Chief Change Officer
#312 Mark Bayer: From Research to Relevance—Helping PhDs Get Heard (and Hired) — Part Two
Sun, 20 Apr 2025
Mark Bayer spent 20 years in the U.S. Congress shaping major policies and managing high-stakes communication for senior lawmakers. In Part Two, Mark gets practical—breaking down the actual tools and mindset shifts PhDs need to thrive in the private sector. From his 11 Keys to Translating Complexity (complexitymadeclear.com) to why metaphors matter more than models, he shows how scientists can go from overlooked to unforgettable. Plus, what AI can’t do—and why your human voice still matters more than ever.This one’s for anyone who’s been told their skills are “too academic.” Turns out, they’re your superpower—if you know how to use them.Key Highlights of Our Interview:The “11 Keys” Framework“Shakespeare said, brevity is the soul of wit. But it’s also the start of strategy.”Wake Words and Brain Wiring“Our brains tune into the unexpected. Use that to your advantage.”Crossing Cultures & Languages“Being bilingual helps you distill ideas—and respect your audience’s world.”The Real Meaning of Connection“You have to connect before you communicate. That’s not soft—it’s strategy.”AI Can’t Replicate Your Voice“AI pulls from old ideas. Your job is to bring something new, human, and surprising.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Mark Bayer --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.15 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>150,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Mark Bayer and what is his background?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today's guest is Mark Bayer, former US 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 tune out after the second sentence. Let's get started.
Chapter 2: What are the biggest communication challenges PhDs face transitioning to the private sector?
pointed out some of the under-trained 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?
Chapter 3: What is the '11 Keys to Translating Complexity' framework?
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 complexitymadeclear.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 U.S.
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. Spears 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 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 want me to use, it isn't exactly the thing that I'm talking about. 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 a 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.
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 shop minds over the years,
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Chapter 4: How can PhDs leverage their academic strengths in non-academic careers?
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.
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 referenced, the blood, sweat, and tears that went into years and years of training, and then you're just going to leave off the PhD and your resume because somebody told you that an employer, say, at a big company, at an investment house, whatever it is, will see that and think, oh, this person's too theoretical or Somehow that training isn't relevant.
Chapter 5: Why is curiosity and tenacity important for scientists in policy and industry?
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? Now, that's a question that scientists ask all the time and are aware of. But if you were to ask that in a briefing on Capitol Hill with all these policymakers, there might be a silence.
Because they wouldn't 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 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 ability 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 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.
I totally agree. And take the example you mentioned, the woman from China who went to Johns Hopkins and Chicago. One thing that really stands out about a person like her is the cross-cultural skillset 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.
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Chapter 6: How does cross-cultural experience become a hidden superpower for PhDs?
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 hidden superpower that often gets overlooked.
I'm so glad you mentioned that because there are a couple of different levels as to how that's a strength from my perspective. And so I, as 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?
Chapter 7: What role does being first-generation college graduate play in communication skills?
We talked 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, the 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 focus on verbal. 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 questions.
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 wanna 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.
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Chapter 8: How does bilingualism enhance communication and translation of complex ideas?
and also that are accurate give a reference point and really help illuminate what they're doing so you can imagine that 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 referenced, 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 U.S., 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.
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.
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