Transcript

Matt Abrahams

#UC-Transcript

Srini Rao:

All right, Matt, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Matt Abrahams:

I am super excited for our conversation today. Thanks.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, me too. So you have a book out called Think Faster, Talk Smarter, which is all about spontaneous communication. And as I was saying before we hit record, I think it's about so much more than spontaneous communication. I think there's invaluable lessons for all sorts of communication scenarios in this book. And given the subject matter of the book, I wanted to start by asking you what social group were you a part of in high school and what impact did that end up having on where you've ended up and what you've ended up doing with your life and career?

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, so I was early in my thank you for this guy haven't I've rarely talked about this, but I as a freshman in high school, I was very concerned about gosh, what group do I fit into and the place I was at we there were lots of clicks lots of groups. I actually eventually was somebody who was a floater. I was able to float into the group of the the smart kids but also the kids who were you know, into sports and into the clubs.

I was never in the jocks group, never have, never will be, but I was someone of those people who could sort of float among the groups and to this day still stay close with many of my high school friends from all those different groups. So I was able to sort of blend in and have lots of friendships and learn lots of things from all of them.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. So what is it about certain people that enables them to be like that, like social chameleons? Because my sister was like that too. And I was just a band geek and I realized, you know, I went, like, I find my high school experience to be one of the things that is just so forgettable that I remember telling a friend and I, you know, I was staying at my parents' house after my sister's baby was born and I matched on a dating app with a girl who I'd gone to high school with. So I went and met up with her and

I told her, I was like, yeah, honestly, I wouldn't care if the school burned to the ground. Not realizing that she was the president of the alumni association. Talk about a spontaneous communication blunder, but I honestly wouldn't because my parents moved me after freshman year. So like, it's this weird experience where I don't really have any affinity for the place. But certain people I feel have this almost inherent ability to be a social chameleon and navigate social groups. Like my sister is like that. You throw her into any situation, she can make friends.

Matt Abrahams:

Oops.

Srini Rao:

Where do you think that comes from?

Matt Abrahams:

So I'm going to answer your question, but I want to know how you handle the situation on that date, because that's an exact situation where a lot of the stuff I talk about in teach comes to play. So I think, go ahead, please. Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Well, yeah, I'll tell you. Well, OK, so I explained my logic behind it and I told her about the fact that, you know, having moved out for freshman year, I didn't have a lot of friends. So it's just kind of one of those things that was really temporary to me. And I had, you know, a band director who kicked me out of band. He made me hate the thing I loved the most. And so she was pretty understanding. But there were three more dates after that, by the way. So, you know, it was but it was just funny that that would be the thing that I would say to the person who like literally is.

Matt Abrahams:

Okay, alright, alright.

Srini Rao:

working with the city to raise money to improve the school.

Matt Abrahams:

Absolutely. But I think the recovery that you had there and the honesty and the disclosure is what helped you get through that. And that's often something that can help in these spontaneous moments to get to your question. So I think there is, you know, a demeanor personality component to it. There are people who are willing to take the risks and the rewards that come from being open and like that. But also, I think fundamentally in the work that I've done in self -reflection,

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Being really curious, being a good listener, being willing to give feedback that is beneficial to people. I think those are all traits that are communication based that help people navigate those circumstances with more ease than others. So I do think there's a biological component, personality component, but I also think there's skills that we can all learn to help us move in an agile way among different groups of people.

Srini Rao:

Well, my joke is that like I had to read a thousand books into a thousand interviews to develop the skills that my sister was born with.

Matt Abrahams:

Right, right. And I think, but that's a great example of the ability to learn it. Now, I'm hoping that the work I do can expedite it. So it's not a thousand books and a thousand interviews, but yes, I do think it can be learned.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, I think that the other reason I'm so curious about this period in particular is adolescence is like complicated enough as it is, right? Like you're finding yourself, you're figuring yourself out, you're insecure about everything. I mean, like I'm thinking to myself, God, if I were like this when I were a teenager, I would be popular. But when I was a teenager, my parents were the most awful people on the planet, you know, and I was just angry all the time. I mean, yeah, it's just puberty.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Ha ha!

Matt Abrahams:

Sure. Yeah. So, uh, you know, teenage years are really tough. And when it comes to communication, teenage years can be really challenging. And now that we have technology that we do, it makes it even more difficult. But the early teen years is where we see a lot of anxiety around speaking develop. We see people, uh, really get, uh, self -focused in terms of their social status and rank among their peers.

Srini Rao:

Hmm?

Matt Abrahams:

And it's really challenging and it is there that I think we really do need to target helping people with these skills so that they can feel better and do better, not just in high school, but beyond.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, speaking of beyond high school, so what is it that led you here to doing this work that you do and to being a lecturer at Stanford?

Matt Abrahams:

So I actually had a very formidable event happen in high school. I was first day of freshman year, Mr. Meredith, the English teacher, had everybody stand up and go around the room and say what we did that previous summer. Many people have had this experience. At the end of the class, he came up to me and said, Hey, Matt, you're good at this talking thing. Those were his words. You need to be my representative at this speech tournament coming up this weekend. Each teacher had to send somebody to the school district's speech tournament.

And I was like, okay, I'm a freshman teacher told me to do this. I'm going to do it. I show up this early Saturday morning, seven 30 in the morning. I'm tired. You know, my pants don't fit right. I, my dad had to tie my tie. I show up in this room of my friends. The girl I liked is in the room that my friend's parents are the judges for this. Nobody really wants to be here. I'm giving a speech on karate, which was important, still is important to me. My teacher, the only advice he gave me is.

Talk about something you're interested in and start in a way that gets people's attention. That's all he told me. So I'm going to, I do this speech on karate. I'm so nervous. I forget to put on my karate pants. I'm just in the slacks that I had worn. You can see where this is going. The first 10 seconds of my 10 minute speech, I do a karate kick to get everybody's attention. I rip my pants from zipper to belt buckle in the first 10 minutes. Um, I, in the first 10 seconds of the 10 minute speech,

Srini Rao:

Hahaha!

Matt Abrahams:

It is at that moment that I really became interested in the impact of anxiety on speaking and how to be more confident. It was an awful experience. I managed to recover somewhat, but I really believe that it is at that moment that my interest in what I do today was born. It is something I learned and studied in school, went to graduate school, and I worked in the corporate world for a decade and saw the impact of good communication and bad communication on people's career trajectories.

And then I had the good fortune just to start teaching and through the teaching I did in the research I did, I was able to end up where I am today and I love what I do. And it's a, it's great privilege to teach the students I teach and to host the podcast I host and all of that.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, first I gotta ask you, like, tell me what happened after the pants were torn. Did you just do, did you finish the speech?

Matt Abrahams:

I did so my there was another teacher from my school. She was the newer teacher. So she's the one that had to chaperon us at 730 in the morning. She very astutely threw me her sweater. She had a sweater. She took off her sweater through it to me. I tied it around my waist. And I didn't know what to do. So I just finished the speech. And I think because of the pity that all the judges had and just the shock, they gave me you know, the best in that round.

And so I ended up doing well, mostly because I just got through it, I think, not because the speech was very good. So I ended up doing well in that event. It has been an amazing story to tell. My friends who were at that event still to this day talk about the time I ripped my pants in front of everybody. So years later, it's a great story. But I really do believe it did help me focus on this area because it was a horrific experience.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, I was really fortunate to have a ninth grade band director who took me under his wing. And I, you know, like I made all state band multiple times and all this other jazz. But the thing that I think I took from that, that actually influenced me as a speaker writer, he made a point. He said, look, when you make a mistake, especially as a musical performer, he said, nobody knows it other than you. He said, if you dwell on it, you will start to basically, you know, spiral.

And he's like, the audience has no idea that you've made that mistake. And I remember like I was a featured soloist my freshman year. And there's one thing that I was literally like, if I get this one thing right in the entire piece, I'll be good. And it was like this really high note and on a two, but you can imagine how hard that is. And I cracked it. Nobody knew. And everybody clapped right afterwards. I was like, yeah, okay, cool. Um, well, I, I never get out of any conversation without an edu, with an educator, without talking about the current state of education and, and, you know, what.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

It looks like what's wrong with it, how we reinvent it. Like I always joke that I'm a failed byproduct of a system, but you know, you are at all places, one of the most elite universities in the world. And I think this really ties well to this idea that you talk about in the book where you say many of us grow up saturated in a culture that emphasizes performance, parents, teachers, mentors, bosses, and coaches, and others pound in the message that there's a right way to do things and doing it right is good.

And I can't think of a more fitting place where that is true than in an elite university. So talk to me about your perspective on what's good about this, what's wrong with it, how do we improve it?

Matt Abrahams:

Well, I'm going to push back on you a little bit. I think one of the things that makes Stanford and the business school in particular, where I teach, unique is we actually encourage our students to disrupt and to innovate and to challenge the system. And we provide them lots of opportunities to do that. And one of the great joys of being there is adding fuel to that fire and then providing tools for people to then take this innovation and communicate it with others.

So I do think it's possible to have in a fairly regimented system, education is fairly regimented, very useful ways of encouraging students to be innovative and to challenge the system. And our students keep us on our toes and that's part of why I love it so much. This notion of perfection though, is something that many of us carry with us.

in many things we do, but especially our communication, we want to do it right. My students want to do well in their classes. That doesn't mean that they're not also being innovative and disruptive with ideas beyond what we teach. But this notion of being perfect really drives a lot of our anxiety and our concern around communication. And the reality is this, and you know this, there is no right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways.

So rather than focusing on perfection, let's focus on the true function and meaning of communication, which is connection. We want to actually help somebody learn something. We want to empower somebody. We want to challenge somebody. So it's about the other person. So if we can dial down the volume on perfection and focus rather on connecting and finding ways to collaborate, we actually improve the interaction and achieve our goal better. So.

Srini Rao:

Mm -hmm.

Matt Abrahams:

It's a mindset shift that actually helps us tremendously.

Srini Rao:

Well, so, you know, I understand your pushback. I think that you're right. But if you think about it, like you want to talk about a group of people who has literally been conditioned to perform at the highest level for their entire life. I know this because I was a Berkeley undergrad and I had friends at Stanford. That is literally that's how they're conditioned from the time they're growing up. Like, you know, I grew up in a family where nobody put your report card on the fridge for days. It was like, great. They only asked why you didn't get a why if you got a B, which is.

Matt Abrahams:

Right.

Srini Rao:

Pretty standard, I think, for any type of student who ends up in a place like Stanford, especially if they had Indian parents.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, so I mean there there certainly the students want to do well and they have done well in their previous experiences that have led them to us but still they they they see the value of loosening and letting go of Perfection, I mean on the very first day of class I start every class by saying the goal in this class is to maximize your mediocrity and you should see their jaws drop. I mean, they're just what the

Srini Rao:

Yeah, I can imagine.

Matt Abrahams:

dumbfounded by what that means. But the point behind that is if we are striving to be perfect, we're preventing ourselves from actually achieving our goals. So if we actually say, hey, we just got to get this done, just be mediocre, that actually frees us up to do things really well. And once our students can make that switch, flip that switch, they actually end up.

Communicating much better and taking a lot of pressure off themselves It comes down to a cognitive bandwidth issue if you are constantly judging and evaluating what you are saying against some Rubric of perfection you're limiting the cognitive bandwidth you have to actually do the connecting that you want and so by learning to turn that volume down you free up extra resources to connect better and it's a lot of fun and You you become many more things become possible to you?

when you dial down that perfection volume.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, well, I guess the natural follow up question to that, I think people are probably thinking, okay, great, how do I dial down the perfection volume?

Matt Abrahams:

Right. So you have to change your attention. Your attention focuses on the other person. So it's more about, are they getting my message? What can I do to help them learn and understand rather than getting caught up in your head saying, am I saying this the right way? Is this the right word to use? Are they seeing me as somebody who's, you know, the right person to be saying this? So it's really about turning your attention outward rather than inward.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, it kind of reminds me of that sort of experience. Like in the landmark forum, they do this. You get to the end of like landmark forum, like you're going to this massive breakthrough. And you know, it's like, you know, sitting there thinking for 30 minutes, and then you begin to realize, wait a minute, you're thinking, you know, about what other people are thinking about you. And you finally realize, oh, everybody is so absorbed in their own heads that they don't actually care about me as much as I think.

Matt Abrahams:

No, exactly right. I mean, in psychology, they call that the spotlight effect where we all walk around feeling like there's a spotlight on us and everybody's looking at us. But if you were to zoom out, you would see everybody else has their spotlight shining on them and there's very little light shining on you from the other people. So we need to we need to remind ourselves that not everybody is looking at us the way we think they are.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Well, let's start this. How, how do we end up being so bad at this in the first place? Because, you know, to your point, I think you were very fortunate to have had that high school experience, but you know, how do we end up so bad at this? And then how did you end up developing this entire framework? Because I think as I clean it out to you, I think what struck me most was how much, how well this was structured in terms of really simple acronyms and really clear ideas that all made complete sense. I mean, I'm a podcast host, so a lot of this was kind of intuitive to me. Um,

Matt Abrahams:

Mm -hmm.

Srini Rao:

But I mean, that's all been learned through thousands of interviews, but how do we get so bad at this in the first place? Like, why is it that we don't learn this earlier?

Matt Abrahams:

Well, so I think part of it is one, people think you're either born with it or you're not. I mean, we sort of talked about that at the beginning where your sister is one way, you're another way. And we just carry that around with us as like, I'm just not the person who's got the gift of gab. And in fact, you can change it. I've seen this in my own life. And then the people I coach and teach, you can get better at this. So one reason we're bad at is, is we feel like, you know, that's just who I am. So we don't actually try to work on it to improve.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

We put a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves in these situations and it makes it worse for us. We see these situations as threats and challenges. We want to be perfect as we talked about. You add onto that the anxiety that many of us feel speaking in any situation planned or spontaneous. And that really sets up this recipe of making this really challenging. But just like an athlete who practices and drills and tries new things out,

you can get more agile and be able to do this better. The irony of this whole work is that you actually have to prepare to be spontaneous. And in so doing, you free yourself up to be pretty good at it.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, that I thought was kind of one of the interesting paradoxes about so many of the things that you write about here. But let's actually get deeper into this idea of maximizing mediocrity. Because I think the thing that struck me most in this section is when you say to up our communications game, we don't need to banish in full of our use of heuristics. Rather, we want to become more aware of the mental shortcuts we habitually take learning to tune them out or turn them off at times so that we become more agile and adaptive. So.

First, can you explain what you mean by using heuristics, so people have a more concrete picture, and then talk about how that contrast to what you're talking about here in terms of spontaneous communication.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, absolutely. So a heuristic in the sense that I'm using it is nothing more than a mental shortcut that we use to help us get through the decisions we have to make and the awkwardness that often happens in our interactions. So for, for example, let's imagine you had a bad day and you come to me and you share something that didn't go well for you. You know, I have a choice to make. I can really dive into that conversation, really try to help you.

Or knowing that I'm busy and you've got lots going on and I've got an appointment a few minutes. I can simply invoke a heuristic. I simply say, you know, well, it is what it is. Right. These are just these mental shortcuts that help us in these sometimes challenging situations that we rely on. The benefit is they are quick and they often solve the short -term problem of what do I say in this moment? The downside is they lock us into a particular way of thinking.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

And they don't open up to the possibility of what is really needed in the moment. Let's take another example. We come out of a meeting together. You turn to me and say, Hey, Matt, what did you think? How did that go? I click into my heuristic. He wants feedback. And I start itemizing all the bad things that happened or the things we could have done better. Had I taken a moment to step away from that immediate heuristic processing, I might've noticed that you didn't make eye contact. When you asked me that you spoke in a lower tone than you really did.

Maybe what you needed in that moment was not feedback, but you wanted support. And the fact that I clicked into my heuristic processing for when I hear somebody asking for feedback, I actually might have done damage to our relationship and certainly not helped you in that moment. So we need to recognize when we bring these heuristics to bear, I'm not saying get rid of them. I'm simply saying, note that you're almost about to default into that heuristic mode.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

And think, is that the most appropriate thing to do in this moment? You know, all the work I do is really guided by this principle of turning habits into choices. We do a lot of our communication out of habit. And for many of us, we've been successful. So those habits have served us well. But sometimes those habits lock us into a way of communicating where we miss potential to connect, to teach, to learn, et cetera. And that's really what I'm talking about in that section.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, I noticed this with friends who are coaches. Like, you know, if I'm having a challenge in my life or something is going rough and I, and you know, I'm just like, I don't want your advice. Just listen to me, bitch about this problem. That's it. Um, and I realized sometimes like you're right. One of the cruelest things we can do to people when something, when a bad thing happens to a good person, it's almost cruel to default to advice. And I've noticed that coaches tend to do that. They go into coaching mode.

Matt Abrahams:

Mm -hmm.

Matt Abrahams:

Right, right.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and that's what makes them successful. They are coaches. And so they, that's what, where they feel comfortable. But all of us have those modes we click into, you know, I have two kids and I click into parenting mode. When I step into my classroom, I'm in teacher mode and we need to think to ourselves, what does that mean to be in that mode? And there are many positive things. It means when I'm teaching, I'm very focused on my students and I'm learning is important, but there are a whole bunch of heuristics that click in as well.

And sometimes those can actually counteract. And what I do in my own life to help me manage my heuristics is I empower people around me to share, you know, Oh, you know, my kids are great at this and they love it. Kids love giving constructive feedback, at least mine do. And they'll say, dad, you're being a dad again, or that's dad mode, right? And that really helps me say, Oh, you're right. You know, I'm going into lecture mode because that's my heuristic. When you do something, I jump into that mode. So you can use others to help you with this.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, I was going to ask you when you mentioned kids, like, you know, anytime I talk to somebody who's a therapist, it's always like, I'm like, are you immune to all the shit that normal parents deal with, like teenagers who are assholes and all this other stuff, because you're an expert in this? Like, does this help with your kids? Or are they like, it sounds like they're like, you're going into dad mode. Like I've asked therapists, do you ever have your kids say, stop being a therapist and just be my mom?

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

So I do, I learn a lot from my kids and it's a crucible for testing my communication skills. My younger son can do an amazing impression of me and when he goes into the impression of me, I learn a lot because he exaggerates the things I do. So it's actually been helpful. Yeah, and I make all the mistakes that I coach people not to. I say more than I need to. I jump into emotion and all of this.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

So it is an area where I learn a lot. And my wife, you know, I teach listening skills and my wife gets just, she just gets really frustrated. You practice what you teach is what she'll say. So yeah, I mean, we all have to learn, we all have to develop, but I think our families are good venues for us to really see what works and what doesn't work in terms of our communication styles.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Well, let's talk about this yes and idea, which I know is something from improv. I think we had one of the guys you mentioned in your book from Second City who wrote that book with Kelly Leonard. I don't even remember the name. Maybe it was called Yes and. Yeah, yeah. So I remember having him as this, but tell me about this Yes and idea in more detail because I like looking at it on the surface that makes sense. And I realize a lot of us don't consciously even think about doing this.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, yeah, it was. Yes. And yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, so you know, I love improv. Improv is fantastic for so many reasons. It's not about being funny. It's about being in the moment and responding to what you need. It's about collaborating with those around you. And improv has these amazing principles that I love and they reward them in such a way that's just fascinating. My favorite is don't just do something, stand there. I love that improv principle because it tells us...

that sometimes the most effective thing you can do in a communicative interaction is listen. Many of us feel like we just have to jump in and speak, but by far the most famous principle from improv is yes and, and in the terms of spontaneous speaking, what yes and empowers us to do is to look for areas of commonality and collaboration. Many of us feel in these spontaneous moments, like when somebody asks us a question or asks us for intense feedback, we feel threatened and challenged.

And we get defensive and that changes how we speak, what we say, our tone. If we look for areas of commonality and connection, that changes our demeanor. We open up, our tone is more collaborative. We say more. So even in the harshest of situations, let's imagine you and I completely disagree on a situation and you throw a really spicy question at me. It's all about the way you see it versus the way I see it. In that moment, I could.

Choose to get defensive or I could also say to myself, you know, in this moment, even though we completely disagree on our approach to this, the thing that we have in common is we both care a lot about it. And I can lean into that. Yes. And of our caring to maybe find ways that you and I can collaborate. Maybe we won't come to an agreement, but we can come to an understanding. So when you take this yes. And mindset, it leads you to be more collaborative and open than it does to shut down. Now I'm not saying you always say yes to everything.

Srini Rao:

Hmm.

Matt Abrahams:

anybody who's got teenagers knows that's a bad idea, but it's a, it's just a fundamentally different approach that can enable this type of communication.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

You're kind of making me think I'm like, wow, you heard my conversation with Charles Duhigg about dealing with my mom. I'm kind of like, I wonder if I try the yes and approach every time she pisses me off that would work.

Matt Abrahams:

Well, I would challenge you to actually try it a little bit and see I I certain I mean I have issues with people in my life as well and I do try this yes and approach and at least it it brings me more present and it makes me think differently about the way I'm approaching the situation. So try it and see I mean, I don't know that it could do any harm.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, I think that segues nicely into what you say next, which is that we often miss opportunities during spontaneous encounters to look for signs of what others around us are thinking, feeling and needing. Often we miss these opportunities due to noise, physical, physiological and psychological. And I am just thinking to myself like the physiological, like I can just feel myself getting irritated when my mom tells me something that I just can't like, you know, get to that point. So talk to me about how we deal with these issues of physical, physiological and psychological noise.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, so physical noise is the noise in the environment. You know, as I get older, it's harder to hear. So the first thing to do to manage that is just get yourself in an environment where you can actually hear in the physical distractions are fewer. The physiological noise is what's going on in your body. Are you tired? Are you hungry? Are you nervous? Are you hangry? And we need to understand and respect that, you know, anybody who's ever been a parent of a small child, you pay.

Vigilant attention to these physiological needs. It's like oh the the kids cranky. Well, they need their nap We forget to do that as we get older, right and we think you know, gosh, this person is just a jerk Well, maybe it would be better to have the conversation after lunch rather than after the fifth meeting before the person's eaten a meal So these physiological things if we start thinking about it in our own lives We know we perform better when we have sleep or not nervous, etc And then so we can arrange the interactions accordingly

And then similarly, psychological noise, that's what goes on in our head. So it's the judging, it's the evaluating, it's the questioning, and that can get in the way. And we need to remind ourselves that if we're really having a meaningful moment with somebody, the being more present, listening to for the bottom line, not just for the top line, that can change all of that noise in our head that gets in the way that chatter can be very distracting. So we just have to realize that one, we're not the best.

Listeners were not as good as we could be and we can silence some of this noise physicals psychological and physiological And and that can really help us to be more present and to actually achieve our goals

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, the other thing that struck me is when you talked about slowing our pace to practice active listening. And of course, the part that caught my attention was like, oh, dating. I'm like, I'm single. I'm like, so that's why I was like, okay, tell me how I use this in a context of like approaching a woman.

Matt Abrahams:

So I don't often talk about this but my graduate thesis was on flirtatious communication. I was actually published in the Journal of Sex Research for this work. And the reason I was interested in flirtation is exactly your situation. I was interested in getting dates. But more importantly, I was fascinated by how we use ambiguity in our communication. And flirtation is a perfect example of how we're ambiguous towards our goals.

So how do you do how do you listen better in in these circumstances perhaps to to ingratiate yourself to others or really to make yourself attractive for a second interaction really what that's what flirtation is a lot about So to listen you have to be curious and to listen you have to support what other people are saying those who study conversation Identify two different types of turn -taking that happens in conversations. There are supportive

Conversation turns and switching turns and you as a podcast host a very good one by the way are good at managing between the two of these if all I do is Every time you say something switch it to be about me. I sound very selfish But if all I do is be supporting and always come back and try to ask more about what you're saying then I look like I'm deflecting and hiding so we have to balance those out and what academics have found is

If you can make roughly two thirds of your conversation being supportive where I ask you more about what you're saying and one third switching to something that's more important for me, then that's a nice balance. So part of it is being mindful of the turn taking you're having part of it is being genuinely curious and then giving the person space to answer. A lot of us because we're nervous and flirting situations or in small talk, we interrupt or we jump in too soon. My

Mother -in -law had a black belt in small talk in this notion of listening and her magic was three words Tell me more if you simply ask a question or somebody responds and you pause and then ask them to tell me more You are showing that you're interested You're giving them space to talk and this breeds trust and liking so try that next time you're on a date Get a conversation going say tell me more manage your switching versus supporting and see how that goes

Srini Rao:

Okay, well, I want you to tell me more about how it worked for you in terms of, you you hadn't studied this. Did you end up getting dates? Obviously it must have worked, you're married.

Matt Abrahams:

Uh, and in fact, I met my wife in graduate school while I was studying flirtation. She would tell you, I'm a lousy flirt, uh, not good at implementing. And you have to realize I'm old. This is back way before we were swiping left and swiping, right? We had to do the heavy work of actually speaking to people and figuring out, you know, we didn't get their profiles served up to us. Uh, but, uh, I, it was a fascinating thing to study. And at the time there was very little research on flirtation and it was interesting to help.

define what we mean by flirtation and what the goals of it are.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, it sounds like you should write another book about that. I think you'd have a pretty big audience for it.

Matt Abrahams:

Yes, well, strategic ambiguity in general is something I do want to study more for sure.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Wait, tell me more about that. Yeah. I'm not going to let that go. Strategic ambiguity. What do you mean by that?

Matt Abrahams:

So thank you. If you think about it, most of us feel that our goal of communication is to always be clear. And in many circumstances, fidelity is the goal. I want to make sure what I said is clearly what you heard. But there are several instances in our communication where we are purposely ambiguous. Think of a politician speaking. Think of a deceptive act where you don't want to come clean that you did something. Think of politeness. I'll give you an example. I am a really bad

cook. I you don't want to eat the things I make. I invite you over to dinner, you try my meal and I come to you and I say, what do you think? How was that? Well, you could be brutally honest with high fidelity and say, Matt, that sucked. That was awful. Worst thing I've ever had. Right. But that would probably hurt my feelings. And you're a caring person, you probably wouldn't do that. So you'll say something wonderfully ambiguous. ambiguous. You might say, I've never quite tasted anything like that before. Which to me might I might hear, oh, great. Do you want more? And you're thinking like this tastes like dog

You know, so we use ambiguity a lot in challenging situations and I'm fascinated by that. I'm fascinated by how we achieve goals through ambiguity, not just through fidelity.

Srini Rao:

Well, it makes me think of some of the things that Robert Greene wrote about in the art of seduction. He has an entire chapter on the art of insinuation. And like, I realized that that's kind of where ambiguity plays a huge role in flirting.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, absolutely. We yes, I mean in flirtation, we don't want to risk our ego. We don't want to be shot down. So I might say something ambiguous to give myself cover for having to make a clear point. And that happens a lot, not just in flirtation. It helps. It happens in influence. It happens in deception and negotiation where we don't want to declare our intent overtly.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

But we want to hint at it or make invitations to it to see how the other person responds. And then we move forward from there.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, let's talk about structure. This piece on structure was one of my favorite parts of the book because I realized here that this had a lot more to do. This was about far more than just spontaneous communication. It made me think about how I write email newsletters. You say the structure doesn't impede spontaneous communication, it enables it. And then you go on to explain the boundaries. So talk to us about structure and where people go wrong with it and what they can do to improve their communication with structure.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, thank you.

Matt Abrahams:

Absolutely structure is critical to all effective communication Our brains are wired to take in information that comes to us in a structured way We are not good with lists and itemization of information many people when they speak especially when spontaneous They take us on a journey of their discovery of what it is They're saying while they're saying it and they just itemize and list things and our brains just can't encode that well in fact, I'll ask you I

How many things do you need to buy from the grocery store before you actually need to write it down? For me, it's three. How many for you?

Srini Rao:

Good question. I don't know. I try to avoid grocery stores. I get everything on. Well, I try to I get everything on on but you're right. I probably about three or four.

Matt Abrahams:

Okay, all right. Well chances are it's not

Matt Abrahams:

Right, right. We were just not good at processing lists. We are good at things that have a beginning, a middle, and an end, a logical connection. Our brains are wired for story. In fact, we call long -term memory episodic memory. We encode things as episodes. Everybody is familiar with structure. If you've ever seen a television advertisement, you have seen the structure of problem, solution, benefit. Most advertisements say there's some issue, challenge, or problem out there. Here's how our product or service solves it.

And here's how you're going to benefit. That's a structure. It connects things together. It packages it up nicely. When we communicate, if we leverage a structure, it helps us prioritize what to say and it helps our audience to decode what we're saying in a really easy way. And so a lot of the work I do is exactly what you've highlighted is let's pick certain situations and identify specific structures that can help.

This is not the only way to communicate in these situations, but it is an A way and a way you can default to. So when you're in that moment and you're put on the spot and somebody asks you a question, you know how you're going to answer it because you know the structure, the recipe, you just have to think about the ingredients you put into it. So it makes it easier for you. That's the power of structure.

Srini Rao:

Well, so you go on to talk about stories and, you know, in the interest of doing something completely selfish since I have you here, as I read this section on structure and stories, I'm in the middle of writing a launch sequence for a product. So since I have you here, I'm going to get you to help me and we'll get a concrete example out of it. You say that the best stories don't simply impart information, they make it meaningful and lightening and energizing in the process of simple communication takes on a life of its own. So let's use an actual situation where we talk about this.

Matt Abrahams:

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Sure.

Srini Rao:

I have an autoresponder sequence or a launch sequence for a product called Maximize Your Output with Mem. Mem is this note -taking app that I use that basically allows you to, it's a self -organizing workspace, so there's no folders, nothing. You literally can capture everything very easily, find anything when you need it. And so I was literally thinking, I was like, how do I take what Matt has written about here and layer it over this entire launch sequence?

Matt Abrahams:

Great. So I have a structure that I really love and I like it because it is, is like a Swiss army knife. You can use it in so many situations. It's three simple questions. What, so what, and now what, what is the information you want to get across? So what is why it's important and now what is what you'd like people to do differently? And it sounds like this could be really helpful for you with what you're doing. So let me coach you through it if that's okay. So,

What is this mem thing that you want? So describe it to me in one or two sentences. Mem is what?

Srini Rao:

Well, here, I'll describe it to you. Just imagine if every single idea you've ever had, every piece of knowledge you've consumed, everything you've read, every insight you've captured from the books you've read, podcasts you've listened to, was not only available at your fingertips, but useful and you could take action on it instead of just simply storing information.

Matt Abrahams:

Perfect. Okay. So you've just told me what it does. Why is this so important to be able to help us do this? I love by the way, the imagine framing. I have a whole structure for pitching that relies on that. Uh, but I, I like that start. So why is this important? So you can what?

Srini Rao:

Mm -hmm.

Srini Rao:

So you can reduce information overload, improve your attention span, and not spend tons of time multitasking because the way that most people manage knowledge work, it's like going to three different grocery stores to buy the ingredients for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It'd be kind of ludicrous if you're like, I'm going to go to one store to buy bread, another to get the peanut butter, and another to get the peanut, the jelly. But that's exactly how we manage knowledge work. It's like some information is in your inbox, some information is on a website, some information is in some other note taking app or task management.

Matt Abrahams:

Perfect. Well done. So that's why it's important. And I see that and I see myself in that. And then the now what is what would you like people to do next? So is it try it? Is it go download it? Is it a gimme input about how this might help you? So what's the now what?

Srini Rao:

One.

Yeah, I guess the now what is the, you know, the course that we have maximize your output is the solution to the problem. So while you, as I'm talking to you, I'm thinking it's like, oh, okay. So the first emails are kind of introducing the what like kind of saying, this is, you know, the current state of like the way that most people operate.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, exactly. So, so do you see, so I love what you just said there because this shows the power of structure. It helped you think in prioritize about what you're saying and the channel in the, in the mechanism that you're using. So structure not only helps package it up in a way that's easy for somebody to digest and perhaps in turn, be able to talk to other people about it. A lot of times when we communicating, we're equipping others to take that information and then cascade it.

Srini Rao:

Mm -hmm.

Matt Abrahams:

And if you package it nicely, it's easier for them to do, but it also helps us prioritize and think about the channel and sequencing, et cetera.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, okay. So, you know, I think that that makes complete sense. You also offer another framework, which is the situation task action result. And I was, when I read this, I kind of laughed because there used to be these things called vault guides. I don't know if you remember those, depending on when you went to college, like, uh, and they were to prepare for job interviews. And I realized I'd mastered this whole thing, but it was all a total act because I could, I like, I would kill it in the job interview and I was always terrible at the job.

Like I was the ultimate bullshit artist. It was kind of crazy, but I recognize this and I can see what, where, you it makes sense, but can you explain like, you know, what context this would be useful in? And, you obviously you don't want people basically lying to get a job.

Matt Abrahams:

No, certainly not. No, I believe being authentic and truthful are really important. Uh, for sure. You're referring to another, uh, structure. This is not one that I came up with. It's one that's very well known. It's the star structure, situation, task analysis results. People often use this to answer questions. I think it works well. I happen to have a structure I like better for answering questions, but when it, the thing I like about star situation, task analysis results is it helps you.

In advance of going into an interview for a job or any other situation where questions might be coming It helps you to think about how I might Pre -think or stockpile some things i'd like to talk about I don't believe in in memorizing for for anything spontaneous But if you're going into a job interview, it certainly makes sense to think about well, you know somebody's going to ask about my qualifications or my my abilities in these areas and you can think about how I might

Answer that and some examples I might use to support it So if you know you're going to use a structure like star you you think in advance of okay if somebody asks me about my the my my thoroughness or my detail orientedness I'm gonna give this particular example to show it and that's helpful because just like a cook Prepares the ingredients in advance, you know If you have a recipe and you have your ingredients in advance already prepared. It sure makes cooking a lot easier

And that's what techniques like STAR and others can help you prepare for.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, you got me. You know, as you were saying that I was thinking about the heuristic for my own interviews. And I remember I described this to somebody once I was like, okay, there are two metaphors that I think of when I think about interviewing people. The first is an onion. And the job of an interviewer is to just keep peeling layers until you get to the core. The other was surfing because I would have a surfer. I was like, okay, a conversation is basically like a wave. And a lot of people don't know this. But if you watch surfers surf, they're not riding straight to the beach. They're riding parallel. And the reason they're doing that is they're adjusting to whatever the wave is doing. And.

Matt Abrahams:

Yep. Yep.

Matt Abrahams:

Mm -hmm.

Srini Rao:

I realized that that's basically my interview structure in a nutshell is question, listen to the answer and ask a question about the answer, which basically frees me from ever having to, that's why I never have a scripted list of questions.

Matt Abrahams:

Right. No, exactly. And that's exactly another feature of structure is it gives you a roadmap. You know, I've used the analogy of a recipe, but it's also a roadmap. It sets you on a course. And if you know the direction you're going, then you can make adjustments as you need to along the way.

Srini Rao:

So you wrote about the Apple 1000 songs in your pocket. And I remember this immediately caught my attention because I was thinking, OK, wait, I got to figure out how to apply this idea to my course. But I can basically take my AI tool and have it basically take this. But I loved the fact that you said that this tagline, 1000 songs in your pocket, accomplished several tasks at once, evoked consumers' previous challenges, distinguished the iPod from the competition, and conveyed practical value.

In five simple words, and I'm like, OK, that sounds amazing. How the hell do I do that?

Matt Abrahams:

Well, this notion of being clear and concise is critical. Many of us say much more than we need to. And, you know, I firmly believe that the most precious commodity we have in the world today is attention. And we need to make sure that we get people's attention and we sustain it. And sustained attention is what I call engagement. And so it is critical that we be very clear and concise. And many of us aren't.

My mother has this wonderful saying, tell the time, don't build the clock. And many of us are clock builders when we communicate. So how do you do it? Couple things. One structure helps structure helps you focus. Second, being very clear on what's needed by your audience in the moment. Being audience centric is really helpful for communication. So I don't just broadcast what I want you to know. I have to think about what's important for you and how to tailor my message by focusing on relevance.

by having a structure and having a clear goal and to me a goal has three parts information emotion and action what do I want my audience to know how do I want them to feel and what do I want them to do having a goal having relevance and understanding your audience and having a structure help you be focused so that you can make sure you're clear and concise and I'll just add one more piece to this we also have to not use jargon and acronyms in language that's confusing.

because that gets in the way of us being clear and concise as well. And if you put all those together, you're very focused. And that particular example of the iPod does that very well on all these fronts.

Srini Rao:

Well, let's talk specifically about small talk because you say small talk might seem trivial, but it can deliver big results. You say it can help us forge newer, deeper connections with others. It can give us a chance to test out potential relationships and it can establish or reinforce our personal relationships. And then you say, finally, it helps us see whether anyone in the room might share personal, professional goals and aspirations. So tell me more about this. Cause I think that like, you know, most people, when they think about small talk, it's like this thing that's dreadful. You know, it's like you go to a networking event or something like that.

And I think they dread this idea of like, why are we making small talk?

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah. So I think small talk gets a really bad rap. I think really big things can happen during small talk. We just feel really awkward. So we, we, we try to avoid it. So small talk gives us opportunities to learn about ourselves, to learn about others, to find ways of collaborating. I often challenge people and say, I want you to think about your broader friendship network, not the online friends, but the ones you actually interact with in person.

How did you meet them? How did you connect with them? And invariably some high percentage of our friendships came to us through small talk and chit chat. So it valuable things happen, but we feel very awkward and uncomfortable primarily because we don't know how to start it, how to end it, how to, how to keep it going. And it really boils down, I think, to one guiding principle. And I learned this on my podcast. When I interviewed this woman named Rachel Greenwald, Rachel is fascinating. She is an academic and a professional matchmaker.

And she has this mantra that really guides small talk. And it is very simple. Be interested, not interesting. The goal is to be interested, not interesting, which means we have to reframe how we see it. It's not a tennis match where I'm, I'm trying to serve some amazing line over the net and score. Rather, it's like hacky sack where I'm trying to just pass the ball to you. So you pass it back to me and the goal is just to keep it off the ground. And it works really well if we do it together. So.

how you frame it really helps. And then it's all about just being curious and asking questions and commenting on things in the environment. And when you do that, it can move the conversation forward. And it is, once you get it started, it takes on a life of its own and it gets much easier.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. One thing I think I'm wondering about, and this is kind of related to that, how do you recover from certain blunders? I'll give you an example, and this was really like, we were really fortunate in this situation. I said something on a podcast when somebody interviewed me, and one of my business partners, he told me, he's like, I know you well enough to know there's no way it came across like that. He's like, you recorded it, right? And he said, play it back. He was like, holy shit, this is a PR crisis in the making. You sound completely.

completely misogynistic in this. And I immediately emailed the host back. I was like, you cannot air this. Like half my audience is full of women. And that was not my intention, but you know, thank God she was willing to do a second take. But you know, like I realized that when you're in the public eye, what you say matters a lot. You don't have the luxury, you know, even if, you know, we have presidential candidates who don't understand that to just say whatever the hell you want. Because I realized like when you like everything you do in

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

the public eye is scrutinized and amplified. Like 10X what it would be otherwise. Like I was on a reality TV show and one of my cousins who's a media attorney basically said, look, the release doesn't matter. He said, they can do anything they want to make you look stupid in editing. Your job is to give them zero ammo they can do that with.

Matt Abrahams:

Mm -hmm. Yeah, no, absolutely. And yeah, I worry about, you know, technology and what it means to make us look even worse. So when it comes to a faux pas, they come in different flavors and varieties, right? Sometimes we'll misspeak and the best thing to do is just to keep going. I like to refer to coach K Mike Szechevsky's.

work that he did with his, his basketball players, he would teach this notion of next play, keep moving. If you sit in the moment and ruminate and judge and evaluate everything that just happened, you're missing what's coming next. So we have to make an immediate decision. Is the mistake I made is what I said significant enough that I need to address it or do I just keep going? And many of them just next play is the right thing to do. Just keep going. Now, clearly if you say something that's offensive, that's hurtful,

then we need to apologize and we need to apologize publicly and quickly and apologize not for how you made the person feel but for what you did. You know, many of us say, I'm sorry you feel bad. No, I'm sorry for what I did that made you feel bad. So, and in the book, I talk about apologies. So this notion of making that decision is really important. And often we feel like we only have one swing at the bat often in communication and that's not true.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

So if I'm running a meeting and I make a mistake in the meeting, I can send out an email to everybody after the fact and say, you know that data point I talked about, it turns out it's a little different than I thought. So we feel like it's all or nothing. And in fact, often it isn't. Certainly if we are hurtful or harmful, we do need to manage it right in the moment. And many times just keep moving on is the right way to do it. I have this way of framing mistakes that I like.

Many of us dread mistakes, but we know as little kids that's how people learn we learn through mistakes But I like to look at mistakes as missed takes in television and in movies They do multiple takes of the same scene. No one take is is wrong. They're just looking for different ways of doing it So if I say something that didn't come out the way I wanted or was misinterpreted I can simply say to myself mentally take two and I can try again. I could use an example a story and

to come back to that notion, to make the point I wanted without beating up on myself and ruminating and making a bigger deal out of it than it needs to be.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, let's talk about feedback because I think that if there's any place where feedback is critically important, incredibly difficult, as you probably know firsthand, it's in creative work. Like, you know, my red and coach Robin, you know, we had her as a guest. I always joked, it was like feedback from her was like an emotional root canal. But I always had to, like, it took me a month to stop taking her feedback personally. And I remembered I had to remind myself, I'm like, right, I am paying her. I literally chose her because she said she would be tough on me.

Matt Abrahams:

Right. Feedback is really tough. It can be tough to hear, it can be tough to give, but it is so important. It is how we get better, it is how we connect with people, it's how we demonstrate and do some of our relating to others. So feedback is really important. I am a big fan of Kim Scott and Radical Candor. I think that approach is really good. Kim is a neighbor and a friend and we talk a lot about this.

But one of the big things around feedback is you need in your life and in your interactions You need to be giving feedback all the time not just constructive feedback But positive feedback because when feedback is centered in a relationship of feedback It's very different than the once of year you get your performance review and this is the only time you hear any constructive feedback and when it comes to Receiving feedback. It's really important. I think to internalize it and you do that

By saying here is what I heard you say. So you paraphrase it to make sure you're clear and that you demonstrate that you understand. Not to say that you agree. There's a big difference between understanding and agreeing. But that's when it comes in, acknowledge it. Here's what I heard. And then that gives you time to think about how you want to respond. In terms of giving feedback, you know, we've talked about this before. I believe in structure and there are lots of useful structures.

for giving feedback to help you focus it and make sure that it's relevant for your audience.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, well, I know you gave us the, the four I framework that I thought was really well, like I thought, wow, this is actually a really great way to think about feedback. And I'm imagining at a certain point, you're probably not thinking in your mind. I'm on step with information. Now I'm on impact. It just probably just happens almost intuitively, right?

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah.

Matt Abrahams:

Right. As with any of these structures, the more you practice it, the easier it gets. So the four eyes for giving feedback are quite simply four eyes. And I like it because it refers to like glasses, four eyes. It makes you look more carefully and closely at it, but we're actually talking about the letter I. So first it's information, define what you're giving the feedback on and don't just jump in and say, Hey, I'm talking about the thoroughness of your work impact and the impact to you as the feedback giver.

So I feel or I think that you're not prioritizing this in that way. Then the invitation. And I believe feedback is an invitation to problem solve. Now, certainly there are some feedback you have to give that's just, you must stop this. It is wrong and bad. But the majority of our feedback is really an invitation and have the other person help us solve the problem. And then finally it's implications, the consequences. So those are the four eyes and it helps you think through how to structure the feedback that you're giving.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, as I'm thinking about this, it kind of just brought back in the memory. So I had a mentor who is incredibly instrumental in everything that I've done. I mean, he's the one who came up with the name on Mistakeable Creative, but we're going through a tough period in 2014. And I remember there were days when his feedback was like just beyond harsh. I was just like, you know, every day I would like dread my weekly calls with him. It took me a long time to realize what he was doing. He was basically preparing me for higher stakes situations and like basically telling me he's like, you're acting like a teenager.

And it was tough to take at the time, but what I realized looking back, I was like, wow, what you want to hear, you know, sounds good. What you need to hear is.

Matt Abrahams:

Yeah, I think that's a really useful structure and I think that's a useful way to approach that. And I'm glad you had somebody like that in your life. We all need people like that in our lives to help us get better.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's finish this up about by talking about the apology piece because I know you said, you we have, you know, sort of structure here as well, in which you give us sort of what you call these three A's, acknowledge, appreciate and amend. So talk to me about that. Like, you know, when we need to apologize, how do we think about this?

Matt Abrahams:

Yes, so apologies are very important and we need to make sure that we consider doing them when they need to be done. Many of us, it's hard for us to admit we've done something that was offensive to others. So the first step of, so I call it AAA, like roadside assistance. You start with acknowledging what you did. So I might say, I am very sorry.

That I cut you off in the important meeting and I inserted my point of view while you were still speaking So I'm acknowledging what I did and it's clear that I snow and recognize it I then appreciate how that might have made you feel I might say I I'm sorry if that made you feel like I wasn't valuing your opinion or if I embarrassed you because you you weren't able to finish your thought and then the amends are what you're going to do differently so I might say I

Next time we're in a meeting. I certainly will let you finish speaking In fact, I will be sure to paraphrase what you say before I add my contribution So the triple a approach of acknowledge appreciate and make amends gives a clear concise apology That demonstrates you recognize what you did its impact on the other person and what you're going to do to correct it and this then initiates hopefully a conversation where you can discuss

what transpired and how you can fix it in the future. So by giving a complete concise clear apology, you actually set yourself up for a better interaction in the future.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been absolutely amazing. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our interviews at the unmistakable creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Matt Abrahams:

I really think something that makes people unmistakable is their focus and concern and curiosity with other people. Communication, the root of the word communication is to make common. It is about connection and concern about other people. And the people who are unmistakable in my life are the people who take the time to care, to connect and to collaborate. In other words, the people who really focus their communication outward.

That to me is what makes us unmistakable.

Srini Rao:

Beautiful. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom, and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, the book, your work, and anything else that you have to?

Matt Abrahams:

I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Thank you for taking me back to different points of my life, my childhood, my, my grad schoolwork, uh, Matt Abraham's .com best place to go to to find what I do. The podcast I host think fast, talk smart is all about communication skills. And finally, I'm a huge user of LinkedIn would love to connect with you there as well.

Srini Rao:

Heheheheh

Srini Rao:

And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that. Fantastic.

Matt Abrahams | How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot

Matt Abrahams

Candid Conversations: Elevate Your Thinking with Masters of Their Craft