as “um,” “er,” “youknow,” “I mean,” or “like” cantake the audience’s attentionentirely away from the messages:as students, many of us tallied ourprofessors’ filler words rather thanlistening to the content of theirlectures. In written documents,language mistakes can be just asdistracting. Those of us who valuecorrect language may quickly findthemselves on the lookout forthe next mistake rather than forthe next message. In graphicalcommunication (visual aids,page layouts, graphs), noise canshift the attention from contentto technology: when we startwondering what software producedthe graph rather than whatexperiment produced the data, weare probably missing the point.

Noise can be fought in two ways:It can be filtered out, or it can becompensated for with an increasedsignal. If outside noise comesthrough an open window, I canfilter it out by closing the window.If residual noise comes through theclosed window, I can speak louder.The ratio between signal and noiseindeed matters more than eithersignal or noise alone: up to a point,we easily tolerate a continuousbackground noise, and tend tonotice it only when it disappears,so that the signal-to-noise ratiosuddenly increases.

The second law of professionalcommunication, MAXIMIZE THE

SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO, is oneof contrast: it recognizes that,in communication, nothing isneutral. Audience members see


and hear everything, so everythingmatters: whatever does not helpus (signal) hinders us (noise), ifonly by diluting the message. Thesecond law is thus close to Tufte’swell-known recommendation tomaximize the data–ink ratio ingraphs [4].

Clearly, the most satisfyingapproach to contrast is to reduceor eliminate noise: breaking thesilence in a whisper is morepleasant than covering the noisein a shout. Recognizing thatnothing is neutral, we should thusquestion the relevance of anythingwe plan to include: gestures inan oral presentation, words ina written document, lines in agraphical display. To improve atext or a graph, we may be betteradvised to suppress, not add. Byremoving every unnecessary dropof ink, we ensure that the audiencepays attention to nothing but themessage.

THIRD LAW:USE EFFECTIVE REDUNDANCYThe second law is a preventionprinciple. It assumes that wecan anticipate noise and eithereliminate it or make the messagestrong enough to withstand it.Sometimes, however, noise cannotbe predicted, and losses ensue.If an open window slams shutbecause of a gust of wind, audiencemembers may not hear what I sayat the time; moreover, they may notlisten to what I say immediatelyafterwards, for their attention iselsewhere: for example, they mighttry to recall if they have left anywindow open at home.

The third law of professionalcommunication, USE EFFECTIVE

REDUNDANCY, compensates forthe losses resulting from noise.In a sense, it recognizes that“saying things once” is usuallynot enough. “Saying” thingsseveral times, moreover, cansuggest both repetition withinone channel and duplicationacross channels (Fig. 6). Mererepetition or duplication, however,

is suboptimal: if we are going to“say” something several times, wemight as well say it in differentways. Phrases such as “advancereservations” and “oval in shape”are ineffectively redundant.

Opportunities for effectiveredundancy abound. An oralpresentation can usefully includea preview, to outline the upcomingstructure, and a review, to recapthe main points before concluding.Moreover, messages can beboth stated by the speaker andillustrated on slides. A writtendocument can similarly include anabstract or executive summary,telling the whole story again, yetwith a different point of view orlevel of detail. It can also revealits structure through the pagelayout, the set of headings, andthe preview paragraphs. A graphcan convey the same informationthrough both shape, color, andlabel, as in a stop sign [2].

Effective redundancy worksthrough both compensation andcollaboration. First, each channelor coding gives the audiencea chance to get the message.Colorblind motorists may notidentify the color of a stop sign asred, but they can read the label“STOP.” If the sign is covered withsnow or mud so the label is hidden,motorists can still recognize it byshape. By offering several chances,effective redundancy helps not onlycompensate for the effects of noise,but also address inhomogeneousaudiences. Second, all channels orcodings work together in synergy:color, shape, and label, when all

Fig. 6. To compensate for losses, Imust be redundant, within or acrosschannels.

identified, complement each otherfor faster recognition.

What constitutes a differentchannel or coding is partly a viewof the mind. Even though they areboth verbal codings on the samepaper medium, the text and the setof headings of a document can beviewed as independent channels,used for different purposes. Whenlooking for a specific part of thedocument, we indeed flip throughthe pages and read the headingsbut not the text. When we havedecided to read a documentlinearly, we read the text and skipthe headings, as evidenced by thefact that proofreaders typicallyoverlook blatant typos in headings.The situation is perhaps clearerstill for incoming electronic mail:we often decide to read the bodytext on the basis of the sender’sname, without reading the subjectline; later, we may decide to fileor delete on the basis of subject(and sender), without reading thebody again. Redundancy betweensubject and body is thereforeessential.

Whereas redundancy is adeliberate choice, the multiplicityof channels or codings is not.Whether they want it or not,speakers physically facing anaudience communicate throughwhat they say (the verbalcomponent), how they say it (thevocal component), and everythingthat they let the audience see aboutthemselves (the visual component).If any of these components escapestheir control, it can carry noise or,worse, convey messages that workagainst their intent—an instanceof cognitive dissonance.

ZEROTH LAW:HAVE A PURPOSEThe preceding three laws ofprofessional communication, likeAsimov’s three laws of robotics,have an order or precedence.Strictly speaking, the second lawshould state to maximize thesignal-to-noise ratio, except wherethe resulting levels would conflict


with the first law. For example,a car radio playing pleasantlyloud on the freeway may seemunbearably loud at a stop sign,when the noise level is muchlower. The signal-to-noise ratio isnow so high that it is no longeradapted. In a sense, it introducesa new form of noise (saturation),so perhaps the explicit referenceto the first law is unnecessary.Similarly, the third law shouldstate to use effective redundancy,as long as such redundancy doesnot conflict with the first or secondlaw. As a counterexample, a slidedisplaying text conflicts with whatthe speaker is saying, for theaudience can only process onestream of text at a time: it is noisefor those who want to listen (or,conversely, the speaker is noise forthose who want to read). Of course,such redundancy would clearlybe ineffective, so, here again, anexplicit reference to higher orderlaws seems superfluous.

Interestingly, most systems oflaws, such as the laws of roboticsor the laws of thermodynamics,eventually add a “zeroth law,”capturing a principle so obviousthat it had long been overlooked(Fig. 7). The premise to our laws ofprofessional communication canbe turned into a zeroth law, too:define your purpose or, almostequivalently, have messages.

Applying all three laws requiresthe motivation to optimize thecommunication, and there canbe no motivation without a clearpurpose.

CONCLUSIONThe three (or four) laws ofprofessional communicationsuccessfully underpin any of mytraining programs on speaking,writing, or graphing. Becauseof their immediate analogy withelectronic transmissions, theyobviously appeal to participantswith a technical background.Interestingly, they seem to workequally well with nontechnicalaudiences. I believe the reason forthis success is that they constitutea simple, objective, logical basis:I have not met anyone so far whodisagreed with them. By contrast, Iknow many (including myself) whoresist recommendations presentedas dogmatic, such as “write shortsentences” (why?), even when suchadvice is claimed to be supportedby empirical research.

The three laws, fortunately,are rarely at odds withmainstream advice on professionalcommunication. Often, though,they motivate the advice differently.As an example, I often hearpublic-speaking consultantsrecommend to vary the tone, rate,

and volume of the voice “to keepthe audience interested.” I findthis motivation unconvincing, asI do not want my audiences tobe interested in my voice, butin my messages. The three lawswould recommend to vary thetone, rate, and volume of the voice,too (so they carry a signal), butaccording to content (for effectiveredundancy)—stressing importantparts or slowing down for complexones. Same advice, differentmotivation.

The three laws have served mewell for many years, and I cannotbut hope that they serve youwell, too. Still, I do not doubtthat professional communicationcan be usefully approached byalternate sets of laws, the sameway that a given mathematicalobject can be described equallyaccurately in different coordinatesystems. Effective laws, no doubt,have characteristics in common:they are simple; they are few; theyare self-sufficient.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTThe author would like to thankAlan Manning for encouraginghim to write this article, followinga presentation he gave atthe International ProfessionalCommunication Conference inSanta Fe, NM, in October 2001.

Fig. 7. Systems of laws often evolve a “zeroth law,” capturing an obvious or implicit premise.


REFERENCES

[1] I. Asimov, The Complete Robot. London, U.K.: HarperCollins, 1983.[2] J.-L. Doumont, “Magical numbers: The seven-plus-or-minus-two

myth,” IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun., vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 123–127, 2002.[3] W. Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 3rd ed. New

York: MacMillan, 1979.[4] E. R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire,

CT: Graphics, 1983.

Jean-luc Doumont (S’90–M’93–SM’00) teaches and provides advice on professional

speaking, writing, and graphing. He also trains trainers and facilitates any process

that requires structuring and effective communication. For over 15 years, he

has helped audiences of all ages, backgrounds, and nationalities structure their

thoughts and construct their communication. He graduated as an engineer from

the Université Catholique de Louvain and obtained a Ph.D. in applied physics from

Stanford University.

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