{"id":7686,"date":"2026-04-20T09:43:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T09:43:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7686"},"modified":"2026-04-20T13:43:46","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T13:43:46","slug":"how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get People to Listen When Talking about Business Insights"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paul Friedman<\/a><\/p>\n

Scholars need to make their work intelligible and appealing to people outside their academic circles for politicians, businesspeople, and other decision-makers\u2014as well as the public\u2014to understand and deal with the social and economic issues facing the country. Academy of Management Scholar Howard Aldrich<\/a> of the University of North Carolina argues that it will require researchers to implement different ways of communicating facts and evidence so that non-academics can glean actionable business insights from their findings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the U.S., most people don\u2019t get a very strong economic education,\u201d Aldrich says. \u201cAnd then on top of that, there are lots of sources of disinformation, which makes it much easier for people not to put their heads around discomforting facts or try to figure out which stuff is accurate.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Aldrich, there\u2019s nothing new about this, even if new technologies such as generative AI make disinformation and deepfakes harder to identify.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople do tend to gravitate toward the sources of information that already support what they\u2019re doing and reinforce their opinions,\u201d Aldrich says. \u201cThere are few people willing to expose themselves to information that doesn\u2019t go along with their preconceived notions and beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey turn to the information that they feel comfortable with, and that\u2019s always been the case,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a comfortable thing to have people telling you what you believe anyway, and they\u2019re just adding more fuel to the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aldrich has some unconventional thoughts on how to expose people outside of academia to unfamiliar facts and challenging ideas. Instead of speaking in academic jargon, professors and researchers need to find a way to communicate that makes use of what people already know. For example, they can highlight what is most compelling about the research findings and weave a yarn that appeals to people\u2019s emotions or captivates them in some way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would be very happy if, when people got tenure, the next thing they had to do was figure out a way to take what they\u2019ve done in the pages of academic journals and turn it into something they could write for the popular press,\u201d Aldrich says. \u201cWe could ask them to take their work and build a bot that uses evidence-based findings from scientific business management research and turns them into the kind of prose that characterizes the books on airport bookstands.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell ChatGPT to write a novel based on your business research,\u201d he says. \u201cWrite books that are not just addressed to the people reading the journal articles\u2014widely appealing books without the hype, without the puffery, without the outrageous claims, but rather are full of stories or full of anecdotes, and things that are practical, useful, applicable behaviors.<\/p>\n

\u201cScholars have to figure out how to talk to people who didn\u2019t go to business school.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Friedman Scholars need to make their work intelligible and appealing to people outside their academic circles for politicians, businesspeople, and other decision-makers\u2014as well as the public\u2014to understand and deal with the social and economic issues facing the country. Academy of Management Scholar Howard Aldrich of the University of North Carolina argues that it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343,20,71,29],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[842],"class_list":["post-7686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai","category-careers","category-communicating","category-emotions"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Get People to Listen When Talking about Business Insights - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scholars need to make their work intelligible and appealing to people outside their academic circles for politicians, businesspeople, and other decision-makers\u2014as well as the public\u2014to understand and deal with the social and economic issues facing the country.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Friedman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Paul Friedman\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c798773d2b2b451f04d76dea2233ddd1\"},\"headline\":\"How to Get People to Listen When Talking about Business Insights\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-04-20T09:43:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-04-20T13:43:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":486,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/09\\\/listening-to-business-insights-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"AI\",\"CAREERS\",\"COMMUNICATING\",\"EMOTIONS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-to-get-people-to-listen-when-talking-about-business-insights\\\/\",\"name\":\"How to Get People to Listen When Talking about Business Insights - 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