Asking someone else for anything is a delicate enough task, but when you're asking them to be vulnerable, it's something else entirely. How do you make people feel comfortable sharing something that is by definition uncomfortable. Jamilla Risby, the best selling author, public speaker, podcast presenter, and interviewer, is no stranger to this tricky task. She's spoken to everyone from Bill Gates to Kim Kardashian, and many of her interviews
unearthed incredibly touching moments. So what is the key to making her interviewees feel comfortable being vulnerable? My name is doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show about how to help you do your best work. On today is my Favorite Tip episode, we go back to an interview from the past and I pick out
my favorite tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak with Jamilla Risby about how she builds rapport with people really quickly and whether she has any tricks up her sleeve, especially when doing interviews.
Yeah, that's a really great question. Yes it feels really manipulative, but yes I do. I not always, but I am often asking people when I interview them to make themselves quite vulnerable. I'm asking them to share something that's happened to them that is hard or as difficult, or is upsetting. And I don't think you can ask a stranger to do that and to expose themselves in that way to you unless you're willing to do the same thing. So, whether it makes the final letter or not, I often
speak about my own experiences, my own difficulties. That shared vulnerability creates a level of connection and a level of warmth and a level of permissiveness to share things you might not otherwise have shared before. Just a few months ago, I was interviewing Danny Minogue for the Weekend Briefing. And I've met Danny once before, but you know, we certainly don't know each other well in any way, and we sat down for this interview, and she is someone who
you know, is interviewed every day of a life. So it's one of the challenges with an interview like that, is, well, how do you get something new and something interesting that her fans haven't heard before because they can listen to her on so many platforms, with so many different interviewers
and that particular day. We talked a lot about motherhood and the realization of knowing you're pregnant and the uncertainty that comes with that and the excitement at the same time, and she ended up sharing an experience that she'd had, which was during the UK phone hacking scandal, and because a story about her pregnancy was going to be splashed all over the front pages of the UK papers before she had even told her family, she had to call her family in Australia and wake them up and tell
them she was pregnant in this horrible moment, and she spoke about having that joyous moment stolen, that telling your mum and your dad and your sister and your brother that you're going to have a baby should be a glorious, warm family memory, but for her it had to be this rushed phone call where she was full of fear and she just had to get off the phone to
get back to the lawyers. And we talked about how that felt like it had been stolen from her, and she spoke so beautifully and eloquently, and I didn't know at the time, but she hadn't spoken about that before publicly, and I think the reason she was willing to was that we'd shared that vulnerability of what it feels like to be a new mum and what it fels like to be pregnant and unsure and scared for the first time. And I'm not sure we would have gotten to that story if she hadn't felt safe.
So I wonder if you have a situation coming up where you need to build rapport with someone quickly. Maybe it's a new teammate or boss, or maybe you're attending an event where you don't know anyone, this could be your chance to try sharing something that makes you feel vulnerable and seeing if that helps you strengthen a bond
with the person that you're talking with. Now, if you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better. You can sign up for that at Howiwork dot co. That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios, and thank you to Martin Nimba, who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound better than
it would have otherwise. See you next time.