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With practice, self -reflection, along with a little bit of guidance, we can all hone our communication skills.
I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.
Today we will focus on the idea of communication mastery with my friend, colleague, and mentor J .D.
Schram, who in addition to lecturing and strategic communication was also recently named the Director of the King Global Leadership Program for the Knight Tennessee Scholars Program at Stanford.
When we originally recorded our conversation, I had a cold, so please pardon my voice.
Welcome J .D. Thanks, Matt.
Thanks for having me.
Now I know you have a new book coming out on the topic of communication mastery, called Communicate with Mastery, Speak with Conviction, and Write for Impact.
So I guess that's a great place for us to start.
How do you define mastery?
I love the definition of mastery that Dan Pink gives in his book Drive.
Mastery is getting better and better at something that matters.
For you, for me, for many leaders that we have the privilege of working with, communication is something that matters.
And you cannot reach perfection in communication, no matter how great the document is, how great the speech is, how concise the report is.
You still could always make it just a little bit better.
And so we look at mastery as being an aspiration that I get closer and closer and closer, but I never get to perfection.
And that, that's the premise of the book is how can I iterate over time and keep getting better and better and better, knowing that the goal is something I will never fully reach.
And that's part of the process that we go through.
And it seems to me that the work that you do to get toward, to achieve mastery is really in and of itself the benefit and the reward.
It's not mastery itself.
It's the effort towards mastery.
Is that right? It is.
And I think if a leader can be self -reflective and recognize the growth that they have had over a period of time, it is that process that is really exhilarating and really encouraging much more than the product of that one talk or that one deck or that one letter.
You know, that notion of reflection, self -reflection that you mentioned, I think is so critical to success in any communication, but especially as we strive for mastery.
I'm curious if you have any insights and thoughts about adjusting and adapting your communication to the needs of the people you're speaking to.
Well, two thoughts on that.
One, I think it's crucial that leaders deliver the message the audience needs to hear more than the message the leader wants to share.
And so I think we have to be effective as a leader.
We've got to be very audience -centric in the way in which we design and deliver communication.
And we have to be really careful as we're reading an audience.
We could misinterpret something.
We could get something wrong thinking that they're bored with us and they're actually so intent on it or thinking that they're so intent on that they're bored by what we're doing.
So in the design of the communication, I have to really think about my audience a lot.
In the delivery, I want to be sensitive to the audience, but I also want to acknowledge I don't have all the information.
So if I'm going to invent or interpret what's going on for somebody, interpret something that's going to support me and encourage me, like their intent on what I'm saying, rather than assuming, oh, they're bored by what I'm saying.
So there's kind of something different in the delivery than in the design, but we have to be thoughtful about the audience throughout, just don't overcorrect or over respond on something we're making up while we're speaking.
I really like that distinction of what you do going into the creation of the content, being in service of the audience.
But then in the moment of delivery, it's a different perspective.
You know, I'm smiling as you tell that story about the audience and not reading right what's happening.
I once had a student who the whole time I'm speaking, he's nodding his head.
I thought, oh my goodness, we are connecting here.
What happened, though, is when he dropped his pen, he was wearing a hoodie and I saw he had earbuds in.
He wasn't paying attention to a darn word I was saying.
So your advice of what you see is not always what you get is very, very true.
You know, I want to get back to this notion of design because we've talked a bit about designing messages for audiences.
But one thing I appreciate so much about the work you do is you really spend time championing the establishment of what I'll call a positive communication culture within an organization.
And I believe, and I think you believe as well, that part of what a leader does is not only communicate well and model good communication, but establishes a culture of communication.
Now, I have to tell you, J .D., one of the reasons I'm excited about your book is that I know you are a collector of examples and anecdotes and stories and slides, both good and not so good.
And I look forward to seeing which ones you've chosen.
Whenever I need an example of something, you are the first person I come to.
Can you share a few examples that you think highlight best practices or perhaps practices to be avoided as people progress towards their own communication mastery?
I love that question, Matt.
So there's a section in the book that is all about communicating from a particular perspective or point of view or orientation.
And the groups that I chose to highlight in there, communicating as an LGBTQ leader, as a member of the gay community.
I've done a lot of work in that.
And so there's a section on what's distinct about being an out LGBT leader.
There's a section honed especially from the work of Alison Kluger and Stephanie Solaire on executive presence for women and what are the best resources out there and what are some of the resources out there to avoid that are not what we would want.
But in that section, I also have communicating as a military veteran.
And through both the Ignite program here and the Breakline program, we've been able to work with veterans who are going from a life of military service to a career in the civilian ranks.
And many of the veterans who are in the Ignite program here were very generous with me as I wrote that and researched that and came up with tips and stories about what that transition is like.
And I don't know that there are very many resources out there that look at that slice of communication, whether it's somebody who's been marginalized or somebody who has had a distinct service experience.
And how can I approach mastery when I've got this experience, which may be an asset or maybe a liability, but I just have to acknowledge that's what I'm coming into the conversation with.
And those stories were awesome to get to collect and then to share back out to the men and women of the military who fed into that and have them respond to it.
They were grateful to see something codified in one place.
It's exciting to me to know that your book not only will give general guidelines and advice, but also targets very specific experiences people have and how they themselves can then work on their own personal mastery.
Are there any specific tools and exercises you recommend people try as they journey towards communication mastery?
There are several. Let me limit it to just two.
And this again goes back to the concept of iteration, getting better and better at something.
We include in the book and Kara Levy, who's a communication coach here at the GSB was my co -author on this.
We include a lot of examples of how to self edit your writing.
It is always useful for me to hand over an email or report to somebody else to copy edit or be a check for me, does this hit the right tone?
Does this the right level of detail for this audience?
But how can I do that when I don't have somebody to turn a document over to?
Similarly, in the oral communication, being able to use our smartphones effectively to record our side of a conversation and analyze it later, to be able to hand our phone to somebody in a business meeting and say, when I do my pitch to senior management, could you just subtly capture it on video or even
just on audio that is completely unobtrusive in a meeting?
Then I can go back.
I can hear exactly what I said.
I can look at the fillers.
I can look at the up talk.
I can look at the long winded sentences or where did the questions come?
And being able to use just simple tools like that in small ways, we get better and better at what we're doing.
It doesn't have to be hiring a coach and doing, you know, hours of rehearsal to get ready for a TED talk.
It can literally be something as simple as reviewing a document after I've written it or audio recording a conversation that I had and then analyzing my side of it.
It comes back to that review and reflection that we talked about a little earlier.
You know, and many people forget that virtual tools like WebEx and Zoom and Skype, they all have record features and you can record yourself and take the time to watch and listen and you can learn.
Painful, but very, very helpful.
Now, J .D., I have to admit something to you.
I'm very jealous of many things that take place in your life.
But your book collection is beyond compare and I have tried in my best way to compete.
But you have an amazing book collection.
You are very well read in our field and beyond.
I'm curious, what are you reading currently and how is it applying to what you do?
Two books that are in my current orbit.
One is a book that Deloitte produced called Business Chemistry.
The author is Kim Christfort and it's similar to MBTI or Enneagram, Enne strength finder.
So you take an assessment and it comes up with one of four styles, an integrator, a pioneer, a driver or a guardian.
Easy words to remember and then it not only tells you what your practices are and what your weaknesses are, but if I'm a driver, how do I interact with an integrator?
If I'm an integrator, how do I interact with a guardian?
So it's really good about inter -team communication as well as knowing myself.
So that one I'm very excited about.
I've been learning more and more about it.
I may even teach a course about this in the future.
And then the second one, People Who Know Me, a huge fan of Storytelling with Data by Cole Knopflic Nussbomber.
And she has a second book coming out that's activities for storytelling with data and it's a workbook.
It's almost like having Cole at your side, helping you think through the charts and graphs that you create.
How are you going to design them and how are you going to deliver them that you're not just data dumping?
So those are two of my top top 20 right now.
As you were speaking, I was already looking them up on Amazon and they will be in my book collection soon.
We end every one of these podcasts with three questions that I ask everybody.
And I'd love for you to share your answers to these three.
So the first question is, 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?
You cannot not communicate whether I write an email or I sit back and I wait for a day.
Whether I speak up in a meeting or I remain silent, whether I sigh or I smile.
You cannot not communicate.
No matter what you do, you're communicating something.
So let's take some ownership for the communication you want out there rather than have it just be by default what you're doing.
I like how you turned a double negative into a positive bit of advice.
That was cool. Who is a communicator that you admire and why?
I've got to go to the queen, Oprah Winfrey, her ability to tell stories that make a point that draw you in.
I've gotten to see her present in person twice.
I spoke at a conference that she was one of the keynotes and being able to hear her in person describe and inspire people to be their best selves.
Hands down, I just think she is top of her game.
And for the audience listening, I think her Golden Globes acceptance speech of the Lifetime Achievement Award two years ago.
Brilliant storytelling, brilliant arc, great use of mantra just across the board, everything she did very effective.
I 100 percent agree that that particular speech was phenomenal.
Third question, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?
I'm going to fall back to something I teach in almost every class and every workshop audience intent and message.
Mary Munter and Lynn Russell several years ago created the AIM model.
Who is your audience?
I don't know who I'm writing or speaking to.
What is my intent? What do I want them to do with that after they receive it?
And only once I know audience intent can I then create the message.
The biggest mistake that leaders make today is they jump immediately to message without slowing down to think about who really needs to hear this.
And when they hear it or read it, what's the action I need them to take?
So the three answers to me are audience intent and message.
What a wonderful way to wrap up a conversation about mastery.
And we all need to slow down and think about in a very methodical appropriate way how we develop our communication skills, written or spoken.
And you've given us great insight in our conversation.
And I and I hope everyone else looks forward to your book to give us even more information.
Thank you so much for being an inspiration to me and everybody else.
Thank you, Matt. It was a privilege to get to be here.
Thanks for doing the podcast.
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk Smart the Podcast produced by Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.
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