Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

What does it take to be a more effective communicator? According to Dan Lyons, it starts with knowing when to shut your mouth.

As a journalist, author, and screenwriter, Lyons knows a thing or two about wielding words. But as he reveals in his book, STFU: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World, most of us talk too much and listen too little. “A great conversation is about listening. And it probably involves you talking less,” he says.

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Lyons and host Matt Abrahams explore how to stop over-talking, emphasizing the value of active listening, asking good questions, and giving others space to speak.

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Being a better listener has a lot to do with silence, says Collins Dobbs, a lecturer in management at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “A lot of people are uncomfortable with the smallest modicum of silence, but learning often happens when we create distance for useful reflection.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Dobbs talks with host Matt Abrahams about the importance of “space, pace, and grace” when you’re receiving others’ feedback and handling the emotions that come out during tough discussions.

“There’s often a lot more focus on the skill set on delivering emotion than receiving emotion, but if the receiver of emotion can put themselves in a place of curiosity, agency, and openness … it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.”

Dobbs is an executive coach and teaches several courses, including Interpersonal Dynamics and Leadership Labs.

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 How do we deal with professional blind spots? According to David Dodson, MBA ’87, we need the panoramic perspective of those who work around us.

“360 reviews, done properly, are a massive competitive weapon,” says Dodson, also a lecturer in management at Stanford GSB and author of the new book, The Manager’s Handbook. Such comprehensive and constructive feedback, he says, can be transformational for employees and managers alike. “The first time I did a 360 review and got feedback was a massive turning point in my development as a manager,” he says. “Had I not had 360 feedback, I probably would have gone a decade or more with ineffective technique.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Dodson shares valuable insights and actionable advice for individuals in leadership and management roles, highlighting the importance of effective communication and feedback in achieving success.

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Communication is like a game. For it to work, each person has to trust that their partner will play by the rules. As Professor Anat Admati says, the same is true for corporations and their stakeholders.

“To have good governance, you need trust and accountability,” says Admati, a professor of finance and economics and the director of the Corporations and Society Initiative. How does a society ensure that markets, businesses, and governments are all on the same page? As Admati says, “We need rules. I can commit to you that I won’t harm you because something bad will happen to me if I [do].”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Admati joins host Matt Abrahams to discuss how communication forms a bedrock of trust that can align markets, businesses, and governments — for more accountable capitalism and a healthier society.

Episode Reference Links:

• Anat Admati

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Why is a boat a “she?” Why give names like Alexa or Siri to inanimate pieces of software? According to assistant professor of organizational behavior Ashley Martin, ascribing gender to everyday objects helps us to connect with them more deeply.

“Gender is this humanizing force that allows people to interact with non-human things as if they’re human,” says Martin, whose research focuses on gender equality, gender inclusion, and gender’s role within team and organizational dynamics. And while Martin is interested in how anthropomorphizing technology can benefit the humans who use it, she also notes how “problematic stereotypes” could be perpetuated as a result.

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Martin joins host Matt Abrahams to discuss how our ideas about gender inform the way we relate to the world and how we can leverage the latest research to promote greater diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

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Saying no can seem risky. We worry about offending others, damaging relationships, or hurting our own reputation. But as Vanessa Patrick says, no is an empowering word that gives us greater agency in our lives.

Saying no “is not a rejection of the other person,” says Patrick, a professor of Marketing at the University of Houston. Instead, it allows you to set boundaries and “[give] voice to what you believe and what you care about.” In her book, The Power of Saying No, Patrick introduces what she calls “empowered refusal,” a way of saying no that’s rooted in one’s identity, values, priorities, and preferences. “An empowered no,” she says, “is about us, not a rejection of the other person.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Patrick and host Matt Abrahams explore how to use the power of no, how to move from strategy forming to strategy implementation, and how to resist momentary pleasures that distract us from our larger goals.

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Breaking new ground, Think Fast, Talk Smart steps into the world of live events, bringing together an eager audience of LEAD students from Stanford University and a top-notch panel of former podcast guests: Jesper B. Sørensen, Sarah Soule, Jonathan Levav,and Szu-chi Huang. Topics include crafting strategy for successful leadership and tips on how to effectively lead a hybrid team.

This episode also features an interactive audience segment, where various participants of the Stanford LEAD program answer the three questions traditionally posed to guests.

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How are you feeling right now? According to Celine Teoh, we all need to ask ourselves that question more often — and be more precise in how we answer it.

Teoh is a facilitator of the course Interpersonal Dynamics, or “Touchy Feely,” as it’s affectionately known on campus. In her work with students and as a CEO coach, she encourages people to get better acquainted with their feelings. “Feelings are data,” she says. “In the rest of our logical lives, we would never make decisions on bad or highly abstract data. But we'll do that with feelings.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Teoh and host Matt Abrahams discuss how developing greater emotional awareness can help us achieve more agency and empathy in our personal and professional lives.

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“What people regret over time are things they didn't do. They didn't take that trip, they didn't ask that person out on a date. They didn't start that business,” says former political speech writer and best-selling author Dan Pink. “I think it's because we are slightly over-indexed on risk. We overstate the risk in many circumstances.” 

On this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, strategic communications lecturer Matt Abrahams sits down with Pink to hear how we should all take more risks and how leaders can inspire others by focusing on the why instead of the how. 

“There's almost incontrovertible evidence that sense of purpose is the most cost effective performance enhancer that organizations have,” Pink says.  

They also discuss the power in taking breaks, which Pink considers part of performance, not a deviation from it. “What we know from many domains is that professionals take breaks. It's not that amateurs take breaks and the professionals don't, it's the exact opposite.” 

Pink’s latest book is The Power of Regret, How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward.

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We’re often advised not to use “um” or “uh”, or “so” and “you know” in our communication. But linguist Valerie Fridland might argue otherwise. “Language is about how we encode both the linguistic message and a social message,” she says. “Crutch words … are really valuable and they have arisen to serve a need.” 

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Fridland sits down with host and strategic communications lecturer Matt Abrahams to discuss how and when we use "you know","so", and other filler words. For example, Fridland says, the way we use “um” varies greatly from how and we might use “uh.” And the use of “like,” while deplored by many, actually serves a linguistic function and can provide context and background for a listener.

She and Matt also discuss the social linguistic function of vocal fry and whether emojis have a place in business communication. 

Fridland is a professor of sociolinguistics at the University of Nevada. She's an expert on the relationship between language and society and recently released a new book, Like Literally Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English.

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Join our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community and become the communicator you want to be.