Sometimes, what’s communicated to us can have a big impact on how we communicate to others. This episode explores some of the best communication advice — from experts and Think Fast, Talk Smart listeners around the world. As teachers of Strategic Communication, lecturers Shawon Jackson and Matt Abrahams have plenty of advice on how to be a better communicator. But in this 150th episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart , the two don’t just discuss the communication strategies they share with students in...
Jul 09, 2024•23 min•Season 5Ep. 150
“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 speechwriter and author Dan Pink . “I think it’s because we are slightly over-indexed on risk. We overstate the risk in many circumstances.” In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart , strategic communications lecturer Matt Abrahams sits down with Pink to hear how we can take more risks and how leaders can inspire ...
Jul 02, 2024•28 min•Season 5Ep. 149
In our personal and professional lives, some conversations are harder than others. To navigate the difficulties of discussing what matters most, Professor Irv Grousbeck says we need the right balance of conviction and compassion. At both Stanford Graduate School of Business and Stanford School of Medicine, Grousbeck teaches courses on managing difficult conversations. He equips students with skills to be direct while being respectful, to be strong while being warm, and to resist any urge to beat...
Jun 25, 2024•29 min•Season 5Ep. 148
Innovation and disruption aren’t just for organizations. According to Whitney Johnson , we can find new possibilities for personal and professional growth — by disrupting ourselves. As an executive coach, author, and podcaster, Johnson teaches people how to level up their lives and careers through the power of personal disruption. Her book, Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work , reveals how shaking things up enables us to break free of the constraints we might not...
Jun 18, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 147
Stress can get in the way of our communication with others. To manage our stress, psychologist Jenny Taitz says, we first need to adjust the conversations that we have with ourselves. Taitz is an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of several books, including Stress Resets: How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes . According to her, much of the stress we experience is self-created through negative thought patterns and harsh ...
Jun 11, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 146
Whether we realize it or not, we negotiate everyday. But when we approach these situations as a win-or-lose battle, we’re already showing resistance, and setting ourselves up for difficulty. But what if you reframed the whole idea, to think of a negotiation not as a fight, but as a problem-solving exercise involving emotions? In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart , Matt Abrahams speaks with Stanford GSB Professor Emeritus Margaret Neale about what she has learned in her decades of researchin...
Jun 04, 2024•17 min•Season 5Ep. 145
Many of us would rank getting along with colleagues as an important aspect of work, but, as Amy Gallo explains, relationships devoid of disagreement can actually be less productive. “While our natural human instinct is to avoid conflict, I believe that conflicts are not only an inevitable part of interacting with other humans, but they're a necessary part.” Gallo is a workplace expert, host of HBR’s Women at Work podcast, and the author of Getting Along: How to Work With Anyone . Across her work...
May 28, 2024•23 min•Season 5Ep. 144
In choosing who to date, what job to pursue, or how to invest our money, most people are just looking for a reason to move forward. But according to Professor Ilya Strebulaev , we should be looking for something else: a reason to bail. "The smartest venture capitalists ask a very different question from what most of us ask," says Strebulaev. Instead of asking “‘Why should we invest?’, venture capitalists approach every new opportunity with [the] question: Why should we not proceed?” This contrar...
May 21, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 143
A special live edition from the Me2We event at Stanford, where strategic communications expert and podcast host Matt Abrahams joins four distinguished faculty members from Stanford Graduate School of Business: Michelle Gelfand explores the dynamics of cross-cultural organizational behavior. Brian Lowery discusses the societal implications of racial perceptions. Deborah Gruenfeld reveals insights into power dynamics and personal presence. Zakary Tormala delves into the nuances of persuasive langu...
May 14, 2024•35 min•Season 5Ep. 142
So you want to lead your team toward innovation. Does that require that you know where you’re going? Not according to Linda Hill . Hill is a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School whose research focuses on leadership and how organizations achieve innovation. When it comes to generating breakthrough ideas, Hill says it’s less about a creative vision and more about stepping into the unknown. “Innovation [is] not about an individual coming up with a new idea,” she says. “In...
May 07, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 141
Preparing to speak in front of a skeptical audience is more than thinking about objections beforehand – there are specific techniques you can use to respond to these challenging situations without sounding defensive, evasive, or dismissive. Here, we offer a few key tips for how to handle skepticism with aplomb. In this episode, host Matt Abrahams and Stanford GSB lecturer Burt Alper share how to prepare for these challenges from your audience and discuss the importance of tactics like acknowledg...
Apr 30, 2024•18 min•Season 5Ep. 140
Whether you're looking to boost your productivity, find more joy in your work, or simply be more present in the moment, you need flow — and research by Assistant Professor David Melnikoff could help you find it. Melnikoff investigates how we pursue our goals, and how flow — the state of being totally immersed and engaged in what we’re doing — can help us achieve them. According to him, flow isn’t necessarily about enjoying a task or activity for its own sake, but more about the process of discov...
Apr 23, 2024•19 min•Season 5Ep. 139
From the way you communicate, to the way build your life and career, Graham Weaver , MBA ’99, says it’s about “giving yourself permission to fully be yourself. You can never go wrong when you’re saying your truth.” Weaver is a lecturer in management, a GSB alum, and the founder and a partner of Alpine Investors. He stresses the importance of direct communication, highlighting how avoiding it can lead to wasted time, energy, and even financial losses. Reflecting on his own experiences in private ...
Apr 16, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 138
If communication is like painting, words are the primary colors. But to convey deeper meaning, we need a broader color palette, which Dana Carney says requires the mastery of nonverbal communication. We often focus on the words that we say when honing our communication, but according to Carney, there are many instances “where nonverbals start to be more meaningful than verbals.” A professor at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the George Quist Chair in Business Ethics, Carney researches the...
Apr 09, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 137
Disagreement and conflict may look the same on the surface, but the two concepts are, in fact, very different. According to Julia Minson , knowing how these notions differ is crucial to how you approach them. In this episode of Think Fast Talk Smart , Minson and strategic communication lecturer Matt Abrahams delve into the intricacies of conflict and disagreement. Minson, an associate professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Stanford University alumna, also shares her experti...
Apr 02, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 136
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 , one of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s most iconic classes. In her work with students and as a CEO coach, Teoh 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...
Mar 26, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 135
Join Matt Abrahams with creativity and innovation experts Jeremy Utley and Kian Gohar to explore the transformative potential of AI in the realms of creativity and problem-solving. If you treat artificial intelligence like an oracle, you’ll likely be disappointed. But if you treat it like a teammate, Utley and Gohar say you’ll be surprised just how helpful a collaborator it can be. Utley, an adjunct professor at the Stanford d.school, and Gohar, a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and futuris...
Mar 19, 2024•26 min•Season 5Ep. 134
Across more than 130 episodes, Think Fast, Talk Smart has touched a lot on what it takes to be a good communicator. But what about reaching that next level? What about being a “supercommunicator”? Supercommunicator is a term used by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author Charles Duhigg in his latest book, Supercommunicators : How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection . In this podcast episode, Abrahams and Duhigg explore the precise techniques that distinguish a good communicator fro...
Mar 12, 2024•38 min•Season 5Ep. 133
Effective and productive teams and relationships are based on the ability to communicate safely and to fail successfully. In this episode, Amy Edmondson , a professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Right Kind of Wrong : The Science of Failing Well , shares profound insights on the different types of failure—basic, complex, and intelligent—and their implications for learning and innovation. In her conversation with host and Strategic Communications lecturer Matt Abrahams, Edmonson o...
Mar 05, 2024•26 min•Season 5Ep. 132
Friction — that’s Professor Huggy Rao ’s metaphor for the forces that hamper workplace efficiency. But as he says, some friction can be helpful — if you know how to use it. In his book, The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder , Rao and coauthor Robert I. Sutton explore how operational obstacles show up in the workplace and, more importantly, what we can do about them. Through what Rao calls “friction fixing,” leaders can “take out the bad ...
Feb 27, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 131
“Simple language, forceful language, vivid language, and keeping it simple and direct,” says Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer , are all powerful tools to strengthen your communication. Host and Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer Matt Abrahams interviews Pfeffer, the author many books, including Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't , about the verbal and nonverbal ways we can harness, or give away, our authority when we’re speaking to others. Pfeffer is also the host of the podcast...
Feb 20, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 130
All too often, we communicate without really connecting. The key to building deep connections with others, says David Brooks , is to make them feel seen and heard. Brooks is a writer for the New York Times , the Atlantic , and the best-selling author of several books. In his latest, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen , he explores how vulnerability — both being vulnerable ourselves and creating space for others to be as well — is the key to fostering deep...
Feb 13, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 129
Join Matt Abrahams engaging with his international audience and answering questions that touch upon some of today's most pressing communication challenges. Matt offers advice on everything from the nuances of crafting clear, impactful questions and navigating emotional dynamics in group settings to maintaining control during presentations and delivering difficult news. Additionally, listeners are treated to innovative strategies for creating memorable introductions and managing disruptive behavi...
Feb 08, 2024•20 min•Season 5Ep. 128
Matt takes live questions from his worldwide audience and shares a lesson around concision, relevance, accessibly, and precision in messaging. In this "masterclass," he emphasizes the communicator's role as a translator who simplifies complex information for diverse audiences. Key takeaways include the careful use of analogies, considering cultural backgrounds and audience understanding, and providing techniques for chunking information into understandable segments. Additionally, the episode del...
Feb 06, 2024•24 min•Season 5Ep. 127
If we want to generate better ideas, then we need to get people back to the office. In this bonus meetings mini-series episode, we feature an episode from the newest podcast from Stanford Graduate School of Business – If/Then: Business, Leadership, Society. In this conversation with senior editor Kevin Cool , Professor of Marketing and former TFTS guest Jonathan Levav details his study of remote work and creativity. “Pairs that worked face-to-face generated 15 to 20% more ideas than pairs that w...
Jan 30, 2024•35 min•Season 5Ep. 126
Whether you’re giving a toast or presenting in a meeting, communication is critical to success in business and in life. Join Matt Abrahams, a lecturer of Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he sits down with experts in the field to discuss real-world communication challenges. How do I send my message clearly when put on the spot? How do I give better feedback? How can I easily convey complex information? How do I manage my reputation? How do I manage my anxiety in...
Jan 29, 2024•2 min
How can we make meetings more effective? How can we keep people engaged and interested? Whether it’s in person or on Zoom, here are a few techniques you can use to make your gatherings more meaningful, productive, and memorable. Get practical tools and actionable insights to actually make meetings matter, as well as knowing when NOT to have a meeting. Join Matt Abrahams in a dynamic conversation with Elise Keith , an expert on effective meetings and communication. Elise explains the three main c...
Jan 23, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 125
Delve into why people hate meetings, explore what hinders their effectiveness, and how to change that. Karin Reed (Emmy Award winner) and Joe Allen (“The Meeting Doctor”) join Matt Abrahams in the first of a two-part series that aims to reshape your approach to meetings and help you make them effective and meaningful, whether in person, virtual or hybrid. They shed light on the constraints hindering effective meetings, and explore strategies for optimizing meetings, emphasizing the importance of...
Jan 16, 2024•27 min•Season 5Ep. 124
The information you receive is only as strong as the questions you ask. This week we revisit Matt's discussion with Debra Schifrin about how to craft inquiries that can lead to better communication outcomes. Questions are also instrumental in building relationships, Schifrin points out. “If you’re asking questions, you’re signaling to the other person that you value them. You’re taking time to listen to their answers.” Connect: Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium Email ...
Jan 09, 2024•25 min•Season 5Ep. 123
Research-backed techniques on how to beat nervousness in the moment. In this episode, Matt uses clips from experts from previous Think Fast Talk Smart episodes to provide you with several communication anxiety management techniques to help you feel more comfortable and confident when you communicate. And as a guide to help us learn these techniques, he introduces the ABCs of anxiety management. Connect: Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium Email Questions & Feedback ...
Jan 02, 2024•17 min•Season 5Ep. 122
