I'm Leon calling fromAustralia.
It is 3a.m.here.Hey, so I'm Danny calling in fromGermany.
And first ofall,Matt, this is amazing that you're doing all ofthis.
I really appreciate that you're taking the time to answer all of ourquestions.
Hi, Ziniahere. I'm fromManila,Philippines.
Hi, this isAchena. I'm fromIndia, the calling in from Londontoday.
My name isAna. I'm originally fromMexico, based in MountainView,California.
So my questionis...Hello, and welcome to Think FastTalksMart, thepodcast.
Clearly, I'm not MattAbrahams.
I'm JennyLuna, the executive producer for ourshow.
And you just heard from some of our listeners who joined for the live event lastmonth, where we celebrated our 75th episode of Think FastTalksMart.
In that liveepisode, Matt shared communication skills to help all of us becomebetter, moreconfident, and clearcommunicators.
In aminute, we will share thosehere, but you'll also hear that ask meanything, where Matt answered questions from listeners like you from all over theworld.
We had almost 1200 peopleregister, and we had participants from allcontinents, exceptAntarctica.
We are incredibly honored and grateful toyou, ourlisteners.
Thank you for tuningin, and thank you for supportingus.
Now, here is Strategic Communications Lecture in ourhost, MattAbrahams.
Well,hello,hello. So excited to be here with all ofyou, and thank you so much to Jenny for getting us kickedoff, and for all of the hard work Jennydoes, to bring our episodes toyou.
I am thrilled to have an opportunity not only to share some key best practices for effectivecommunication, but to take yourquestions.
So thank you for spending part of your day with ustoday, and we're really excited to getgoing.
Tostart, I thought I'd introduce you to some key communication practices that I think can really make a difference in helping you be moreconfident,clear, and connected in yourcommunication.
So I'm going to start with advice that if you're a listener of thepodcast, you have heard manytimes, and that is it's really critical to know youraudience.
It starts withthem. Many of us make the mistake when it comes to communication of starting with what we want tosay, rather than thinking about what our audience needs tohear.
So before we do anything in ourcommunication, we have to do somereconnaissance,reflection, andresearch.
We have to think about who our audience is and what it is theyneed, because if we can make our messaging relevant and salient forthem, they'lllisten, they'lllearn, and they're more likely toact.
So there are a few things I want you to think about the audiences you speakto.
First andforemost, is their knowledge level relative to the topic that we'rediscussing?
Do they know alot, or do they know just alittle?
We've all been in that circumstance where somebody has talked to high level or too low level for ourknowledge, and it just doesn't feelgood.
If you already knowit, then you feel like you're wasting yourtime, and if you don't knowenough, you feellost, and that can be reallydisconcerting.
So we have to think about knowledgelevel.
We also have to think aboutattitudes.
Is our audience likely to be supportive of what we'resaying, or perhaps notsupportive, and will adjust our messagingdepending?
And thenfinally, we need to think about points of resistance or hesitation towards what we'reasking.
Is it that it costs too muchmoney, takes too muchtime, requires too muchchange?
We must focus our messages to adjust and address the resistance wehave.
So just like all of our guestsmention, it's all about youraudience.
It's not aboutyou, it's aboutthem.
There are three additional concepts I'd like to layer on top of knowing youraudience.
And the first is making sure that you have a clear goal for yourcommunication.
In all of my strategic communication classes I teach at the businessschool, we really talk about the importance of having agoal.
Now to mymind, a goal has three majorparts.
It's aboutinformation,emotion, andaction.
In otherwords, what do you want your audience toknow?
How do you want them tofeel?
And what do you want them to do as a result of yourcommunication?
And there's one added bonus of having a cleargoal.
It gives you a way to judge and assess the success of yourcommunication.
Youknow, when I go all over the world doing thiswork, teaching communicationskills, I'll often ask people and I'llsay, how do you know if your communication wassuccessful?
And you know the most frequent hints are Iget, I got throughit.
As if survival is the best metric ofsuccess.
Now ofcourse, that'sridiculous.
The best metric of successis, is your audience leaving knowing what you want them toknow, feeling how you want them tofeel, and doing what you want them todo?
So once you know youraudience, you craft agoal.
That goal leads you to structure amessage.
We need to put our messages inside astructure.
Our brains are wired forstructure.
There are lots of structures you canuse.
And those of you who've listened for a while know that I am a huge fan of thewhat, sowhat, now whatstructure.
There are manystructures, but this happens to be myfavorite.
You start by talking about what itis, you're discussing youridea, yourbelief, yourproduct, yourservice, youroffering.
And then you explain why it'simportant.
Why is it important and relevant to the people that you're talkingto?
And thenfinally, with the nowwhat, you explain what comesnext.
Maybe it's let's have another meeting or let me show you what I'm talking about or what questions do youhave?
So it has momentum builtin.
I think thewhat, sowhat, now what structure is sopowerful.
Not just forspeaking, but forwriting.
You can write emails in thisstructure.
Then now what is the subject line in thewhat, in the sowhat, are the body of theemail?
If somebody asks you for yourfeedback, the what is yourfeedback, the so what is why it'simportant.
And then now what is what you'd like them to do differently or continuedoing?
Now I want to take a time out in myclass, as I call this a meta moment where we look at what we've justdone.
I actually used this structure to teach you thisstructure.
And I gave you some examples of how to useit.
Infact, everything I've said so far has been in thisstructure.
It's verypowerful. Now there are other structures that you canuse.
And I encourage you to find structures that work well foryou.
Having a structure helps you as a communicator because it gives you a map that you canremember.
And it helps your audience because it packages things up in a logical ordered way and that's what our brainslike.
So we start by knowing ouraudience.
We then create agoal, no fielddo.
And then we formulate a structure for our message to accomplish that goal for ouraudience.
Now once we deliver ourmessage, we next have to think about what happens when our audienceresponds.
And so my final tip and trick is to leverageparaphrasing.
I think paraphrasing is soimportant.
And you hear me in our podcast episodes trying to practiceit.
paraphrasing is where you distill down the information that you're hearing orreading.
You want to bring it to itsessence.
In otherwords, it's the bottom line of what you'rehearing.
And this bottom line allows you then to connect or question for what comesnext.
So we don't just paraphrase toparaphrase.
We paraphrase to then moveon.
So I encourage all of you to think aboutparaphrasing.
And you can practice this when you're in a meeting and you're not talking or it's a topic that's not directly relevant foryou.
Be thinking to yourself as you're listening to otherscommunicate.
What's the bottomline?
What's thetakeaway? When you're readingsomething, challenge yourself tosay, what's the bottom linehere?
By drillingthat, just like if you're learning a new sport and would do the drills in thatsport, this trains you to do itwell.
It really helps youfocus.
Now paraphrasing can be used for manythings.
One, it's a great way to signal that you're listening and to validateothers.
So forexample, if you're talking and ask me aquestion, I can paraphrase that questionone, tovalidate,yes, I heardyou, thankyou.
But I also validate the fidelity or accuracy of what Iheard.
There's no sense me answering a question you did notask.
So byparaphrasing, you cansay,yes,Matt, that's thequestion.
Orno, I really meantthis.
paraphrasing also allows you tothink.
paraphrasing is what we call a lower order cognitiveskill.
What that means is that I can paraphrase and still be thinking about what I want to saynext.
So it's a wonderful way to buy yourselftime.
And thenfinally, I think paraphrasing is perhaps the most polite way to interrupt somebody or to move a conversationforward.
We have all been part of meetings or presentations where somebody goes on toolong.
And what we really want to say is please stop or shutup.
We've heardenough. But that's notappropriate.
So what we can do is we canparaphrase.
We can highlight something of value or importance that the person hassaid.
Nameit. Maybe even comment onit.
And then moveon. So imagine I'm in ameeting.
And somebody in the room is talking toomuch.
And I'm the leader of themeeting.
I might highlight something theysay.
I mightsay,oh, cost is reallyimportant.
Infact,Jenny, I'd love to hear your thoughts aboutcost.
Do you see what I didthere?
I interrupted theperson, validated what they were saying aboutcost.
And then I literally took the content and moved it to somebodyelse.
So I've just told that person and everybody else in the room were movingon.
So paraphrasing is a tool for validating emotions and information for buying yourself time and for moving conversationforward.
So take in together knowing youraudience, having agoal, no fielddo, and building out a structure likewhat, sowhat, nowwhat, can really help you make your communication moreclear,concise, andfocused.
And having the ability to paraphrase helps you interact with your audience and move the conversation or the presentationforward.
I truly hope that these skills are helpful for you and can help you hone yourcommunication.
Hieveryone. It was amazing to be live with our Thinkfast TalkSmartcommunity.
Thank you to those of you who joined us live and thanks to all of you for tuning innow.
I thoroughly enjoyed taking questions from listeners from all over theworld.
Let's start off with two questions that directly relate to ideas from mytalk.
I met this is Mateo fromSwitzerland.
You know you have shared tons of great communicationadvice.
It's a little ThinkfastTalkSmart, but what is the worst communication advice that you have ever given orreceived?
I leave the choice toyou.
I'm going to talk about that I'vereceived.
Now I certainly know that I've given bad advice forsure.
But the worst advice I have ever received was when somebody told me to memorize everything that I was saying and to practice it at twice the speed that I would normally deliverit.
Their argument was if you can speak your talk twice asfast,memorized, then you really haveit.
Well, that just goes against everything I know to be true and personally feel comfortablewith.
Memorizing is a hugetrap.
While you think it's helpingyou, it's actually working againstyou.
Because your brain is focused on what you'vememorized.
So half of your attention is comparing what you're saying to what you were supposed tosay.
So you only have half of your focus on the actual saying of it and connecting with youraudience.
And thesame, something twice as fast just puts a barrier between you and youraudience.
You need to speak at a normal naturalrate.
So the worst advice I ever received was to memorize and speak twice asfast.
I tried and it was miserable and I literally right before I had to give the talk and it's a talk that's outthere.
You can actually watchit.
It's a that Igave. I'm not going to name it because I don't want to offendanybody.
But I just said no way I'm going to do this myway.
And while the talk might not have beengreat, I certainly felt much better aboutit.
Thankseveryone. As yousaid, this in race I have called from Bangalore and I'm very thankful for you giving your time andexperience.
My question is around you talked about understanding theaudience.
But if we have to present to a large audience where you have say20, 50 or say hundreds ofpeople, how you try to understand the expectations or knowledge or background of such kind of audience and make your presentationeffective.
Thank you for thatquestion.
You're absolutelyright.
When you speak in front of a large group that's very diverse and you might not knowthem, it's really hard to understand everything aboutthem.
But that doesn't mean we shouldn'ttry.
Soagain, going back to this notion ofreconnaissance,reflection, andresearch.
So if you're invited to anevent, let's say you're at aconference, talk to the organizers of theconference.
What do they know about theattendees?
Do you know the names of the companies people are coming from to yourpresentation?
Can you do some research on thecompanies?
Understand what they think isimportant.
Look at the bios of the people who work at thatcompany.
Use tools like LinkedIn and Google and other tools to search uppeople.
So there is some work you cando.
Now inherent in thatquestion, Ibelieve, was anotherquestion, which is what do you do if the audience because it's so large is varied in things like knowledge level orattitude.
So some people know alot, some know alittle, some are infavor, somearen't.
What do youdo?First, you have to really think about who is the target set among the largergroup?
And ifso, tailor your message to that targetgroup.
Ifnot, you have to scaffold and build that information so that people are more onpar, especially when it comes toknowledge.
So let me give you anexample.
Let's imagine you're in aroom, could be a largeaudience, a smalleraudience, and you know some people know a lot and some know alittle.
Here's what we know fromresearch.
First, you should acknowledgethat.
So when youstart, you say in thisroom, we have some people who know a lot and some who knowless.
What we know from research is that this actually bolsters yourcredibility.
People see you as more credible because you're acknowledging that you've done some homework and you know who'sthere.
The second thing you should do is let people know that you're going to spend the first few minutes of yourtalk, of your presentation of themeeting, scaffolding or building some foundationalskills, and then you'll get to the deeperlevel.
This does two things foryou.
The people who don't know a lot are very thankful because you're going to help themlearn.
And for the people who do know alot, you just told them that they have to wait just two or three minutes to get through that rudimentarystuff.
So they're going to stick withyou.
If you simply start with the foundations and thebasics, the people who know a lot are going to checkout.
So we do have to spendtime.
We might usetechnology.
We might ask people who can help us to figure out who's in theroom.
And if there's somevariation, we can work hard to figure out how to scaffold thatinformation.
Thank you for thatquestion.
We also had some practical questions about how others see us in general and ininterviews.
Here are the questions and maththoughts.
My name'sAnish. I'm calling from theUK.
My question wasbasically, how do I communicate negative feedback to acolleague, especially when there's an action stepinvolved?
As Isay, if something needs to be doneurgently, but I don't want them to take offense to negative feedback or start an argument or anything likethat.
Excellent. Thank you Anish for thequestion.
And thank you for calling in all the way from across thepond.
So feedback is a really challengingsituation, especially when it's constructive orcritical.
My perspective is that feedback is actually an opportunity to problemsolve.
So what you're trying to do in the initial giving of the feedback is to invite the other person to collaborate withyou.
We want to avoiddefensiveness.
In a lot oftimes, we come from a place offrustration, of highemotion, because the person isn't doing itright, whatever rightis, or they've messed thingsup.
And we need to distance ourselves from thatemotion, maybe take a walk around theblock, talk to afriend, write out how you'refeeling, but try to put those emotions notaway, but undercontrol.
And then think through what is the best way that I can invite this person to actually interact on thistopic.
So rather than coming at somebody andsaying, you messed up and you're doingthis, which can make peopledefensive, you might want to phrase it asquestions.
Andsay, I've noticed a few times that this is what Isee.
How can we work togethertoo?
So by making the feedback andinvitation, it reduces defensiveness and invitescollaboration.
Nowcertainly, there are times where feedback must bedirect, must bespecific, and you need people to stop things rightaway.
That's not where you ask aquestion.
But there are many times where thinking through ouremotion, thinking through what might be motivating thebehavior, and then finally focusing on how to ask as aquestion, your feedback so that you can invite the people in can bereally, really important toyou.
Thanks for thatquestion,Anish.
I hope there was some value inthat.
I'd love to hear some morequestions.
Thankyou. I'mPranava.
I'm calling fromIndia,Bengaluru.
Theysay, first impressionlasts.
And how would you make your firstimpression?
Some say start with thestory, some say start with thehumour, some say start with thequote.
Andwhich, how would we know that who would receive itbetter, which one would be the better way to start your speech or some addressing that you've got togive?
So you're absolutelyright.
First impressions areimportant.
They anchor futureimpressions.
It doesn't mean you can't change what people see of you or how theythink, but it's a bitharder.
So to be thoughtful about how to come across when people first meet you or when you first start acommunication, it's prettyimportant.
Now the question of what's the bestway?
My MBA students get very frustrated with me because I get a lot of questions likethis.
And my answer is always itdepends.
It depends on what you know about youraudience.
If I'm speaking to a very technical data-drivenaudience, it might be in my best interest to establish a good connection and a good first impression to use somedata.
It might be if I'm speaking to a general audience that's starting with a story or telling a joke might make the mostsense.
So we start with what we think will resonate best with theaudience, what their expectations are and what willconnect.
The second part of that is what's authentic toyourself,right?
If I'm not comfortable telling stories or trying to befunny, to simply tell a story and to be funny because I think that's what's going to help my audience see mewell, sets me up for badoutcomes.
So start with what you think is important for the audience and try to conform to that and then think about what's authentic and true foryou.
And I encourage all of you as a third bit of advice to practice and test thingsout.
So if you're giving a big presentation or facilitating a bigmeeting, think of two or three different ways to start and see how thatresonates.
Test it with otherpeople, practice it and see how itsounds.
And that's going to helpyou.
What I will tell you is this and anybody who knows me has heard me saythis, my biggest petpeeve, the thing that bothers me most about all communication is how people start meetings andpresentations.
I think it is a bad idea and just plain ridiculous to start presentations and meetings by startingwith,hi, my name is and today I'm going to talk aboutboring, but now and often really silly because I'm in front of a slide that has my name and the title of my presentation or somebody has an agenda that says the samething.
I think you should start all your communication just like action moviesstart.
How do action movies start withaction?
Ask aquestion, tellstory, take apoll, then introduceyourself.
How would your favorite actionmovie, whatever it isfeel, if when you were watchingit, it started with the title and the credits and then the actioncame.
It would be a very different experience than the way I bet your favorite action movie started with some kind of action and then they told you who was in the movie and what itwas.
So first impressionsmatter, jump right into it rather than ease your way in with some kind of preamble and I think that's going to help you thebest.
Our final question came from a father daughter pair and addresses virtualcommunication.
It's actually my daughter Maddie'squestion, just mycomputer.
Okay, well where are you and Maddie calling infrom?
From JacksonHole,Wyoming.
Oh beautifullocation.
What's yourquestion,Maddie?
Has that ad been in Zoom meetings changed your approach to communicating in virtualgroups?
Absolutely. Virtualcommunication, whatever tool itis, Zoom teammeets, WebXU nameit, has changed many things about the way wecommunicate.
Now some things stay thesame.
You should know youraudience, you should have agoal, you should leveragestructure, youshould, but a couple things become even moreimportant.
Let me namethem. The first is beingconcise.
Virtual communication has mandated that we be more concise andclear.
Why? People are more easily distracted and as many of us learned during thepandemic, we can cram in more communication in aday.
Many of us had many more meetings and did a lot more communicating when we were in thepandemic.
So you have to be more concise andclear.
The other thing that virtual communication has mandated is we have to be moreengaging.
When we're physically in a room together or sharing the samespace, I can read cues and clues from you that I can't when we'revirtual.
So that means I have to manufacture opportunities for me to see if you'retracking, if you'reinterested, if you'reengaged.
So I might use some of the tools that something like Zoom or Teamsprovides.
Like I'll take apoll, I'll have you use thechat.
I might use a sharedwhiteboard.
These are all engagingtechniques.
So I can get information that if we were inperson, I could read just by watching what you pay attention to and how yourespond.
So, soMaddie, it has dramatically changed the way wecommunicate, yet some of the things still remain thesame.
And the reality isthis, virtual is not goingaway.
We're going to be morehybrid, which I think is even more challenging where you've got some in the room and some on the Zoom and you have to balance thatout.
But the ideas of trying to be engaging more clear and concise stillremain.
Wow, great questions and a greatexperience.
Thanks again to all of you who joined us live and a big thank you to all of you who are listening innow.
We are always excited to hear fromyou.
We have several ideas of how we will connect and interact in the nearfuture.
Fornow, please register for our Thinkfast TalkSmart the newsletter by going to stampford.io slash TFTSnewsletter.
