Think Faster, Talk Smarter: Insights from Matt Abrahams

Hello my fellow negotiators.

Did you know I once had a.

Listener share that after listening to our podcast, she was able to negotiate a $53,000 raise. And you know what I told her? Where is my commission? Just kidding.

But the real story is this was.

After years of being too afraid to negotiate. But after listening to a couple of episodes on Salary Negotiation, she felt equipped with with the confidence and tools to ask for the payment she deserved. And that, my friends, is the power of negotiation. And through a subscription to our new membership community Negotiate Anything Premium, we're taking that power to the next level. With customized playlists based on our most popular topics, you'll be able to find the episodes you're looking for much faster and much easier. A tool that comes in handy as you're getting ready to prepare for an important negotiation. Even I find myself asking which episode should I listen to before heading into a high stakes negotiation? And you might be saying, but Kwame, you're the ones having the conversations. But I forget.

So I listen to the episodes multiple times.

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Matt, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks. I am super excited to be here with you.

Yes.

And we are excited to have you, my friend. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Yeah. I am somebody who is passionate about communication. I'm a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, where I've been for over 13 years. I teach strategic communication. I host a podcast called Think Fast, Talk Smart. It's all about communication skills. And I have a new book coming out called Think Faster, Talk Smarter. And it's about how to speak better in spontaneous situations, like answering questions like we're about to do, giving feedback, making small talk, all of that. So I'm very excited to share all of that with you.

I love this. And listeners, you're going to get a masterclass here because now we're going to actually see can he answer questions. I'll give him the tough ones. Okay? I promise.

Challenge accepted. Challenge accepted.

This is great.

And hey, listeners, we are making sure that this goes live. On September 26th was also my birthday. So as my birthday gift that I want you to give me is I want you to support Matt and his book. So check out the book, check out the podcast. We're going to put links to both in the description. So let's make sure we get Matt some love for that. Perfect. And now let's jump into it. Let's start off with a really broad question to kind of set the stage when it comes to this really narrow focus of communication. What is it that drew you to focusing on this narrow element?

So communication is critical to success in our personal lives and our professional lives. And I saw this play out all throughout my life. I saw my friends, I saw colleagues at work who were successful being able to communicate effectively and adjust and adapt their communication. Similarly, I saw people who were not as effective in their communication suffer from that. And they might have had the best, most brilliant ideas, but weren't able to express it. And as I've begun my teaching and my consulting, I've been fortunate enough to meet with many people who have just amazing insights and ideas to share. But for some reason or another, either a past experience, a little bit more anxiety than most of us feel, they've really struggled to do that. And through the work I've done with them, it's been amazing to see these people open up, feel more confident, and share what's really important. To them, I love it.

Yeah, I agree 100%. And I feel like effective communication in many ways is becoming a bit of a lost art. So it's really important for us to continually hone our skills as much as possible. Because even though we might be talking every single day, that does not mean we are expert level communicators. There's still a lot more that we can do.

I'm not at an expert level yet and I've been doing this a long time, so I agree. We have to focus on it and we have to have the courage to actually try. It takes a certain amount of courage to say, this is something I want to work on. And many of us find speaking in high stakes situations very nerve wracking. So having the courage, the tenacity to work on it is critical, but the Rewards are plentiful.

100%. And let's zone in now a little bit on this very interesting element of communication, the responding to the questions that people are asking and the things that they're saying. What is it that makes this so challenging?

Well, for many of us, we feel out of control, right? We don't know what's coming at us. We often attribute negative intent behind people asking us questions. You know, imagine you give a pitch or a presentation at work and people start asking questions. So a lot of what gets in the way is the way we're framing the situation. We see it as a threat, as a challenge, something we have to defend against. I personally think that one of the single best things we can do to open ourselves up to any spontaneous communication, not just Q and A, is to reframe them as an opportunity to extend and expand, to connect. And nowhere is this more important than in Q and A, where we can really feel intimidated by those asking us questions.

It's so interesting how it always comes down to mindset first.

Absolutely no. Mindset matters. So in, in the new book I've written, the whole first half of the book is a methodology that I've been teaching and working on for almost a decade now. And the first four steps of the six step methodology are all around mindset. The second two have to do with the act messaging itself. Mindset is so critical to many of the aspects of our lives.

It's fascinating because again, I think a lot of times people focus so much on the skill set and what they should do and how they should say it, the strategies and tactics and things like that. But it's almost like they're approaching it in the opposite direction in the inverse right and can you kind of paint the picture of what happens if we just focus exclusively on the skills but not addressing the mindset first?

Yeah. So first and foremost, if all you do is focus on your content and the way you're saying it, it'll give you a leg for sure. But I think it gets in the way of the adaptability and especially in what I call these spontaneous, in the moment opportunities to communicate. You don't have the agility that you need to adjust and adapt. You might have a great way of doing it, but you need to adjust. It's like an athlete who's really good at one thing, and that's great if that one thing becomes that opportunity for you. But you have to, in the game, be able to adjust and adapt to what's happening in front of you. And if you don't have that flexibility in your mindset, it's going to be much harder to be successful repeatedly.

Absolutely. And I think this is where a lot of people struggle because they say, all right, I want to get the skills, I want to know what to say, I want to know how to say it and those type of things. But then we talk about the spontaneity, the necessity of adaptation in the moment, the fluidity that's required, and people say, how do I even practice that? Isn't that one of those things that either I have it or I don't? And so for people who have that concern, what do you say to them?

Yeah, great question. So a lot of us carry around this notion that we just aren't gifted in that way. We don't have the gift of gab, if you will. And in fact, there's research to suggest in my own experience in coaching and teaching, in my own lived experience, you can absolutely adapt, learn and develop these skills. It takes some adjustment and it certainly takes practice, as you alluded to. But you can practice being spontaneous. You know, the whole book and methodology I've created is full of ironies. And one of the biggest ironies is you have to prepare to be spontaneous. And there are things you can do. One, going through the methodology, learning the different techniques and mindset. But two, finding opportunities to practice. I am a huge supporter of Toastmasters. I think Toastmasters is a wonderful organization. Gives people the opportunity to practice both planned and spontaneous speaking. You can use generative AI to help you. For example, imagine you have a job interview coming up. You can go to ChatGPT, Bard, whatever, and type in the position you're applying for, the company at which you're applying and ask it to generate questions for the particular role, and then you just practice in the moment answering those questions. So there are lots of opportunities to practice once you firmly believe that you can make the changes that you'd like to make.

And it's funny, because when we talk about practice, that requires a mindset shift as well, because we are surrounded by all of these opportunities to practice, but we don't look at them as practice opportunities, and therefore, they don't become practice opportunities.

Well, no, you're absolutely right. And I think this gets to a fundamental mindset change that has to happen in most communication, especially spontaneous speaking. And that is we have to remind ourselves that the goal of communication is connection. It's not perfection. Many of us don't like to practice or put ourselves in environments where we can test out these new skills because we want to do it right. We have this drive to do it right. And I'm here to tell you, after doing this work for decades, there is no right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways, but there is no one right way. So putting that pressure on ourselves to do it right not only reduces the likelihood of us being able to do it well because we're constantly judging and evaluating everything we say, but it also precludes us from even trying to do it at all. So a fundamental mindset shift is to put the premium on connection rather than perfection.

This is great. And I'm. I'm with you 100%. And I know that this can be really empowering because you realize, okay, I can be authentic. I don't need to do it like somebody else. I can do it like me, as long as I hold onto these fundamentals. So that can be liberating. It can also be scary for those people who are very type A, very driven. They want to check boxes, they want to know how they're improving and those type of things. And so for those people who are a little bit more focused on controlling the communication and not willing to let go and flow, how do you get.

Them a bit more comfortable letting go?

That is a wonderful question, and a question I deal with every single quarter that I teach, and I teach a lot. So in my strategic communication classes, I start the class on the very first day, and I say, in this class, the goal is to maximize the mediocrity. And I want you to understand. These are Stanford MBA students, some of the best and brightest young business minds in the world. Their jaws drop when they hear maximize mediocrity. Nobody has ever told them to do this. And I go on to explain why this is so important. When we strive for greatness in our communication, it precludes us from achieving it. And it comes down to cognitive load. Your brain is like a computer. It's not a perfect analogy, but for what my point I'm trying to make, it helps. Think about when you're running multiple applications, you have multiple tabs open, your cpu, your central processing unit is processing each of those apps, each of those tabs a little less efficiently. That's because it doesn't have the bandwidth. When I am constantly judging and evaluating and re evaluating everything I'm saying or about to say, I too, communicating with less bandwidth than I could. So when I turn that dial down a little bit, that is reduce the pressure on myself, reduce the evaluation, I actually then can do better. So at the end of my first class, I come back to my admonition and I say, strive for mediocrity. Maximize mediocrity so you can achieve greatness. And by the end of that class, the students understand. So the first part is, I think, understanding that at a neurocognitive level, the pressure we put on ourselves works against us. And that can really be liberating for people. The second thing I suggest is we have to reframe this whole notion of doing it wrong or making mistakes. You know, many of us, we don't want to make a mistake. And in fact, mistakes are the building blocks for learning. So one of the ways I encourage my students and the people I coach is to reframe mistakes as missed takes. If you know anything about television or movie production, they will do several takes to get the right shot. So they'll ask the actor or actors to do the same scene multiple times. Each time is not a mistake. It's not wrong. They're just looking for a perhaps different, more creative way to communicate or demonstrate the emotion in the moment. If we see our communication when it go the way we like and we see it as a missed take, that takes a lot of pressure off of us. It doesn't mean it was wrong or bad. It just was different. Let's try it again in a different way. So reframing mistakes as missed takes also takes that pressure off of ourselves and makes those of us who are type A and driven more accepting of taking the challenge to speak in the moment.

I was at a keynote the other day, and a listener walked up to me and said, hey, Kwame, my favorite part of the show, it's the ads. He was the only person who said that Though, if you don't like ads, maybe you should consider joining Negotiate Anything Premium where you can access insights from your favorite negotiation experts with ad free listener and extended episodes bonus, you'll also get access to exclusive solo episodes and personalized advice from yours truly. If you've been looking for an easy and affordable way to level up your skills and negotiate more of the best things in life, join our premium community. Click the link in the Show Notes to learn more. And now enjoy this commercial. And so, for that gentleman who told me he enjoys the commercial, this one's for you.

It's brilliant. I think that's a great mentality because again, you're right. These conversations, these high stakes, crucial conversations, they come with enough pressure. We don't need to add the pressure of perfectionism as well to that cocktail of emotion. So I really appreciate this advice. And when you're thinking about in the moment now, when we're actually starting to answer questions, let's get into the more actual, tangible elements of what it takes to be more effective. There's so many different things that we could talk about. Where should people start?

The number one mistake people make in their communication is they start from the wrong place. They start by saying, here is what I want to say. Here's what I want to say. And I would argue it's not about what you want to say, it's about what your audience needs to hear. So it's not about what you want, it's about what they need. Which means the very first place you have to start is not creating your content, it's thinking about my audience. What do they know? What do they need to know? What are their attitudes? Where are their areas of resistance, hesitation and concern? I start there and then I begin crafting a message that will be meaningful to them. So the number one place to start to help people hone their communication, planned or spontaneous, is thinking about your audience and their needs. Once you do that, then you can begin to structure a message in a way that is meaningful, relevant and impactful.

It's brilliant and very hard to do.

It is hard to do, but you'd be surprised that if you open yourself up to it, you can. You know, most of us, there's a famous quote, and I don't even remember who said it, but it goes something like this. Crafting a high stakes communication without thinking about your audience first is like addressing a love letter to whom it may concern, you would never do that. So in our high stakes communications, in our personal lives, we often think about it. I have Two teenagers. You and I were talking about our kids before we started. My kids are incredibly adept at honing their messages based on their audience. So my kids don't come ask me for extended curfew or getting to drive the car when I come home tired from work. They wait, they do something nice for me. We are constantly adjusting our communication in our personal lives based on what we know. We need to take that into our professional lives as well.

It makes so much sense. And I think one of the things that is so frustrating to people about improving their communication skills is that when you tell them what it is that they need to do, they say, I know that. Why don't I do it? It's so hard to do. And I think sometimes we feel so strongly about whatever it is that we came here to talk about that we just focus on ourselves. And it's an egocentric form of communication, not because we are bad people, but because we just get so excited to say what we want to say.

So in my book, I talk about the curse of knowledge. This idea has been around for a long time. We know too much about what we're speaking on, and we assume everybody else is interested at the same level we are. But I also introduced this idea of the curse of emotion, the curse of passion. We are so passionate that we forget other people need to be scaffold and built up so that they can understand and be as passionate as we are. So the only way, the only antidote to the curse of knowledge and the curse of passion is empathy. We have to remind ourselves of the other people's perspective so that we can open the door to the knowledge and excitement that we have for the topics.

Let's talk about empathy. This is a perfect time because you've been in the industry for a while, and I know you have seen a lot of takes on empathy. It's become a new buzzword. Not even new buzzword, but a buzzword that people go to a lot. But I feel like a lot of times people don't have a full understanding of what it means. And so when we're talking about empathy, what would you say are the biggest misunderstandings about the concept that hold people back?

Well, I'll start by saying that there are some in the academic world who believe the sole purpose of communication is to increase empathy. Right? To increase connection among people. And the term communication really stands for to make common, to bring community about. So empathy and communication go hand in hand. I think what people misunderstand about empathy is it's not just about Putting yourself in the other's perspective. It's really understanding and appreciating that perspective. And perspective isn't just thoughts and ideas. It's emotion and lived experience. And so that means you have to be a good observer. It means you have to ask questions, you have to clarify, you have to check in. So empathy isn't just saying, yeah, if I were that person, here's how I would feel. It's really about doing a personal ethnography and getting in there and figuring it out. That's what makes the big difference, and that's what allows for the connection, the immediacy, and, dare I say, intimacy that communication can bring about.

See that last part? Intimacy. I think that's what people really struggle with because it requires a bit of mutual vulnerability in order to really get the depths of empathy. And so how do we get people to feel a bit more comfortable opening up?

Yeah, so I've done a lot of research for this book on small talk because I think small talk gets a bad rap. Small talk is all about building connection, building empathy. And yet we think it's just this necessary evil that we have to go through to get the free wine, the, you know, the swag, the conferences we go to. So that's a whole different conversation. I think we need to rebrand small talk for sure. But in that research I did, in terms of reading up on it and talking to experts in the field, part of it is really about mutual disclosure. So if I want to connect with you and better understand you, I need to be open and inquisitive about your perspective. And I have to share at an equal level about my perspective. And many of us are more comfortable asking others than sharing ourselves. And so we need to really think about how we continue the conversation going. I want to take another lesson learned from smalltalk. In talking to researchers who study it, they look at conversations through one lens that looks at the turns we take. And they're really two different types of turns. They're supportive turns and shifting turns. A supportive turn is where I dig deeper into what you've said, and a shifting turn is where I shift it to a different topic or to myself. So imagine we start a conversation, we don't know each other, and you tell me about a trip you recently took. You say, hey, I just went to Los Angeles. And I could say, oh, really? Where did you go? Did you visit Disneyland? That's a supportive turn. Or I could say, oh, I just got back from Phoenix, and now that's a shifting turn. What we have found is for intimacy, for connection, for mutual disclosure and trust building. More supportive responses are helpful. Now, you can't be exclusively supportive because then it looks like you're hiding and you're building a wall between you and the other person. So the research suggests maybe two thirds to three quarters of your responses should be supportive, with a third to a fourth being shifting. So there are things we can do to bring about that intimacy in terms of what we say. That's asking questions and disclosing appropriately, but also in the types of turns that we take.

This is so good because one of the things I love about this, the supportive turn versus the shifting turn, is that it helps us to operationalize the ratio kind of game that people play when they say 70, 30, rule 80, 20, whatever it is, we want the other person to try to talk more than us. And we can say that to people. But sometimes they're saying, how in the world do I manage to do this? And this is a really simple but powerful and effective way to keep the spotlight on them in a way that triggers empathy and makes them feel more appreciated and validated, while at the same time allows you to become a better listener too.

Absolutely. And let me share one other technique that I think is absolutely essential to accomplish the goals you just mentioned, and that is paraphrasing. Paraphrasing to me is one of the top essential communication tools we should develop. And it's not a speaking thing, it is a listening thing. So when you are speaking, I am listening for what's the bottom line? What's the essence of what you're saying? And it doesn't even matter if I get it right or not, because the next step is for me to paraphrase what you just said to me. Paraphrasing is not parroting back word for word like a five year old does. Instead, it's pulling out the key essence of what the person said, sharing it. So you do two types of validation. One type of validation is of the person, I heard you. It doesn't mean you agree, it just means I heard you. The second type of validation is for making sure that fidelity is high. So when I paraphrase, you have an opportunity to say, yes exactly, or you can say, no, not exactly. Here's what I meant. It's a way of building connection, building trust, buying time for you to think some more. Paraphrasing is a wonderful tool and I encourage everybody to leverage it as you try to build intimacy, connection and trust.

This is great. And this is definitely something that, especially in negotiations and difficult conversations we need to do. And especially in these scenarios where we might not agree with the other person, how do we do that in those types of scenarios without making it seem as though we are encouraging bad behavior or endorsing things that we don't agree with?

So understanding and agreement are different. And I think it's really important to distinguish for ourselves between those two. And so conveying that we understand and even appreciate somebody's perspective is incredibly helpful in these challenging types of conversations where we express, I appreciate that this is your position and I understand what this means for you. Doesn't mean I agree. So starting from respect, starting from a place of understanding, I think is critical in most feedback and negotiation situations. I like to frame them as problems to be solved. And if I'm looking to solve a problem, that means I need to collaborate with you. And that means I need to try to reduce the defensiveness you might feel and that I feel. And then I try to find connection points where we can connect on certain things. So let me give you two disparate ideas that popped in my head based on your question. One is, I have learned and leveraged a lot from the world of improvisation. I think improv has a lot to teach us in terms of how to be better communicators in the moment and better communicators in general. Foundational principle of improv is this notion of yes and and you might be saying, matt, I'm talking about negotiation. If you always say yes and that's not a negotiation, what yes and says though, is you look for opportunities of connection. So if we're negotiating, if we have a confrontation or a challenge, I look for areas where we actually have some connection. We might disagree on the operationalization of something, but we at least agree on that. This is a problem, for example. So one thing we need to do is look for those yes and moments that we have. The other issue when it comes to negotiation, beyond framing it as a problem to be solved, is we need to make sure that we keep in mind how we say things is as important as what we say. So pausing a little, monitoring our vocal intensity, allowing for the other person to speak and for us to affirm that they have spoken by saying uh huh or yes. Those also play into these as well. So it's not just about what you say, it's about how you approach it, what you look for. Yes and, but also your presence and demeanor as you are negotiating or dealing with conflict.

Matt, I know exactly what every single listener is saying. They are saying, I need to buy this book.

Well, thank you. That would be great. I mean, my whole goal here is to help people and I think the book is a vehicle for that. I hope the podcast Think Fast, Talk Smart also helps. I just want people to hone and develop their communication skills and you are.

Doing a great job with that, my friend. I really appreciate you joining us and can't wait to have you back on again.

Thank you for the opportunity, Kwame. It was great to chat with you and I just want to compliment you on your questioning and the language that you use. I find it really refreshing and delightful.

I appreciate that. Wait, wait wait wait, wait.

Now before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before. Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again. I want you to know about Negotiate Anything Premium. Imagine all of the things that you love about our traditional feed, plus so much more. I know you like our traditional feed because you're at the end of the episode and with Negotiate Anything Premium you'll get more bonus content you've been asking for for more of the expert insights that you can't get anywhere else and more exclusive behind the scenes access into every conversation. Are you ready to get more of what you want out of your life, career and every conversation? With Negotiate Anything Premium, you'll have access to more high level, custom designed content and insights giving you the tools you need to negotiate higher salaries, better deals and better relationships in your life and and career. Once I had a listener share that Negotiate Anything helped her to negotiate a $53,000 raise. Could this be you? What would that mean for your life? I've seen firsthand the impact this model has had on my life and the lives of my corporate clients and I am confident that it can do the same for you. Are you ready to negotiate more of the best things in life? Click the link in the show notes to learn more.

I'll catch you later.