Hi, all. Jenny here. I produce Think Fast Talk Smart and I want to share with you some of the latest offerings from Stanford GSB Executive Education.
This year, they will be offering some pretty exciting programs,including..
. He wrote for Newsweek and Forbes and recently released his third book, STFU, The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World.
Welcome, Dan. I'm excited for a conversation and I must admit, very aware of what I am saying.
I'm curious what motivated you to write this book and how do we know if we're an overtalker?
It's a great question and it and then you want to resist the urge to have that list of 10 questions.
I mean, this is more for when I'm doing an interview with someone and say it.
So I have a very definite agenda.
I need to get something.
But they have the thing where you have question one, question two, question three.
You ask question one and the person sort of answers the question, but of course, I'm doing that.
It says something really interesting that if you were really listening, you'd go, oh, wait a minute.
What's that? And you'd let your half an hour.
And maybe say, let me share my screen and let me show you some slides and eat up the whole hour and then time's up.
And then when he wrote, he would write way too much.
I started talking to him about it and he said something I thought was really interesting, which is that I think I talked too much because when I'm with the people I manage, I need to prove to them that I'm smart.
I deserve to be that way.
We've had a few fellow colleagues at the Business School who study power, Deb Grunfeld, Jeff Fuffer, who've come and they've talked about how silence is actually a way to increase your status in power.
Those who have status in power are permitted to be silent.
And it sounds like the person you were coaching and working with could use some of that advice.
It's not all about the talking.
It's actually about the not talking.
Helpful how you said that so clearly.
So you're not saying you talk too much all the time.
You're highlighting when they do something well.
Have you used that as a technique?
And is that something that's useful?
Do you think in these situations?
I think that's an incredibly good idea.
I have not ever used that, but it is positive reinforcement.
And I think it also sets the template or a model for everyone else to say, wow, that was a self-reported score.
I'm happy to measure it to immune system and found that people who have good conversations also have healthier immune systems, which leads to his theory, which hasn't been proven yet, that you could then do things in reverse and say, if you have more good conversations, you can make yourself happier and healthier.
And his thing is like take two conversations and see me in the morning or say, you could prescribe conversations as medicine.
Now, the great question you asked is what is a good conversation?
And at first, when he was telling me this, I thought, oh, this destroys my thesis because he's saying talking is great.
Go talk. Talk a lot. And he said, well, no, because a great conversation is about listening.
And it probably involves you talking less, but asking good questions.
Even just posing the hypothesis that using conversation to help yourself feel better and be healthier, I think that's wonderful.
And clearly, for people who do what we do, that's great.
All of a sudden, there's a whole other level of benefit, good communication provides.
So, Dan, before we end, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joins me.
Are you ready for that? I am ready and ready to go.
All right, here we go. If you were to capture the best communication advice you ever received as a five to seven word presentation slide title, what would it be?
Can I only use four? Because I would say talk less say more.
Perfect. And as somebody who talks about talking less, I think it's very appropriate to have fewer.
And based on everything we've talked about, that makes a lot of sense.
Talk less, listen more.
You have had an opportunity to interview and speak with lots of people.
So, I'm very curious to get your answer to question number two.
Who is a communicator that you admire and why?
I've always thought Barack Obama was a fantastic communicator in two directions.
One is that he is a terrific at giving speeches and you can study his speeches and learn from them.
But then he is also a phenomenal listener.
Apparently, I'm even better listener than he is a speaker.
And I think maybe in second place, I would say Steve Jobs.
And if you want to see a master class in public speaking, just watch the iPhone introduction, which you can see on YouTube.
I write about it in the book.
Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
And number three, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?
First, I would say empathy and mirroring.
So, somehow engaging with the person and letting them know that you feel empathy with them.
The next one would be listening.
I feel like that's that probably number one, really, and related to empathy.
