How to Communicate With Confidence & Ease (From Harvard Business School’s #1 Professor)

Every person you know, every relationship in your life is a repeated sequence of conversations over time. So even if each of those conversations gets a little bit better, this short time that we have on the earth, everything about it is gonna get better. Communication is everything. Everything. It's a series of tiny choices that you're making at every moment of every conversation.

And you have a 4-part framework that helps us communicate more effectively. Can you tell me what the 4-part framework is? Yes, very briefly.

T stands for topics, A stands for asking, L is for levity, and K is for kindness. In my class, we do an exercise called never-ending follow-up questions.

Uh-oh. I have a feeling we're about to do this.

Do you want to try it?

Yes.

It's like we're all on these journeys looking for those magical moments of connection, and sometimes they happen. This is where real power and authority and influence come from. When we think of people who are charismatic and competent, this is what they're doing.

And that's what you're going to teach us today. That's what I'm going to teach you today. Professor Alison Wood Brooks, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

I'm so happy to be here, Mel. Thank you.

I am so excited to just dig into your research and learn everything that we can learn from this crazy popular class that you teach at Harvard Business School. But here's where I want to start. There is a person listening right now who has no time, and yet they found time and made time to be with you and me. Right now, what can the person listening expect to change about their life if they take everything that you're about to teach us and they try it and they put it to use?

If they really take what we talk about to heart, I think everything about their life could get better. Your love life, your relationship with your children, your relationship with your parents, your work, your relationships with your colleagues, what you're able to get done together, everything. Every person you know, every relationship Everything in your life is a repeated sequence of conversations over time. So even if each of those conversations gets a little bit better, this short time that we have on the earth, everything about it is gonna get better.

Wow. You just said our whole life is gonna get better. Why does communication matter so much?

Communication is everything. Everything. So really, you can think of every relationship in your life as this repeated sequence of conversations. And if you zero in on each one of those conversations, it's a series of tiny choices that you're Mm-hmm. At every moment of every conversation, and we're about to do it right now, Mel. Um, every moment you're making these choices. What should we be talking about? What should I be asking the other person about? When should we be laughing? When should we be crying? Uh, when should I ask a question? When should I share something of myself? We're making these tiny micro-decisions all the way along, and it's gonna determine what we're able to do together, what we're able to accomplish together, what we're able to learn about each other. How we talk is who we are and what we are.

I love how you framed it because I was sitting here thinking, I hope that she can help me not have so many regrets. 'Cause I think a lot of us leave a conversation, you're like, ooh, I wish I hadn't have said that, or, oh, I wish I would've brought that up. But you're also talking about the power of forward momentum.

Yeah.

By small shifts in these interactions that we have with people at work, in our love life, in our families, that can change everything. And you have earned the right to talk about this and to teach us this because you created and you teach a wildly popular and award-winning Harvard Business School course. It is called Talk: How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life. And I'm not that good with grammar being dyslexic, but I know that gooder is probably not the right word. So, but I have a feeling it's intentional. Why the hell do you call it How to Talk Gooder in Business and Life?

I have to tell you, getting that, that course title approved by the administrative— by the powers that be at Harvard is one of the greatest accomplishments of my professional life. It's sitting next to so many serious courses like Democracy in America and Capitalism in Today's Age. It was intentional. It has a few different meanings. Of course, it's grammatically incorrect, which drives some people up the wall. But there's 2 meanings. A huge part of the course is about balancing gravity and levity.

Hmm.

And so I really wanted to signal that in the course title. We're going to take conversation, we're going to take our work very seriously, but But in order to do that, we need to also maintain a spirit of play and fun. We have to have fun together, or we aren't going to feel safe, we're not gonna be able to make progress. The word gooder also is really rooted in this word good. We're going to work towards a goal of kindness. We want to be good people when we're talking to other people, and hopefully a little bit gooder.

So I want to hear the story behind what made you Why did you want to even create this course? Because if you're really thinking about it, you've got Harvard Business School, 11% acceptance rate. Aren't the people going to Harvard Business School already good at communicating?

I know. This is what everybody thinks. And, and in a way, yes, and in a way, no.

Okay.

When I was originally recruited to be on the faculty at Harvard, I was recruited to teach a course on negotiation.

And by the way, the negotiation course at Harvard is like legendary.

Yeah. Some of the— some of my colleagues were sort of the founders of this framework that is now taught at every business business school, at every law school. Um, it's really an incredible course.

Why were they recruiting you? I don't mean to be rude, but like, what were you doing at the time that made them go, we gotta have Professor Brooks here?

Um, well, I went to grad school. I went to grad school in a business school at Wharton in Philadelphia. I was obsessed with humans and people and figuring us all out, and I was a behavioral scientist. And in grad school, I spent my time studying emotions. the way that we feel on the inside, but also how we talk about our feelings with other people. And one of the places that I studied emotions was in negotiations. When you put people in these difficult situations, how do they feel? How are their feelings influencing their behavior and what they're able to do when they're negotiating?

Well, that's super cool. So this is your area of expertise. You get recruited to go to Harvard Business School to teach this course in negotiation. What happened?

Yeah, so I was there. I taught negotiation for about 4 years. It's an amazing course. You spend time practicing. Practicing in doing these role plays of, okay, you're gonna be— you're the manager of a factory and you need to negotiate and procure some of these hard things. Or, oh, now you're gonna negotiate for a new house. Okay, let's do that. Let's go practice. So you do these role plays.

Okay.

You learn great frameworks about how to do it better. But even as I was teaching this great class and I could feel that my students were getting so much value from it, I realized that we were missing something.

Okay.

When I think about negotiations, you realize, how often am I doing this? How often are you doing this? Maybe you're negotiating for a new car, a new house, or a higher salary. I don't know, maybe once every 2 months, maybe.

Mm-hmm.

And what I started to realize is like, wait, but we have to talk to people all day long, every day. And I don't think of those as negotiations. That seems like a different nut to crack.

Yeah.

And many of our students at Harvard are actually already quite strategic. So some of the lessons that we're teaching them in negotiation are pretty intuitive to them. We're taking strategic people and teaching them to be even more strategic. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I think what these people need might be, how do we teach them to be more engaging and fun and funny and interesting and dynamic and more empathic? Where's the course that can help them to do that?

And there wasn't one.

Uh, they've tried many ways over the years, and none of them have really stuck.

Okay, so you come up with this course called Talk.

Yeah.

And based on your research, why is communication so challenging for people?

Oh my gosh, communication is challenging for a million reasons. Um, when you think— if you ask me to make a list of the mistakes that people make in conversation, I would go on and on. We choose the wrong topics. We forget to raise the topics that we should talk about. We don't ask enough questions. We ask too many questions. We talk too much about ourselves. We don't focus enough on the other person. We brag, we humble brag, we give backhanded compliments. We do all of these things. The laundry list is so long, it feels almost insurmountable. And I'm, in my mind, I'm like, wait, but people can't keep all of those things in their heads all the time. What they really need is a simple framework that can help them wrap their arms around this vast ocean of complexity that is in every conversation. And when you look under the hood of every conversation, you start to realize how complex it really is.

And that's what you're going to teach us today.

That's what I'm going to teach you today.

This simple framework. Professor Brooks, before we jump into the takeaways from this class and all of the research that you've done on the science of communication, can you just Tell me and the person who's listening, how exactly does becoming a better communicator impact you for real?

Yeah, becoming a better communicator is gonna help you gain and maintain higher status.

What does that mean?

When I use the word status, what I mean is, um, likability, respect, um, power, uh, what the kids these days would call rizz, right? It's these people who have high status are the ones we admire, that we like, that have power in their groups at work, in their friend groups, their families. And so when you hear me say high status, I'm not talking about like fancy or highfalutin or what social class you're in.

Got it.

Literally in your social group, are you respected? Do you have power? Do you have influence?

Well, that's everything.

Yeah, it's everything.

Wow. So learning to be a better communicator by really taking all this science of communication that you teach at Harvard Business School and applying it means You'll have more respect, you'll have more influence, whether you're talking about in your home with your family, or you're talking about with your colleagues, or you're talking about in the classroom or the hospital you work with. We're really talking about your ability to not only communicate, but to be respected and admired by your peers and listened to.

That's right. And have a little fun while you're doing it.

Ooh. All right. Well, let's dig into all of your research. What do you think is the single biggest reason Why most people can't communicate effectively?

Probably, if I was forced to choose, the single biggest reason is our human nature of egocentrism. Uh, our—

That's a big word. What does that mean?

Yeah, self-centered. We're self-centered. We're self-focused. Our brains are built for survival. We're focused on what is my perspective, how can I stave off dangers and fears and stay alive and sort of proliferate my own life and Protect my family. And egocentric, that, that self-focus is good for survival back when we were hunters and gatherers, but in today's day and age, it also holds us back from really connecting with other people. You have to relentlessly sort of fight against your self-centered instincts to really focus on another person.

Well, that's true, because you go into a conversation sort of with that default mode of like, what's in this for me?

Yeah.

And if you're thinking about it from what's in it for you, you're probably already starting off on the wrong foot.

In a bad place.

Yes. You know, I recently read research, Professor Brooks, that every generation is getting worse at communicating. Do you think that's true? I don't know.

I don't think every generation is getting worse. I think, um, people, human beings have probably always struggled with conversation. Let me back up for a moment. And in the book, we talk about conversation as a coordination game. And a coordination game is any sort of decision you need to make independently between 2 or more people where you can't communicate. So the game of chicken is a good example where you're sort of hurtling towards each other and you have to choose, do I veer left or veer right? And both people have to choose without talking to each other. They have to coordinate. Okay?

Hmm.

So a conversation is like this game of chicken, except you're making these relentless coordination decisions. What are we gonna talk about? What am I gonna disclose about it? How are we gonna talk about it? Are we gonna be silly? Are we gonna be serious? Or are we gonna be—

Am I gonna talk about it at all? Because now when you said chicken, I thought, wait a minute, the person listening, I know me, has somebody in their life they have to deal with that they can't quite communicate with.

Yeah.

It can get very frustrating.

Yes.

And, you know, we don't even think about it. We just then start to avoid the person that we're having trouble communicating with. What do you think all of us get wrong? when it comes to communication?

Oh, so there's this— so there's this focus on the self, which starts you from a place of getting you off on a bad foot, and you're often focusing on yourself the whole way along. Researchers have sort of found consensus on this idea that failures in perspective-taking, being able to understand the other person's point of view and their mind, is the single greatest barrier to conflict resolution and to connection. And that's true at every moment of every conversation. We struggle to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling and what they're gonna say and do next. We rely on our own beliefs, our own opinions, our own feelings to guess how somebody else is feeling, and we're really bad at guessing.

You know, I've already learned something, which is I assumed, and I'm sure we'll get into it, that being a better communicator is about you speaking differently. And what you're already kind of signaling is, wait a minute, if you can't actually understand that communicating is about connecting with Yeah. And being able to stop yourself and truly step into somebody else's shoes and imagine what they might be feeling. If you can't do that, you can't communicate. Is that what you're basically saying?

That's exactly right. Because conversation is co-constructed. It's between 2 people or more. It's not a you thing. It's not— it's, it's completely separate from public speaking, which where it's like one person standing on a stage not getting a response. Dialogue is about back and forth. You take turns speaking and listening, and you don't know what your partner's gonna say next, but you're gonna have to respond to it. It's co-created. So it's really not about you. It's about you plus the other person and what you can build together.

I love that. And so you've taken a decade of research.

Yeah.

And you have a 4-part framework that helps us communicate more effectively. Can you tell me what the 4-part framework is?

Yes, very briefly. T stands for topics. A stands for asking, L is for levity, and K is for kindness.

I realize you take an entire semester at Harvard Business School to unpack the 4-part framework, but today, Professor Brooks, you are going to teach us this 4-part framework step by step.

Yeah.

So let's start with the first part, T.

T. T is for topics. So topics are the things we talk about, right? If I asked you after this recording to look back and say, what did we talk about?

You could—

your brain would be really good at organizing and categorizing. Oh, well, we first— we talked about your course, and then we talked about topics, and then this. So your brain— our brains are really good at chunking things into segments, into topics.

Okay.

Which is so helpful in practice because it means that we can use that ability to steer topics while we're talking to each other.

But don't you have to be really good at communicating in order to steer the topics?

You do not have to be good. You just— you just have to know that it's happening. And so, I think often when you say, like, top— what topic you're gonna talk about, people think about the opening topic. Like, oh—

Well, let's sort of set the scene. How would you use the T, topic, part of the 4-part framework to— let's say you're going out on a date.

Yeah.

Okay. How do you use topic to help you be a better communicator?

Anyone who's going out on a date is already thinking about what they're gonna wear, how they're gonna do their hair, what makeup they're gonna put on, where they're gonna— what restaurant they're gonna meet at, what activity they're gonna do.

Yeah. Yep.

We do all of this prep work ahead of time.

Uh-huh.

Only 10% of people think about what they're gonna talk about once they get there. You're spending so much time showering and getting dressed and making the reservation at the restaurant. At the same time, you should be thinking about what are some things that'll be fun for us to talk about once we're together? So topic prep.

Oh.

That's step number 1. Think ahead.

Wow. And you could do that for anything. You could do that if you're getting together with your family. So if you're tired of the same old, same old with your family, like, think about interesting things that you could talk about or questions to ask. How do you even teach yourself to be good at topic prep if you've never even thought about this?

You just have to start doing it.

What do you mean?

So a lot of people are very averse to topic prep, especially with people they know well. They feel like they shouldn't need to plan topics for someone that they're very close to. They'll just know what to talk about once they're together.

I'm guilty of that.

Yeah, it's normal.

Which is why we then go, how are your kids? And how is work? And what's going on?

Look at the weather.

Yes.

Oh, let's talk about the appetizer in front of us on this table. We tend to grab things that are right there in our environment that are easy to talk about.

Okay.

But it doesn't mean it's the right thing to talk about. It's not the most fun thing to talk about. A little bit of forethought. So we have research on this. We've studied, uh, people who we ask to even spend 30 seconds, 30 seconds ahead of a conversation brainstorming possible topics that they could talk about. Then we let them go and have their conversation. versus people who just walk in and have the conversation like you normally would have. The people who have prepped, even for 30 seconds, even if they don't end up raising those topics, their conversation is better. It's more enjoyable, it's more fluent, you're less anxious. You know those little panicky moments when you're not sure— you know that something's getting boring and you need to switch, but you don't know where to go?

Yes. Yes.

That doesn't happen anymore. You've got options, like, in your back pocket, in your mind, Oh, yeah, if there's a lag, I need to remember to ask about their kid who had tried out for the hockey team. Right? So you've always got an option, a backup plan for the panicky moments. Turns out, it makes the conversation much more enjoyable as well. You tend to switch topics a little more frequently, and you're more likely to land on things that are mutually interesting to everybody involved.

So, if the person listening right now is super introverted...

Yeah.

...very shy, and they're now having a panic attack about this idea of, I gotta come with topics, What is the best way to help you become good at doing this if you don't think that this is gonna come naturally to you?

Totally. I think the first thing is, don't have a panic attack. This might be the greatest tool that you've ever added to your arsenal as an introvert in your life. Because so much of why introverts feel panicked once they're in social situations is that they don't know what to say. They don't really want to approach these difficult moments. Having some topics prepped eases all of that. And once you experience the magic of topic prep in action, you're like, oh my God, this is it. I should have been doing this my whole life. For the most part, you know who you're gonna see in a day.

Mm-hmm.

You might know the specific people, whether it's your kids and your spouse, and then these— this set of colleagues, and then— knowing who you're gonna see means that you can prep topics for all of them in a personalized way.

So walk me through the day.

Yeah, okay. So we're going through the day. You wake up, you see your kids before they get on the school bus.

Uh-huh.

And you're talking to your spouse. Um, you can think about ahead of time, what are you of my kids doing today? Where— what are their pain points? What are they probably feeling excited about? What are they nervous about? What's going on in their life? Do they have band at school? Um, instead of just being like, remember your trumpet, you could be like, you know, how is band? What's going on when you're in band? How do you feel? What are you looking forward to about it? Right? Like, get— that's gonna be so much more interesting than just like, don't, don't forget your trumpet, and they rush out the door.

Then you get to work and your colleague who's kind of quiet, what's a topic that you could bring up with a colleague?

Anything. I mean, it depends on the colleague. Right? Let's imagine that it's a colleague that you love, and you are thinking about their life. Um, they just had a new child. I mean, ask about how that's going. You know, having a new child is a traumatic and dramatic thing. How's it going? Are you changing so many diapers? Whatever. Or they had a big— you know they had a big presentation last week. Um, how did it go? What was good about it? What was hard? Anything I can help you with on it?

Now, give me one for my mom and dad, because I have the same conversation with them over and over and over. How'd it go? What'd you do? How was it? How was golf? What are you doing tonight?

You know what? So my sister just did the most amazing thing with my— for my parents. She actually used ChatGPT to ask to prep topics with them.

How do you do that?

So she typed into ChatGPT, she was like, what do you think people who live in upstate New York in their 70s who have 9 grandchildren, what are the types of questions that they want me to ask them?

What?

Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, the internet knows that demographic better than we as individuals could possibly know that demographic.

I can literally hear the prompt. Every person listening, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap about everybody in their life.

Everyone in your life, you could use it to prep topics. You could even say, um, ChatGPT, uh, what do you think this colleague who doesn't really like me because of this reason, uh, and we got in an argument once about this thing and now they're mad at me, what would they want me to do? What would they want to talk about with me, if anything? It's, it's wild.

You know, you're really smart. You should consider teaching a class on this. What What's the second part of the TALK framework for communicating better?

Yeah, so A is for asking.

Okay.

Yeah, ask more questions, ask better questions.

Now you're making me panic because I don't know if my question's gonna be better. What is a better question?

You're already a great question asker. I mean, look, you've prepped topics.

Yes.

And you're asking so many questions. We're already off to a great start, Mel. Um, so what's so funny is a pattern that you might pick up on here is that in every conversation, once you're in it, it's very overwhelming. There's a— you're making tons of choices. You're trying to listen to what the other person is saying. You're trying to process it. You're trying to do this tiny creativity task of how do I come up with something interesting to say back to them? That's really hard on your brain. That's a lot of cognitive effort. So anything you can do ahead of the conversation, like topic prep, is helpful. And any sort of trick that you can have during the conversation can also be helpful. And that's why asking questions is such a superpower. You don't need to have prepped it ahead of time. All you need to do is listen to what your partner is saying and ask about it. Ask more about it.

Huh. Well, how can asking better questions or asking more questions improve connection and make you better at communicating?

Our inability to understand other people's perspectives is a huge barrier to conflict management and connection. The antidote to that That is question asking. It is a direct pathway to get what's in your head out of your head and share it with me. In my class, we do an exercise called never-ending follow-up questions.

Uh-oh. Do you wanna try? I have a feeling we're about to do this. Yes, okay.

Do you wanna try it?

Yes.

Okay, I'll ask questions and you answer, and then maybe we can switch roles.

Okay.

Okay? Mel, what did you have for breakfast this morning?

A smoothie.

Oh, what was in your smoothie?

It was this protein powder and a little bit of honey and 2 lemons that we squeezed, And then some water, and then zip it up, and then slurp it down.

That sounds so healthy. If you had your dream breakfast, would it be this protein smoothie? What would be in your dream breakfast?

Um, it depends on the day. I'm a very kind of— not— picky's the wrong word. I'm the kind of person that I eat based on my mood. So, some mornings, dream breakfast would be scrambled eggs, avocado, kimchi, Another day it might be the smoothie. Another day it might be something else.

Amazing. So you like variety. Where do you think that, like, need for variety comes from every day? Why would you be happy having the same thing every day?

I gotta share how I feel. Tell me.

Tell me how you're doing it. Tell me how it's going.

It's amazing because I can tell you're really interested. And so as every question you ask, I'm like, oh, she's really interested in what I had for— oh, my breakfast is very interesting. And so you're demonstrating that saying, in order to be interesting, be interested in somebody else.

Exactly. And you know, we both know, we have this common knowledge that I'm doing this very extreme thing. I'm asking a follow-up question every time I talked just then.

Yes.

That sounds so extreme. That sounds like a lot of questions. And it also— some of my students are like, isn't this manipulative? If you know that that's what you're gonna do, Doesn't that undermine our authenticity? Is the other person gonna actually feel like you wanna learn about their breakfast? And I'm like, guys, even if you know that's what you're doing, I still really care. I really wanna hear about your breakfast and your habits and what you, what you like. It's just a nudge to do it a little bit better.

What if you get really good at asking questions and you notice most people you talk to never ask you questions?

Listen, we've all been on that date, Mel. We've all been on a date with— we call these people ZQs.

ZQs?

Zero questions. Zero questioners. Um, my hope, and what I want to say to the people listening, is don't leave a conversation having asked zero questions.

But what do you do if you're the one who's just poured into somebody else?

Yeah.

And then it's like crickets. Yeah.

Yeah, well, as in all things in life, you don't have control over what other people do in a conversation. Reflecting about what you do have control over, like, okay, well, let's try and shift to a new topic that maybe they're more likely to ask me a question. Maybe we shift to something where you have some expertise and they know you have expertise, so they should ask you even more, that you have, um, ask you questions.

So you shouldn't, like, say something insulting back, or there's no backhanded compliment that you're teaching at Harvard Business School to say to somebody?

I know.

I know, that was kind of a joke.

Yeah.

But it is annoying as hell though.

It's really annoying. It's really annoying.

I guess you're just saying make a mental note.

I mean, when you— and in the context, let's go back to this context of dating. If you're on a date with somebody, they go a whole date, 2 whole dates, 3 whole dates not asking you much at all, that could be a legitimate reason to not keep dating them.

Well, why would you?

Yeah.

I mean, after 2 dates they don't ask you a single question.

Yeah.

I mean, I think that's a gigantic red flag.

I left a date in the middle after like 20 minutes once because—

How did you do that?

I excused myself to the bathroom. I looked right into the mirror and I was like, this is never gonna work. I can't be with someone for the rest— you can't be with someone for the rest of your life who within 20 minutes has made you feel infuriated that they're not interested in you. And so that was that.

And we all wanna know, Professor Brooks, when you walked back to the table, what did you say?

Yeah, I said, this was really nice. Um, we'll follow up. Um, good luck. And I just— I left. I did text him later, and I did give him the feedback because I did say, you know, I really was— it was a little frustrating that you didn't ask me anything about myself. I don't usually do that with people, but in that case, it just seemed like he really needed to know.

And what did he say?

I think he was like, oh, I'm so sorry.

Well, at least he said something.

Exactly.

Wow. Okay.

Still, still no question though, Mel.

But based on the fact that this is your area of expertise, what do you know about those situations where you either have a family member or you have a colleague or a boss or a friend that actually never asks anything about you? Based on the research and your experience, what is the kind interpretation of that situation?

Yeah. There's a lot that holds people back from asking questions, and it's not all disinterest. Sometimes it's, again, this self-centeredness. So there are some people who don't even think to ask questions because they're so focused on themselves and what's going on in their own mind and what they can share and dazzle you with. Other times, though, people realize they should be asking questions and they struggle to do it because they're afraid. They're afraid of being too intrusive. They're afraid that they ask something that it makes them look incompetent, like they should already know the answer.

Hmm.

And these fears are usually misplaced, but those fears do hold people back from asking questions.

Got it. That is a kind interpretation.

Yes, it is.

Where does listening fall into your 4-part framework? Because we've talked about topic selection and asking questions, but what about listening?

Yeah, it's funny that this framework is called TALK because listening is the glue that holds it all together. It's so very important. I know that you have attention challenges. I also have attention challenges. Turns out most humans have attention challenges. Our minds, our resting state of our minds is in a mind-wandering mode. And so the demand of conversation to try and focus our wandering minds on another person continuously for a whole conversation is incredibly challenging. It takes a lot of hard work. Some people are better at it than others. But if you put in that hard work to be engaged with somebody, even while your mind is wandering, you should get credit for it. And in our research, we've studied the ways that you can get credit for your good listening.

And by get credit, what do you mean?

So get credit, meaning you want your partner to know that you've, that you've heard them.

Oh God, I feel like you're in the middle of my marriage because I can't tell you how many times I've been in a conversation with my husband and I'm doing something, so I turn my back on him.

Yeah.

And he's like, are you listening to me? And then I parrot back word for word what he just said.

Good.

And then we get into this little thing where he's like, I didn't ask if you heard me. I asked if you're listening, 'cause I don't feel like you are.

Okay, let's break down listening. This is so— this is incredibly common.

Okay? Okay.

Um, so listening is 3 steps. The first step is, Hearing and seeing your partner, all of the cues that the person is giving to you.

Yeah.

Their words, the sound of their voice, their nonverbal behaviors.

Mm-hmm.

Everything that comes in through your eyes and ears. That's the sort of physical part of listening. Then your brain does step 2, which is, I'm gonna think about some of the stuff that I'm hearing and seeing. I'm gonna elaborate on it in my mind. Step 3 is this unique thing that's offered by conversation, which is I can And then show back to you that I heard you and that I was thinking about it.

Okay? And that's how we get our credit.

And that's how you get our credit. So the decades of research on active listening have mostly focused on nonverbals. So the fact that you turned your back on your husband makes him feel like you're not listening to him, 'cause your nonverbals were sort of incongruent with what was going on in your mind.

Correct.

Okay? So he's sort of like, well, if you're gonna put in the hard work to actually listen to me, like, why don't turn your back on me? It makes me feel like you're not, you don't care about what I'm saying.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. So many decades of focus on these nonverbal cues, making eye contact, nodding, smiling, facing someone, leaning forward.

Yeah.

As you're talking to them. Um, that's all great. That's like listening 101. All right? So don't turn your back on your husband if you're listening to him. Okay.

And I'm definitely not gonna swivel this chair while we're talking. Exactly.

We could try it. Um, but the listening 201, sort of more advanced, is using your words to To show someone that you've heard them. So while nodding and smiling and facing someone can be faked, right? Even if you were facing your husband, you could have been nodding and smiling and not listening to him.

Yeah.

The fact that you were able to repeat back exactly what he said, he should be thrilled, right? Like you really were listening to him. Well, and you were able to repeat it back, but you didn't make him feel heard in that moment with your with your nonverbal cues.

Yeah, because the tone of voice was snarky. I heard everything that you said. Ba ba ba ba ba. So that was bad.

That's part of it. Yep, that's part. But this using your words is really important. So the best listening often is spoken. It includes repeating back what someone has said to you. It can be invalidating or affirming them in their feelings, saying like, oh, I'm hearing that you sound a bit, a little bit sad about that. Um, it makes sense that you would feel sad about whatever, the fact that you didn't win the role in the school play. Just saying that.

Mm-hmm.

It makes sense that you feel X about Y. Is one of the most powerful phrases that you can say to another person.

Well, one of the most powerful things that I hear my colleagues say at work is, what I heard you say is this, and this is what I'm gonna do. Is that right? And then the second I hear that, I'm like, oh my gosh, heard.

Yeah, it's exactly right. So they're affirming, they're acknowledging what you said, they're affirming what you said. They're also checking to make sure they've understood you explicitly. Linguists call this grounding. It's making sure that your shared understanding actually is shared and it's accurate. And if it's not accurate, it gives you the opportunity to repair it, to correct it and say, oh, that's not actually what I meant. What I meant was this. And we're constantly doing that checking and repairing process while we talk to other people. And so speaking your listening is so powerful. Follow-up questions do the same thing. You can only follow up if you've heard what they said before.

True.

Paraphrasing. If you're in a group and a couple other people have said something, you can say, okay, what I'm hearing here is... I think we as a group feel like we want to have fun, but we also need to make this hard decision. Is that right? So just kind of summarizing what people before you have said is another way of doing it in the sort of group context.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Since you teach this at Harvard Business School, I would love for you to just explain why this matters.

Yeah.

Because it may seem as though Listening is important just to be able to connect with people, but it's a really important skill at work.

Yeah.

Because if you're in a meeting and somebody all of a sudden is summarizing everything that they heard, you turn and look at that person and are like, oh, that person's powerful.

Yeah.

And so, how does the skills that we've talked about so far Topic selection, asking, this active listening that demonstrates something, translate to more authority and influence, whether it's at work, or it's in your home, or it's in a friendship?

Yeah, this is where real power and authority and influence come from. When we think of people who are charismatic and competent, this is what they're doing. They are actually listening. They're putting in the hard work to listen to other people. They're putting in the hard work to think about it, and then they are saying it out loud. They are saying, wow, I really heard you say this, and it seemed like you maybe feel anxious about this thing. Can you tell me more about that? Just being able to do that is incredible. It— that is sort of the found— what competence is when we're talking about interpersonal contexts.

It's so true. So, the 4-part framework of TALK, what is L?

L is levity, Mel. Thank goodness. It's levity, and levity includes moments of humor, but also unfunny moments of warmth.

And levity is the antidote Why is humor such a powerful tool if you want to be better at communicating?

Yeah, listen, when we think of conversations that have gone off the rails or have not gone well, it's very easy to think of conversations that seemed angry or hostile, or there was conflict or disagreement, because it's so obvious. Like, you're yelling at each other, you're arguing.

Yeah.

But what is a quieter killer of conversation, and probably more common than conflict, is boredom and disengagement. We're not interested. in what we're saying to each other. And as soon as either person becomes disinterested, you can't have that good connection. You can't make progress anymore. And levity, these fleeting moments of sparkle and fizz, they pull us back in. They fix the boredom.

Sparkle and fizz. How do you create that? Because you have some really interesting research about how making fun of yourself really is a powerful thing to do. Can you share a bit of this research for us?

Yes. Yes. So, this is something people think about all the time, Should I make fun of myself? Will that make things feel more fun and funny? So you can do it in a way, you can deliver it in a way that it's like self-deprecating humor, you're making fun of yourself. You can also do it in a way that's not funny at all, but you're sharing your whole self, right? You're not just talking about your successes, but also the failures and struggles that you encountered on your pathway to success. This is a particularly effective strategy for people who already have high status. who are powerful, who are respected, who are known as competent, for leaders. It's a way to say to everybody, hey, look, I'm like you too. I'm a human being. I'm— I don't do this thing right. Here's some negative feedback that I got on my way to success. It's so, so powerful. It is riskier for people who are low status to use self-deprecating humor or to really—

Why?

Or to reveal their failures. When you're low status, you have a narrower range of options available to you that will be seen— people might actually start to question your competence.

Oh.

And that's why being low status feels so limiting and so constraining.

So how do you, as a Harvard Business School professor, define low status? Because I, I would imagine if we cracked open people's heads, a lot of people are so punishing to themselves.

Totally.

that they believe that they have a low status based on self-doubt, but what are you talking about?

So status for scholars is defined as liking and respect and prestige in the eyes of other people.

Okay.

Okay? So it's liking and do people respect me? There's really good news here, Mel.

Okay.

Which is every group has a sort of status hierarchy, okay? People pretty easily know who's high status, who's low status, who's in the middle. But the good news is it changes much more frequently than you think. It changes not only from one conversation or one place to the next, it changes from one topic to the next. So imagine you're in a group, you're having a meeting, you're talking about something you don't know anything about.

Mm-hmm.

You're low status on that topic, and there might be some raucous experts in the room, and that's intimidating. And you're like, how can I contribute to this? It's a terrible feeling. You feel invisible and marginalized.

Yep.

All of a sudden, the conversation shifts to talking about, oh, should we update our maternity leave policy? And all of a sudden, if you're the only woman in the room, you're all of a sudden, you're at the top of the heap, okay? You have the most lived experience, the most knowledge to bring to this conversation. So even if you're feeling low status on many topics, if all of a sudden it switches to something else, you might all of a sudden become high status. And we shouldn't underestimate the value of that when we have value to bring.

If you're sitting in a conversation with friends or something at work, and you're feeling that low-status moment, like, I got nothing to contribute, is there a Harvard Business School sentence I can say that is, like, preemptive, raises my status without revealing that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about?

I think the magic trick is asking questions. Really.

Okay.

Okay? So, if you're on a topic and you're feeling like you don't know anything, it's always valuable to say, to ask questions about. Even people who know everything about it, it's helpful for them to have a sounding board and someone who's asking questions. They don't know what other people don't know. So sometimes when you're at low status, you're in this privileged position to say, look, nobody here knows what you're talking about. Define this for us. What do you mean by status?

Okay, let me just highlight that because the person listening, I really want you to understand this. Do you know You know, the confidence it displays to be a person who really doesn't understand what people are talking about and to say out loud, hold on a second, you're 15 steps ahead. You've lost some of us in this room. Can you please back up and explain this? Because I'm not tracking.

Yeah. And it's not always gonna be appropriate, but sometimes it is.

Well, and what that says is, first of all, I value that I'm tracking along. And number Number 2, you can trust me because I'm gonna tell you when I don't know something. And number 3, I am following with you, but I'm gonna slow you down to make sure everybody comes along. I mean, that right there, yeah, that's how you raise your status because it demonstrates a huge level of confidence.

Before we get on to Kay, I have one more thing to say to these low-status friends.

Yes.

We are with you. We have all been low status. Our status changes constantly. One thing, before we move away from levity, one of the most effective ways to raise your status is to make people laugh. It is. I think we have an instinct that we think of humor as this, like, extra bonus thing. Like, oh, there's that funny guy. He made a good joke. We're all laughing. That's great. Now back to the real stuff. When we look at what's really going on with social dynamics in our research, if you can make people laugh even one time in a conversation, they are so much more likely to vote for you as the leader of that group. Just one joke, if you just make people laugh, it's just a core determinant of status, earning status, and then keeping it once you've, once you've earned it.

I love that. So, what is the 4th element of your 4-part framework for better communication?

The 4th part is K for kindness, and it's really this virtue that we all learn as kids, that we should all be kind. I don't know, I don't know about you, Mel, I spent my whole life really think, like, what do kind people do day to day, moment to moment? What are they thinking about? What are they saying? How are they behaving? And I think one of the great privileges of this new emerging science of conversation is we're figuring it out, what kind people who really care about others, how they communicate with the people around them. So we attack this in a very concrete way.

So what do they do?

Yeah. The first part is using respectful language. Right? So as soon as you cross over into that zone where people are feeling hurt or harmed or othered or excluded or bullied, you have lost this kindness goal.

Yep.

You've moved beyond it. It's gone. And the second piece, again, is this responsive listening. So putting in the effort to hear other people, caring about what they're sharing with you, and showing that you're listening to them with your words and with your nonverbals.

So how can you use this framework?

Every time, all the time. I mean, you can use it over email, over text, and face-to-face. Every time you interact with a colleague, you should be thinking, what topics are valuable to them? How can I bring value to them? What are they going to find interesting and exciting? If you don't know ahead of time, you can just ask them, what are you excited about lately? How can I be helpful? What can I do? What's going on? What are you struggling with right now that I might be able to help you with?

I love that. How do you use the kindness part with your partner?

Oh my gosh. The thing that makes kindness so hard is that it is effortful, and it's constant. We have to battle against all of these other things that are draining our resources, especially with someone you live with, right?

You're—

you see them all the time. And so it's, it's a big ask to say, well, be kind all the time to this person, put in all of this effort all the time. But I think trying to get over our own our self-centered— our self-focus and really trying to understand what our partner cares about, figure out what they need, whether it's just a hug or it's just a cup of coffee, um, figure out what they need and help them get it.

So if somebody is listening right now and they're in a relationship where the communication isn't working, yeah, you're frustrated, you misunderstand each other, everything becomes some stupid What is your advice based on your research on the science of communication?

Yeah, it sounds like that kind of relationship sounds like you're stuck in a bad equilibrium, a bad sort of—

What does that mean?

So you're stuck in the— you've developed habits in a specific relationship that aren't working for you.

Yep.

Right? And you— and then every time you see that person, you might fall back into that same habits where you're getting defensive, you're lashing out, you're making accusations rather than these ideals that we're trying to live up to of like, I want to be interested in you, I want to figure out your needs and help you. You've fallen into the opposite.

Yes.

Right? So there's a couple of things. One is, uh, we talk a lot about the power of apologies, um, and, and this would be an example when you could say, it seems like we've really fallen into some bad habits where we're really getting defensive or lashing out and arguing all the time. What would it take for us to sort of shift How can we get into a different pattern? How can we change our habits with each other? It's gonna require that both people buy into it. Because conversation is co-constructed, it means that they have to buy in, you have to buy in, and you both have to try. And if you can't shift out of that equilibrium, that's often when, you know, relationships part ways.

Of course, 'cause why would you wanna be in a relationship where—

It's not rewarding.

It's not rewarding, you're both not working on it. I wanna go into some of the most asked questions on communication. I mean, these are the things that people write in about, they go crazy viral, and they wanna know. Okay, so small talk is so draining. Everybody hates it. What does your research have to say about small talk and why it matters?

For all of the people who hate small talk, you're right, it sucks. It's, it's shallow, it's meaningless. It feels like there's this alarm bell going off in your mind of like, why can't we get past this? Why can't we get to the real stuff?

I want—

we all want I want the real stuff. How can I get there? But also, you cannot avoid small talk. It's how every conversation starts between strangers, between people who haven't seen each other in a while, even people who've seen each other earlier in the day. You usually start when you see 'em at night and say, how was your day?

Right.

It is a well-worn social ritual, and it's important because it's the place where we search for better things.

Okay.

Okay. It's the, it's the easy—

It's the warmup.

It's the warmup. It's the, it's where we are. It's the pregame, right? It's the, it's the warmup. And we're searching for ways to get to more meaningful talk. We talk about, in, in my course and in my book, we talk about a topic pyramid. Okay. The topic pyramid has 3 layers.

Okay.

The bottom layer is small talk topics. These are topics you can talk about with anyone. It's the weather, it's the weekend, whatever you're eating. Easy stuff that you could talk about with anybody.

Yep.

They're not evil, they're not bad. They are often unrewarding, but they're a place where you are, should be searching to climb the pyramid to the second tier. which is more tailored talk. It's more, it can include more disclosure about your own life. It can be more personalized. It might just be a topic you're excited about, has nothing about, you know, sharing about your life. You're just some, it's something your partner's really jazzed about.

So this, this second layer of the pyramid is where your topic preparation comes in.

Correct.

And asking questions come in.

You could prep small talk topics too that could, that are more likely to be launchpads to the second layer. So a question like, Mel, what are you good at that you really hate doing?

Ugh. Picking up the dog poop.

Yeah, exactly.

Hate it.

But I bet you're great at it.

I mean, how many— Yeah, 'cause I don't wanna step in it, but I don't like it.

And then I would ask a question like, uh, how many dogs do you have? Or like, how often do you have to pick up its poop? Or like, right now we're very—

It's amazing how much dogs poop. Like, it's unbelievable.

Absolutely. Has it ever made you feel like you just don't want dogs anymore?

Yes.

Yes. So we're very quickly gonna get to a place where I start to figure out out how you really feel about animals, how you really feel about caretaking, how you feel about cleaning up your kids' dirty diapers. Like, we're gonna get to a place that feels much more personal. And that opening question is— that was a small— I could have asked anybody that.

What was the question again? I've already forgotten because I was interested in what we were talking about.

It's interesting. Yeah, so it was, um, what are you good at that you don't like doing?

What are you good at that you don't like doing?

You could also ask, um, what are you bad at that you'd like to get better at?

Spanish.

Great.

I don't know it. So I'm really bad at it.

Muy bien. Buena suerte. That's— so anyway, so there are, there are open-ended questions that would— that are small talk topics that should be thought of as sort of like launching pads that we're moving to the second tier that becomes more personalized. I'm learning so much about you and your life so quickly.

What are you good at that you don't like doing? Oh, giving Oh, I guess you popped out 3 kids, so you are pretty good at that.

I think, what do I— what am I good at that I don't like doing? Oh man, running, probably. I love walking. I don't love running.

Yeah, same.

Yeah.

Why do you run if you don't like it?

Exactly, because you're hard on myself. I want to be in good shape, but I stopped. As I'm getting older, I'm realizing you don't need to do those things.

Nope, especially as your hormones change.

Exactly. And walking is so lovely. I, I love walking. And so now I'm gentler myself and like, it's not a failure to walk.

Nope.

It's a win.

What is the top layer of the pyramid?

Top layer of the pyramid is deep talk. We were getting there. We were getting really close. The more follow-up questions you ask, the more likely you are to get to that top. You know it when you're there, Mel.

It feels— I almost pretended to be your therapist. It was— I was about to go deep into that. I know you were. Why you're so hard on yourself. And I'm like, yeah, I don't know if Professor Brooks wants me to go there.

We could. We could do it. But you know when you're at that deep talk with a friend, with a therapist, with your parents, whatever, it's— not every conversation is bound to go there. You don't need to have a deep conversation with, you know, your barista or even your work colleagues.

Because people would file a restraining order against you for, like, really making them uncomfortable.

Well, and sometimes it's not their business, right? There are some contexts where it's appropriate and called for and magical, and somewhere it's not. But when you do find yourself there, you should appreciate it. It's really special.

It's like we're all on these journeys looking for those moments Professor Brooks, what do you do if you're in a situation where someone is dominating the conversation and it's really hard to get a word in? Like, how do you effectively communicate with somebody who's a bit of a bulldozer?

Can I ask you a follow-up question before I answer, which is—

Sure.

When you're thinking of people dominating a conversation, it's almost always in a group setting. Are you imagining a group?

Yeah, I guess I am, 'cause I'm imagining being at, like, a cocktail party.

Yep.

And people are kind of standing in a little bit of a circle.

Yep. Maybe a work meeting.

Or a work meeting.

Yep.

And, you know, of course, my fear is that most people that I know think it's me.

I was gonna say, have you been guilty of this yourself?

Oh, in the past? Of course. When I've had too much to drink? Definitely. I work hard at listening at work rather than talking.

That's right. And it is hard work, especially for someone who has a lot to say, who has a lot of ideas, who is high status, or is in the habit of sharing, uh, what's on their mind. So I ask you this question because when we think of dominating airtime, it's almost always in a group. When you are in a one-on-one conversation, we have easier tools to interrupt someone or to sort of plow over them and— or even a little bit signal that they're talking too much. Right? It's easier in a group. It's maddening. You have way less control over stopping someone, and it's really hard for high-status people to give other people that space. I too have to work very hard to not talk too much in a group setting. I got a lot to say and a lot of energy, right? And that takes effort, and it's like a skill unto itself to give other people that space.

So let's say that you're going to a family Yeah. And there's a particular person in your family who just holds court. Nobody can get in a word edgewise.

We all know, we all know Uncle Paulie. Yeah, yeah.

So, based on your research, Professor Brooks, what do you do?

One idea is going back to the asking maxim. When you're in a group, you have these opportunities. You can ask questions. If you can turn the attention to someone else very deliberately and say, Sarah, I was— I wanted to hear about— I wanted to hear about that basketball team you're coaching. What can you tell us about that? You are able to literally turn the entire group's attention to someone else and to a new topic so that that person cannot, cannot continue to dominate the conversation.

And if you're listening and not watching this on YouTube, I wanna make sure you know that what Professor Brooks did is she literally turned her body and held up her hand and pointed at another person. Yeah, both verbally and physically, just directing the traffic in a different direction.

And that's what we're doing in groups. We are, we are all directing traffic. We are stewards of the conversation, especially nonverbally. Okay, so we have some research about eye gaze in particular. This is something high-status people can do really, really well. Human beings have a tendency to look with their eyes at the highest-status members of the group. You expect them to speak more, they do speak more, and you tend to look at them for their reactions. This makes the low-status people in the group feel invisible because they literally are invisible. Nobody's looking at them.

Mm-hmm.

And it makes them feel like even when they have something great to say, they shouldn't say it. They're not welcome to say it. No one's inviting them to speak with their gaze. So we ran experiments where we had leaders of a group very purposefully Hopefully make more equitable eye gaze with everyone in the group. And it meant that later in the conversation, those low-status group members were more likely to speak without the leader saying a word, without them cold-calling them and saying, hey, Sarah, we haven't heard from you in a while. What's on your mind? Which is mortifying, by the way, if you call on them in a moment when they don't have something to add.

Mm-hmm.

But eye gaze is this much more gentle, more subtle way of saying, hey, I see you. I care about you.

you.

I want to hear from you.

Professor Brooks, how do you handle being interrupted?

I love being interrupted.

Um, I mean, like, a person who doesn't— so most women, as you know, are interrupted at work and by their families more than men.

Yeah.

And so how do you handle somebody who interrupts you?

So let me make the distinction that you even— we just had a little moment of misunderstanding I want to call out, which Which is, there are 2 different types of interruptions. One is an on-topic interruption. You're staying on the same topic, you're just like finishing each other's sentences. It's bubbling, it's fun, it's exciting, it's great. That's a great type of interruption, we should do more of that, and I love interacting with people who are so engaged in what I'm saying that they interrupt me before I can finish. That's great. Off-topic interruptions are the ones that give interruptions a bad rap. It's like somebody domineering cuts You off, is clearly not interested in what you're saying, and shifts the conversation to something else entirely.

Mm-hmm.

It's rude. It makes you feel devalued and disrespected, and no one should be doing that. If someone does that, I would try and make a joke about it in the moment. I— if you're feeling, like, upset about it, you could be like, well, let me— I was just gonna finish my thing. You know, you could kind of make a joke about it because everybody else who's in the has seen this dynamic now play out, and you're all in on it. And are you gonna call it out, or are you gonna let it slide and sort of be happy to sit in this low-status position? I'm not happy to sit there, and I really don't want other people to sit there either.

What would your counsel be to the person listening? Because I think most people that it gets done to, you feel so disempowered, you can't make a joke about it. So, is there something, if you're going to a family function, or you have meetings at work, and you just know that this is a dynamic with a particular person, that you can rehearse that not only gives you a response, but actually raises your status or somehow makes you feel a little bit more powerful?

Here's what I would do, really. Um, I spent so many years of my career in a low-status position, and I think one thing I found very comforting is knowing that you have good relationships with the other people in the room. And so what you could do is go to your work bestie who's also gonna be there and say, You know, this guy always cuts me off. It's really upsetting. I don't feel comfortable making a joke out of it. I do not feel comfortable giving him that feedback, but it really is upsetting to me. So I'm wondering if, if the opportunity presents itself, if you could say something. And it doesn't need to be offensive. It doesn't need to be aggressive. It could just be like, oh, I'd actually really love to hear what Alison was gonna— I would love to hear Alison finish what she was saying.

Ooh, that's good.

And now you're really collaborating in the conversation. And it's— and, and friends want to do that for you, right? And it's sincere. She probably does want to hear what you were gonna say.

And by the way, that's an example of T in the 4-part framework, which is you just thought of a topic and you've prepared for it, and now you're ready for it. Um, Professor Brooks, what are some strategies you can use based on your research if somebody belittles you? Oh, you know, whether it's like your mom commenting on your weight, or I'm the primary breadwinner and there are these little digs that family members make at my husband, Chris, Like, what is the response to belittlement?

You know what? It's so often that the people we love the most and are closest to are the victims of these little moments of belittlement because they kind of leak out. Usually, when someone is making a belittling comment, it's really not about whatever they're talking about. It's about something deeper that they're— it's really— it's usually about them, right? That they're feeling insecure about something, and they're taking it out on you.

Mm-hmm.

This is true of all moments of difficulty in conversation, is for whatever reason, we have the tendency to have these moments that shoot down to these hurtful parts of our identities. When I used to teach negotiation, it was so— you know, when you're negotiating for a house, it's so obviously fraught and hard. But what I find so much more interesting are these little moments in conversations that should be easy and fun, and all of a sudden someone makes a little belittling comment and you're like, Whoa, I thought this was supposed to be fun and easy and sort of routine. What's going on here? That can shoot down to our identities, this sort of hot magma at the core of who we are, in hurtful ways. And in those moments, we tend to be very defensive.

Yeah, or quiet.

Quiet.

We feel silenced. Attacked.

So there's a really exciting emerging science of receptiveness here that can help us. Scientists Hannah Collins, Mike Yeomans, Julia Minson have studied what good conversationalists, kind people, how they manage these moments when all of a sudden things get heated for whatever reason.

What do you do?

And they looked at the language that people use to confront this. And there's a really concrete recipe of being receptive to an opposing viewpoint that can help so that the conversation doesn't escalate and get overheated in that moment. And it's quite a skill set to develop. It makes me feel more confident to engage.

What is it?

So the first piece is acknowledgement, saying, I think I heard you say here, what I'm hearing is, right? So going back to this acknowledgement, affirmation. It makes sense that you would feel that way. Like maybe sometimes I'm not doing enough. It makes sense that you feel that way, but you saying that also makes me feel a certain way. But affirming their feelings before you go on to disagree with them.

And say, you're a piece of shit for saying that. No, you're not supposed to say that part.

No, I mean, I think you can even say that. Like, it makes sense that you feel that way. And also, It's not a particularly kind. You can see why I would be upset by it. It both can be true, right? It makes sense that you feel this way. It makes sense that you're stressed or tired, and you said something that you probably wouldn't say if you were not stressed or tired. That all makes sense. You're I realize you're a human being, and I love and respect you. But also, what you just said was hurtful to me. If you can come with that mindset, so acknowledgement, affirmation, positive framing. There are words that they call oh gosh! It's like dogmatic. Or explaining words. So words like because and therefore are very hard to be on the receiving end of, that express too much certainty. Like, you're wrong because of this, therefore I'm not talking to you anymore. Those are escalation words. They're expressing too much certainty, too much sort of righteousness, and they're very hard to hear on the other end. There's a strategy that I like to use that combines all of these receptive Receptiveness, all the receptiveness language. And that's dividing yourself into multiple parts in the moment.

Let me give an example, because I think this is something a lot of people struggle with.

Yeah.

Let's just say that it's coming from a place of concern, but it is, you know, some sort of comment like, I just don't understand why you can't meet somebody. Or, why do you stay in that When they don't pay you what you deserve.

Yeah. And you know what's funny? These comments that are so hurtful, it's coming from a place of love. They want you to meet somebody 'cause they want you to be happy and they think you're great.

But it's still annoying that they're saying it. It's so annoying. And so how do I use this framework if I'm saying to you, like, why haven't you met somebody? I just don't understand it.

So you, in that moment, could say, as your daughter, I am so grateful that you love me so much that you want me to meet somebody, and you think I'm so great that I deserve to be loved. At the same time, putting on my whatever therapist hat, friend hat, feedback giver hat, you could see why maybe that, like, saying this to me isn't actually that helpful to me in this moment. So saying, like, affirming them before then going on and saying, also, I don't find that very motivating. Like, I don't find this very helpful to me. I find this dividing yourself into multiple parts so helpful because it's true. I always feel that way. I always want to support my friends and loved ones. I always understand where they're coming from. And also, what they're saying is often not nice. So being able to express both of those sentiments within the same breath can be really, really empowering.

And if you're gonna be going into a situation where somebody does this a lot, you can kind of prepare.

Yes, you can.

And know that if they say this thing, whether it's about your job or about your health or about about your relationship status that you can acknowledge and then go, and not that helpful. Yeah, not that helpful.

Now, if it's somebody who you've tried this approach, you've tried to give them this feedback, they keep doing it, or they keep, you know, raising topics you don't want to argue over, it is actually okay to not engage with them about it. You know, if your parents keep bringing up their different political views, you don't have to engage with them about it. That's fine. You don't have to argue.

But how are you using the science of communication do that without just being like, I agree to disagree. I guess we see things differently. No, seriously. Like, there's so much stonewalling of each other.

It helps to have, again, back to this tea, if you have other good topics, it helps a lot to just move quickly to a different topic that is actually mutually rewarding for you instead of, uh, you know, proliferating on this. I don't wanna talk about this or arguing. Are you?

No, no, no.

Just shift. Like, hey, have you, what TV show are you watching these? I've been watching this really cool TV show.

So direct the traffic in a different direction.

Exactly.

What does the science of conversation say about someone who's very argumentative or raise their tone of voice? What should you do if somebody starts yelling at you or they're like— or they're like I used to be? You get aggravated and you're like, ah, and the volume goes up.

Yeah. So we talk about this wheel of feelings. I've done so much research on these high arousal emotion, negative emotions, whether it's anxiety, or anger, or just being upset. There are lots of emotion regulation strategies that you can use during a conversation as well. You can try and just shift, reframe the situation, change the situation.

Is it okay to ever just say, I'm happy to talk to you, but not when you use this tone of voice?

Yeah. Therapists will often talk about getting into this sort of like green zone, and it can take like 20 minutes for your body to calm down. Once someone is upset, It's almost like too late. It's very hard to engage once someone is angry or overheated.

Yeah.

Instead of saying like, let's just take a timeout. Let's calm down a little bit. Let's circle back to this in a little bit when we're both okay. Let's take a break. And that's exactly right. It's easy to do in a conversation. You can change it. Let's go for a walk. Let's go to a different room. I'm gonna go get a drink and then I'm gonna come back and we can—

A very stiff one.

A very stiff drink.

Just gonna make it worse.

Come back and let's pick this up, um, or even see if you want to keep talking about it by then.

How can you make it sure that you always have something interesting to talk about?

Oh, so 2 answers to this. First, as always, topic prep is your friend, right? So thinking ahead about things that the other person will find interesting or exciting to talk about. But the second part of my answer is that it's almost the wrong question. That's the— it's the wrong mindset.

Huh.

The key to being a good conversationalist is not about being interesting. It's about being interested in the other person. So if you go in with this mindset of like, how do I be, you know, Mr. or Mrs. Cool? How do I be charismatic? How do I bring all the funny stories? Even the mindset of how do I be funny is not correct. The goal is how do I be optimally interested in the other person? How do we together find That's cool. Not, not how do I be funny?

And that feels a lot less full of pressure because if I look at you as the source of everything interesting to talk about, then all I have to do is ask questions and be interested.

And every person on the earth is the ultimate source of being— everyone has so many lived experiences that you can learn from. Everyone. And they are just like an endless font of things to be discovered through question asking.

How can you exit a conversation gracefully?

There's really nice research on conversational endings that has come to light in the last 5 years. When you think of conversation as this almost impossible-to-solve coordination problem, the final coordination decision is when to leave. It's why it always feels so awkward and weird, because I can't possibly know when you want to be done. You can't know when I need to be done or want to be done. So we just need to get comfortable with the fact that, like, you're never going to Nobody knows when to end a conversation. Most people are always gonna be dissatisfied. They might've wanted it to be longer. They might've wanted it to be shorter. So embracing and accepting that awkwardness, that difficulty, just saying, nobody knows. We're just gonna say, this was great. I loved it. I can't wait for the next one. Bye. That's it. That's it.

End it. This was great. I can't wait for the next one. I love it. So if you could leave the person If you could leave the person who's listening to us right now with one takeaway or one lesson or one thing to do that leverages the science of conversation and it will make their life a little better, what would that one thing be?

Oh, it's so hard to pick just one. I think it would be thinking ahead a little bit more, prepping topics, Giving even a little bit of forethought to the people you're gonna see in a day. Think a little bit about what they're gonna find interesting and productive to talk about. You can write it down in your Google Calendar notes, you can write it on a little piece of paper, just think it in your head. You're more likely to have a better conversation once you're together with them.

And what are your parting words?

My parting words are about grace. So I think because we learn to talk to each other when we're toddlers and we spend our whole lives talking to each other, We do it every day with a huge array of partners. By the time we get to be adults, we feel like we should be perfect at it, or we should be great at it, and it's second nature, and we should be experts. But when you look under the hood of conversation, you realize actually conversations are kind of a train wreck. We're interrupting each other all the time, we have half-finished ideas, and we're not making sense a lot of the time. And so I think giving yourself a little bit more grace that you're not perfect, you're never going to be perfect, even the best communicators aren't perfect and giving other people more grace. They're going to say— they're going to say things that make you mad. They're going to say things that hurt your feelings, and it's okay. This is how this works. If it's born of love, count yourself lucky.

Professor Alison Wood Brooks, this has been great.

Thank you so much for having me.

And I look forward to seeing you again. Bye-bye.

Yeah.

And I would, uh, be remiss if I also didn't say thank you to you. This has been great, and I'm really proud of you for taking the time to listen to something that will absolutely improve your life. And everything that Professor Brooks poured into us today, I hope you try it. I hope you plan your topics, because being a better communicator Communicator will improve your life. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to communicate and tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. So take everything you just learned and go use it to make your life better. And I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode as soon as you hit play. I'll see you there. Thank you for being here with me on YouTube, and thank you for watching all the way to the end. Wasn't it so cool to get all of these strategies and insight from a professor at Harvard Business School. I love this kind of stuff, and I know you love it too. So thank you for watching. Thank you for being here till the end. Thank you for sharing this with people in your life who you know deserve this information too. And one more thing, it is a goal of mine that 50% of the people that watch this channel are subscribers, and it's free. So I know you're the kind of person that loves supporting people that support you. I know you love getting all these incredible videos with world-renowned experts. And so one thing you could do for me, just hit subscribe. It tells me that you really love what we're doing here, and it helps support my team in bringing you new videos every single day as a free resource for you and the people that you care about. Alrighty, I know what you're thinking. Mel, I love this. What's the next video I should watch? Great question. I think you should check out this one. I think you're gonna love it, and I'm gonna be waiting for you in it the second you hit play. I'll see you there.