0:00 People really care about what's making them disliked. And they really want to know how to be liked. >> Okay. So, first, this is an exercise that I do in my class at Harvard called 10 questions to fall in like. >> So, if I ask someone those questions, they're going to like me. >> It's a great starting point, but let's talk about this because they're going to be little clues about how to be better liked. And it's the most teachable, practical, scientifically rigorous framework in the world for communication. Do you want to hear about it Stephen? >> Of course I want to hear about it. I want to be the most persuasive, influential, likable talker in the world. So, I shall follow your lead. >> Oh my gosh, >> it's a lot of power. >> I love it. I love it so much. >> Harvard professor Allison Woodbrooks is a behavioral scientist >> who has spent two decades studying conversational science. >> And she's revealing the communication mistakes we all make. The art of
0:46 negotiation and how to get anyone to like you. >> We all get to adulthood and we feel like conversation should be easy. But as a scientist, when you look under the hood, you realize this is why we have so many awkward moments, why we say things that we shouldn't, why we are boring, why we get angry and hostile. And there's very clear strategies to help us with all of that. Like one of my biggest findings was how we reframe social anxiety as excitement, which makes you focus on opportunities rather than threats. And that paper ended up being featured in Inside Out, the movie. And then there's small talk. >> I hate small talk. >> I'm going to help you reframe that because it's really important. But the mistake that people make is that they say they're way too long and they need to move up this topic pyramid. >> What about in a digital age? Do we need to start communicating differently? >> Yeah, there's clear things that we should do to make our textbased communication better and we'll go
1:32 through all of them. >> And you said you've done an interesting study recently about male friendship. >> Yes. And it's quite troubling. >> So, how can I make more friends as a man? >> Yeah, let's talk about that. I see messages all the time in the comments section that some of you didn't realize you didn't subscribe. So, if you could do me a favor and double check if you're a subscriber to this channel, that would be tremendously appreciated. It's the simple, it's the free thing that anybody that watches this show frequently can do to help us here to keep everything going in this show in the trajectory it's on. So, please do double check if you've subscribed and uh thank you so much because in a strange way, you are you're part of our history and you're on this journey with us and I appreciate you for that. So, yeah, thank you.
2:20 Professor Allison Wood Brooks. What is it that you do and why do you think it matters so much to the world? >> I am a professor at Harvard and I'm a behavioral scientist. I study how people talk to each other and how they can do it better. I teach a course that I created there called talk. I wrote a book about it, also called Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. >> And if someone's chosen to listen to this conversation now, they've just clicked on it and they're thinking, you know, should I stay or should I should I go? What promise can we give them if they stay and listen to this conversation that is based on the work you've done in your book and all the research you've done? What is it that you think the average person can come away with that will have a meaningful
3:05 impact on their day-to-day life? All of life is about relationships and relationships are about talking. So if they can learn even one strategy that helps them in their conversations, it will massively improve their lives. If you think of everything from work to romantic relationships, friendships, productivity, all of it hinges on having excellent conversations. >> But conversations are easy, right? Like you just talk. >> We all feel that way. We all get to adulthood and we feel like conversation should be easy because we started learning how to do it when we were one one and a half years old as toddlers and we practice doing it with an enormous number of partners conversation partners
3:53 every day of our lives. So by the time we become adults it feels like we should be experts like we should be great at it. But as a scientist, when you look under the hood and you see, oh my goodness, all of the complexity that's happening under the hood, you realize, oh, this is why we have so many awkward moments, why we say things that we shouldn't, why we don't say things that we should, why we hurt each other, why we get defensive, um why we are boring, why we get angry and hostile. And there are very clear strategies to help us with all of that. As you were saying that, I was thinking, do you think there's a lot of people that are going through life giving off the wrong impression because they don't know how to talk? Maybe they are disliked. Maybe they are misunderstood because they haven't mastered the science of how to have a great
4:39 conversation. On my worst days, I worry that everybody's walking around being misunderstood. When you think about talking, even as I'm talking right now, there's no way to take the entire contents of your mind and all of your personality and say it out loud. And so, we're always curating. We're always choosing what some subset of stuff to share with other people through conversation. And no one is doing that perfectly. And I and I fear that many people are are really struggling with it. If you had to pinpoint just a few things that people want when they think about becoming a great conversationalist like what is it that we actually are aiming at? Is it to be you know what is that? >> Yeah. Usually people want to be liked
5:24 even loved. Usually we want to enjoy our conversations to not have them be miserable. We want to feel safe and protected and and not have it be dreadful and timeconuming. And we want to achieve professional goals. So advancing and achieving and making great decisions. So already the very basic drives of what people are trying to achieve in conversation are actually a little bit more complicated than just like oh we're looking for connection. Um and then when you really dig into it within all of the goals that people want in those categories, it's like a vast constellation of of motives. >> I would like you to teach me how to talk really really well. >> I don't know if you need my help that much, Stephen, but I'd love to. Even the best communicators have room for improvement. >> No, I think I do. I think I do because
6:11 I, you know, this I was thinking about this last this last week and all the conversations I've had, the different types of conversations. I had one conversation where I met someone's family for the first time who works with me. And it was, you know, it was a little bit nerve-wracking because >> that contact, you know, people have have these moments where they meet the in-laws or whatever or they meet >> um for me it's often meeting someone who works with me's family, I find quite nerve-wracking because they're like, I think they're kind of probably judging me. I've also had difficult business conversations >> because they are judging you. >> Yeah, they are judging me and I can feel it. And as I go towards those conversations, I'm like, "Oh my god." And then I end up just like freezing or being a little bit paralyzed. And you'd think as someone like me who does this for a living living finds conversations easy. I absolutely do not. you I I actually the more uh you know I talk to
6:56 very high level seuite um very successful people and in fact the higher and more successful people are the more likely they are to be aware that this is really important and that they have room for improvement. It's almost like you're aware that this skill is probably what helped you get where you are and therefore you want to get even better at it and you're keenly aware of when you have awkward moments or make mistakes or missteps and you're like I would really like to get that out of my life please. >> Amen. I like ruminate on an awkward encounter I had like two and a half weeks ago. I was like, I should have just da da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d but actually in reading some of your work I thought about what I could have done and we'll get to this this idea of preparing for those moments which I typically don't because I assume I should be a natural. >> Can I ask you as you were talking about
7:42 these different examples of things that you're ruminating about? Um, do you feel like you have a a a weakness or like a a recurring thing that you suspect you need to get better at? I think one of them is I am a bit of an introvert in my sort of self-classification and as people know who I am more in the world, I think I've become more introverted. >> So, and sometimes that can be perceived in the wrong way. So, my like happy state is kind of being alone or around people that I'm extremely familiar with. >> If I leave the house and I go say to a gym or something, >> I have a little bit of paranoia. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm always kind of on edge, which means that this kind of shuts me down more. So when I do have conversations, I can sometimes feel appear to be a bit more shut down and I don't want to carry that into moments where I need to be a
8:28 bit more open. And then I would say generally I just like hate small talk. >> Yeah, you're not alone there. >> And I just say it's like a point. This is why I think I podcast because you can just skip straight into the deep stuff and I can ask people about their trauma. Like >> you can do that in normal conversations too actually. Do you find that you get stuck in small talk? >> Yes, >> a good bit. >> I just try and avoid it. So I I've got this funny story. one of the most that the most prestigious people on planet earth invited me to come to a thing and I said no because there would be a hundred other people there and I just didn't want to be in a room for four hours with a bunch of other people like it just for me it's so exhausting. >> Yeah. >> And if I told you that what this context was you'd burst out laughing and my team were like you go to that [ __ ] YOU GO >> AND YOU enjoy it >> and I'm like no I'm not going there's
9:14 too many people there. But that's that's kind of what I'm like. I love this environment, but I hate small talk. And I hate >> I don't know if that's a weakness as much as it is you learning your preferences. >> I think it's okay. Uh maybe we'll get there, but large groups are very stressful. Group conversation and figuring out the structure of like who should be talking to whom when and about what is very overwhelming for the human mind. um it's quite different than one on intimate one-on-one conversation which is much more within your control and it's much clearer what the purpose is. Um so we should think about it maybe not a we can reframe it and it's not a weakness but thinking about your social portfolio. Who are you talking to? Is it the right people and are is it in the right arrangements in the right group
10:00 size? So, what we're doing right now one-on-one is a categorically different task than going to a party with a hundred people. So, I'm going to help you reframe that later on. >> Why did you choose to do this? All the things you could have done with your life. >> Yeah, it's Isn't life so fascinating? I often think about the paths not taken. Um, but I'm very happy to be on this path. Um, I grew up in upstate New York on a small lake in a small town. I was a late girl, just gorgeous place. And I love playing sports, team sports in particular. I love female friendship from an early age. And probably most formatively, I'm an identical twin. And all of the things I just described, I think, are either
10:46 indicators of how much I love conversation or formed my love of conversation. But either way, I I arrived at college deeply interested in understanding humans and their behavior. And by the time I got to Harvard, I realized, wow, there are whole fields like social psychology and communication that are purportedly about communication, but nobody's bothered to actually transcribe real conversations and study them at very large scale. And so that's what I've been up to for the last 15 years. >> How has being an identical twin been formative in this regard? M. So, my twin's name is Sarah. Um, being an identical twin, I'm there are many things that are similar to being a close sibling, I'm sure. But an identical twin, it's like you have another version of you in the world. And we share a
11:34 bedroom. We were on the same sports teams. We played in band together. And so, it's sort of like watching a version of yourself up close. And I got to see how she failed and thought, "Oh, well, I'm I'm going to avoid that." and I would see how she succeeds. She hits a an amazing joke. She answers answers an amazing question. I know that I'm able to do that because we have the same DNA, the same abilities. In a sort of subconscious way, I think I've just been chasing trying to help other people find that in their relationships, uh, in their friendships, in their romantic relationships, in their work collaborations, because I've gotten to see how amazing that can be for two human beings, how close you can be and how much you can actually understand each other when you communicate well.
12:21 >> And what research have you done? Like, what are the reference points you're pulling on? Do you do your own research? >> So much. and give me a flavor of the the >> Too much probably. I uh it's almost like I'm a recovering academic. I've been working in academia doing behavioral science research for 20 years. I know I look impossibly young. Um, I started in graduate school studying emotions, especially anxiety and and not the kind of anxiety that requires medication or therapy necessarily, but the types of social anxiety that people feel constantly all day long. And figuring out, okay, how does it affect different behaviors like how we negotiate or how we take advice from each other or how we perform when we're public speaking? Uh, these types of things. and then figuring
13:06 out strategies and tips to help people manage that anxiety more effectively. And one of my biggest findings was how we reframe anxiety as excitement. Uh it's a very easy flip to move from it's essentially they're the same emotion because they're both high arousal, high energy, high cortisol, a stress hormone, um high heart rate, uh sweaty palms. You just change how you think about it in your mind. So literally saying things out loud like I'm excited change how your appraisal of it. So you actually experience excitement. It helps you perform a lot better in a lot of different ways. >> So you did a study in 2011 was it? >> Yes. Yes. >> The nervous Nelly negotiation study. >> So that one was about negotiation specifically the um this excitement reappraisal. The paper's called get
13:51 excited. And that paper actually ended up being featured in uh Inside Out the movie. >> Oh wow. >> Yeah. There's a great scene where the main character is about to have a panic attack and Joy sneaks into the little cubicle farm of minions and says, "Stop drawing all of these projections about how things are going to go badly and instead draw how things could go well." Which is so great. And I was sitting in the movie theater with my kids and my husband kind of looked down the way and he was like, "Is that your thing?" And I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's my thing." >> So, what what did that study show? of those two studies, the the nervous Nelly one, but also the the one of excitement. >> When we feel anxious, as most people do in negotiations because it's an intense environment filled with uncertainty and a lack of control, which is the recipe for anxiety, we tend we want to escape.
14:37 We either want to relieve that feeling by making concessions or get out of there, right? Just exit the interaction. That was the main finding of the nervous Nelly anxiety and negotiation paper. The reframing anxiety as excitement paper is lots of different ways to convince yourself that you're feeling excited just by saying I'm excited out loud. And in doing so, that makes you focus on opportunities rather than threats, how things could go well rather than poorly. And it has incredible downstream consequences. Helps you sing better, helps you do public speaking better, it helps you collaborate more effectively. Um, so it's just a very it's a very powerful intervention. >> And what was the sort of mechanics of the study? So, we would have bring people in. You tell them, "Hey, Stephen, you're going to be singing karaoke in front of an audience. People start to
15:25 feel quite nervous about this naturally." Then, right before they're going to get up and sing this song, we say, "Okay, an experimenttor is going to ask you how you're feeling. Some of you, we want you to say you're feeling excited, and some of you, we want you to say you're feeling anxious." And that alone, when I say, "Stephen, how are you feeling right now?" and you say >> anxious. >> Great. Okay, let's go sing the song. You go. People who said I'm anxious sing worse compared to people who say I'm excited. They get out there. They're more in tempo, more on pitch. They have better rhythm. And we measure it with a software when they're actually singing in front of the experimenters. >> Just by me saying I am excited. >> Yeah. >> So the other day when I met my team members family, I I should have been
16:11 saying to myself, I'm so excited to meet them. among other things. So, so this and this is important. It doesn't always work, right? If you're terrified >> and it's really something dreadful, like you're terrified that your mother's going to die and turns out it's going to be hard to get excited about that if she has a terminal illness. But on the margin, if you're sort of torn between feeling nervous or excited in your mind, if you can really convince yourself that you actually are excited and that things could go well, I'm going to crush this exam. I'm gonna I'm gonna tear it up on the basketball court. That flip, if repeated enough, actually becomes more likely to come true and certainly before a high stakes conversation like meeting your colleagues family. >> So interesting. I I really I have this behind the scenes channel um called
16:57 Behind the Diary on YouTube and uh the other day when I did Jimmy Fallon because it's kind of outside of my wheelhouse to go on like late night TV in America and like seven minutes to be funny or whatever. So I was [ __ ] myself cuz I'm a very serious guy. So before I went out, there's a video of me and I said to my team, what I said to myself before the little curtain opened was, "This is going to be amazing. Can't wait. You've you've like prepared for this." Then I said all this nonsense in my head thinking that it was nonsense and I walked out. I had the best time of my life. It was it went so great. >> Great. >> And I I made a video about that how, you know, I'm not one to believe in things that without like rigor and evidence and I didn't have it. >> Now you do. >> Now I do. Now we have a study that proves that it's not. >> This one is interesting. I think this was the beginning of my scientific journey realizing that the way we talk
17:45 to other people and the way we talk to ourselves especially in a repeated sense if you think about okay you did that before Jimmy Fallon now what if you do it before the next time you meet a colleague's family now what if you do it before you interview Bill Gates before you do it right if you then get in the habit of telling yourself you're excited and that becomes effective for you it's incredibly meaningful in accumulation over time right so just focusing on one time yes it's helpful but if you can make it habitual it has this sort of upward spiral effect on people it was the beginning of my scientific journey thinking oh well if we can study one phrase like get excited or I'm excited what if we start studying the cascading unfolding ways that people talk to each other and not just one line but like every turn of a conversation no one had
18:32 done that before >> and this negotiation study you did what was the mechanism for that >> yeah that was a more class so the the literature. People have been studying negotiations for decades now. And there's a really great negotiation course at almost every business school and law school that's based in all of this rigorous work. What had not been studied on in terms of negotiating are people's emotions. It was a it was about 15 years ago that people including scholars came to the point where we were like, "Oh, people's feelings matter." When they feel nervous or when they feel angry, that's actually important distinction. how you feel on the inside versus what you're expressing to your counterpart. So in this paper, what we found is as a base rate, most people feel anxious before and during a negotiation because it is an intense environment. It's probably one of the
19:19 greatest benefits of taking a negotiation course is that you just get reps and so you get more comfortable with the process of doing it. That might be the biggest takeaway from doing a training course like that. And so in this paper, we had that sort of base rate. Look, everybody's feeling anxious. Um, and then what are the downstream consequences of feeling anxious? And what we find people, we had people doing negotiations, playing these negotiation games. What we find is that people are much more likely to sort of leave prematurely or make more concessions to relieve the feelings of anxiety, >> make bad offers. >> Yeah. Or it depends on your goals, right? If you if your goal is to claim a lot of value, then making concessions and giving money away is not going to help you with that. So, if I'm asking my boss for a pay rise, for example, and I
20:05 and I'm very very nervous, I'm much more likely to um lower my expectations, accept a bad offer, and leave the situation prematurely. >> Absolutely. >> So, what do I do about that? >> Oh, so many things. If we're talking about asking for a raise, um what you want is to go in there with as much sort of personal power as you can, one way to do that is to get another job offer somewhere else first. So, we talk about this as the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, a BATNA. You want to strengthen your BATNA. So, if your boss says, "No, I'm not giving you a raise." You can legitimately say, "I'm going to go take this other job offer cuz I just got a better offer from the guy down the street." >> What if you don't want to take the the other offer?
20:51 >> Then you need to be honest with yourself about how much power you have in the negotiation. You also probably a lot of people make the mistake of going in sort of hands on hips like I deserve more money. There are lots of questions that you should ask first to know am I negotiating with the right person? Does my company have the funds to actually give me more money? Why? What? How can I justify this in a way that's compelling to them? Right? It's it's not up to you. It's that they they need to want to keep you and to feel like you are being fairly and generously rewarded and all of that requires asking a lot of questions before you go in and start making demands. >> In that context, how would you try and persuade me if you work for me? So, what would you say? Because I do think, you
21:36 know, it's very easy to get someone's backup when you walk in and ask them for money. Yeah. >> If you do it >> 100%. I it's hard for me to answer this because um maybe this is sort of my personal values. It's almost like I'm taking off my expert hat for a moment. I think the best way to get a raise is to be awesome. Do things that are valuable and your company is going to give you more money without even having to ask for it. So in my heart, this question of how do we have a conversation where I ask for more money? It's almost like I I would hope that you don't even get to that point. If you are truly making yourself almost irreplaceable and incredibly valuable, your boss is going to be coming to you and saying, "I have
22:22 to keep you around. You're amazing. You're so incredible." That's a much easier conversation to have than walking in and saying, "I'm I'm it's not fair. I don't make enough." >> I do think that holds to be true. I think that generally if people's first priority is what they want, then they often don't tend to get what they want. But people who have the priority, their first priority is what I can give tend to get what they want. >> That's right. It's so um it's a bit of a sort of like a mindset shift. If you prioritize other people's needs, if you're thinking about what your boss finds valuable, what the organization finds valuable, and you rise to meet those needs, you make yourself valuable, which is going to come back to you. Um hopefully that's what that's the hope. And I think often that is the case.
23:09 Almost always that is the case in the talk framework and we'll get there. The K is for kindness. And it's not kindness in the sense of like altruism because I'm going to help my boss and do everything he wants because I care so deeply. That can be part of it. But also it's this sort of loop of like well if you give him everything every if you give the organization what it needs that's going to come back to you. You will actually become valuable and get what you want as well. That's how relationships work. Usually when I interview people, I lead the way. Today, I'm going to follow, okay? Because you know the outcome that me and the audience want to get to. So, I have all this stuff here. >> I love it. Props. >> I have all these props. >> Fabulous. >> I have these blocks that for anyone that can't see the conversation, say T A L K
23:54 on them. Talk. >> Fabulous. >> And you tell me the best place to start. You know the outcome. You know where I want to get to. I want to be the best conversationalist, the best talker, the most persuasive, influential, likable talker in the world. Um, so I shall follow your lead. >> Oh my gosh, >> it's a lot of power. >> I love it. I love it so much. Um, let's start with this. Um, I want you to think of a conversation that you had recently. It has to be more than 5 minutes long. >> More than five? Yes, I can think of one immediately. It was a conversation I had with my girlfriend where I just wanted her to know that I accept the fact that I [ __ ] up. Like I I I accept the fact that I should have been more present in a particular moment and I wasn't. And I just wanted to like >> own it.
24:39 >> Own it >> and and convey that to her >> and convey that I'm sorry and I get it. >> Yeah. >> And this is not one where I'm going to try and justify my whatever. No, actually objectively I should have been more attentive and present. Y >> I just wanted her to know that. >> Yep. So you sort of have an admission of blameworthiness. Uh why why did you want to do that? >> Because I felt that she was right and I regretted my my behavior. >> Yeah. >> So sometimes I don't feel like she's right. Sometimes I'm here to, you know, respond. In this particular scenario, I thought, you know, actually on balance, I should have been more present. This was an important time for her and in hindsight, that's not how I wish I had behaved. >> Okay. How did you want her to feel
25:25 during and at the end of this conversation? >> Understood. >> And you really unders that was really it. It's like I wanted her to feel understood and >> I guess like connected to me. But it's more it's really more I just wanted her to not worry that I didn't understand so she didn't have to say it again. Like I just wanted her to know that I I get it. >> Mhm. >> Mhm. Mh. >> And that in future I wish I behave differently. >> How did you want to feel during and after this conversation? >> I guess I wanted to offload the guilt. >> Uhhuh. Aha. Good. Good. >> Because I felt bad. I felt like no actually. >> And it was weighing on your conscience. You were like, I got to I I got to say that. I got to own this because it's making me feel like a [ __ ]
26:11 >> Yeah. >> Okay. Fabulous. Okay. When we look back on our conversations and try and describe what our goals were, very quickly you start to realize that our goals are very complicated that we want a lot of things. I'm also guessing there may have been a time component. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how much time did you have to achieve these goals? >> I mean, I never seem to have enough time. So, it was like it was Yeah. So, I I I had about probably about 20 minutes. >> Great. Hey, that's pretty good. >> I wish I had 20 minutes with my husband. Okay. Um, so I have a framework that helps us think about conversational goals and I call it the conversational compass. Okay. And like a compass that you might use to find your way out of
26:57 the desert or the forest. The compass helps you decide which way not to walk but to talk. Okay. So the xaxis >> I'll put this on the screen for anyone that's uh can see the video. >> Great. Um, the X-axis, which runs horizontally, is about your relationship. >> Also, I'll link it below. >> So, this relational axis, high relational goals are things that you care about that are serving the other person or your relationship. This conversation sounded very high relational. You're truly like, I just really want her to know that I feel like a [ __ ] and that I'm owning it and like I care and I maybe won't do it again. Something like that. Low relational goals are things we care about that serve us. So in this case you said something like I want to offload
27:43 get rid of my guilt. I wasn't I was feeling bad. The why access is about information exchange. High informationational goals are hinge on exchanging accurate information. It's sort of the reason human beings learn develop the ability to communicate at all right way back when is to take what's in my brain communicate it to you accurately. But we care about tons of stuff that is lowformational. So it's not about exchanging information and sometimes it's about concealing it. In this case, you had a highformational goal. You wanted to sort of persuade her or prove to her that you're a good guy and that she should stay with you essentially, trust you. But you also had lowformational goals like you didn't want it to be emotionally unpleasant to have this conversation. You also had
28:29 lowformational goals like a time constraint. You needed to protect your time and her time. uh and and so we're always limited by time and cognitive resources. So the point of this is to help us plot all of those goals in a logical way. Uh each quadrant is good. We live in all four quadrants. We're not trying to get to one or another. It's just to help us describe all of the many things that we actually care about almost to validate them and say, "Listen, it's legit that you wanted to relieve your guilt. super admirable that you wanted to signal to her that like you're owning this mistake. It's legit that you have time constraints. It's legit that you don't want your conversations to be unpleasant. So each of the quadrants get gets a positive name. Highformational,
29:15 high relational is about connection. Okay. Often you'll hear communications uh experts just talk about connection which is um too narrow. It's not the only thing that we care about down here. Low informational, high relational is about savoring. >> What does informational mean >> in this context? >> Like how much uh accurate information you are trying to you need to exchange with each other. If we just sat here kind of quietly and I hummed a song because we that and I said something like I love your shirt. We're not exchanging a lot of information but we might be having a very lovely interaction with each other. So not every conversation is about high information exchange though many people
30:01 think that it is. You know these people they're very transactional. They feel like a conversation is where you just say things you know at other people and that they're going to say things they know back at you. That's a big mistake. >> So having fun I can see is in the bottom right corner. >> Having fun. Yes. >> Because it's not about huge information exchange but it is about connections. Okay. >> Oh and it's really important. Many of my students at Harvard almost forget about this quadrant. They're like, "If we're not persuading and making decisions, we're not living right. Like, this is really important, especially over time. If we're not enjoying being with each other, I'm not going to look forward to talking to you again." That's true at work and outside of work. Lower left is essentially discernment. We call it protection. It's protecting your time,
30:46 protecting your reputation, protecting information. So, concealing, keeping secrets, moving quickly. We can't sit here for hours and hours and hours. Um, and then protecting your reputation. Like you care about making a positive impression on other people. I want you to see me as smart and warm and calm and trustworthy. These are self-serving, low relational or low informational goals. And then we get up to upper left, which is low relational, they're self-s serving, high informational. This is a lot of work rellated goal, persuasion, making decisions, brainstorming, etc. So if I want to be liked and have great relationships, I need to be on the right side of this. Is that accurate? >> So what happens if someone who trusts you and loves you tells you something in
31:32 confidence and then you go tell everybody else? >> You lose trust. >> Yeah. So it's not that you can only live on this side of the compass because discernment matters >> for relationships. Okay. Right. So, and here you are going to be in a relationship where hopefully you're going to be like brainstorming things together, making decisions together. Even with a friend, you're like, "Oh, where should we go to dinner tonight?" You need to make that coordinate that choice well together. So, I think one aspiration is to try and be over on the right side as much as you can. And in fact, having the mindset of pushing yourself to try and think about your goals that are more pro-social more often is a virtuous goal. But like listen, we all have actual needs. So
32:19 like you can't only live on the right side of the compass. It's about moving around in a way that is savvy and and actually serves what you care about. >> Yeah. >> Gotcha. >> Do you have a sense of where your goals from that conversation that you described would be? >> Apologize. >> Which is high relational and not very high on informational cuz I didn't have a bunch I didn't have a lot to say. It was just very simply about letting her know that I was sorry. And it wasn't I didn't have a big explanation or a bunch of excuses or justifications. It was just listen, I [ __ ] up. Yeah, I get it. >> Can we talk about apologies for a sec? >> Sure. >> I love that you chose this as your example because and the way you're describing it. I love how you're saying um I didn't go into a huge explanation
33:05 of why I did it or anything. More people should apologize that way. A lot of people their instinct when they're apologizing is to revisit the problem and sort of make excuses or explain why they m did the thing wrong. It's not effective. Um what is more effective is what you're describing. Taking ownership and saying, "Look, I I just messed up and I'm so sorry and I feel awful about it." And the most effective component of an apology is actually making a promise to change. If you say to your girlfriend, "I realize I messed up here. I'm not going to do it again. Here's how I'm going to be different in the future. Like a concrete plan. It's so compelling to hear that you've thought about that and that and then it's measurable because she can see in the future. Do do
33:50 you actually live up to that promise? Do you follow through on this promise to never do make the mistake again? >> Is there a point where you can apologize too much? >> We studied this. I ran some studies on this. Um, we started by looking at um, frequency of apologies made during normal conversations. It's quite rare for someone to over apologize, but it does seem like within one conversation, if you apologize more than twice, it starts to be more of a reminder of the bad thing that happened. Like you just keep revisiting it and it brings you back to the negativity rather than moving forward. We also studied apologies in a really large data set of parole hearings like among people who had committed really serious crimes and we looked at the
34:36 types of apologies that they made in their par during their parole hearings. And there it seems like you actually can't overapologize like more is better. And again, the most effective component is making a promise to change in the future. Um I'm going to go I'm when I get out I'm going to be an AA. I'm going to live live with my grandmother. here's the job I'm going to do, whatever the plan is. Um, you're actually more likely to get out of jail. >> And going into those difficult conversations, is there anything one needs to do to prepare? >> Because we our lives are full of difficult conversations and actually it's the avoidance of them that ends up messing up our lives the most. So when you think about difficult conversations that we all have to have or with difficult people is do I have to prepare for that? >> So this is very natural. Almost every person that you hear talk about
35:21 communication tends to focus on difficult conversations. I'm going to suggest to you that that is a very narrow view of the conversational world actually. And in fact, thinking about difficult conversations is a little bit of a misnomer. It's not like there are some conversations that are difficult and some that are easy. >> It's that in every conversation there can be moments of difference where we use different language to mean the same thing. where we have an in congruence in our emotions, where we have a difference in motives. I want to give you advice, but you don't want to take it. Or something dips down to a difference in our identities. I'm American and you're a Brit. So, anytime you encounter these little fleeting moments of difference in all of these different ways, and maybe
36:08 there was an image here. Let me see. No, it's not here. Um, it looks like layers. We talk about it like layers of the earth. And above the surface are the words and sounds that you hear while people are talking. Right at the surface are people's emotions. So I feel excited but you feel tired and bored. That's going to be uh tough. Right below that are people's motives. What I want to that gets back to the compass. What I want to achieve is different than what you want to achieve. We're all walking around with a compass in our mind and they're different from each other. Right below that are our beliefs. Right? I believe that immigration is a problem and you believe that AI is a way bigger problem than human immigration. >> Um how do we talk about that in a way and then all of it get dips down to the
36:54 the sort of hot magma in this layers of the earth model of our identities. So even an easy conversation, we're on a date or we're two spouses are driving in a car or friends are hanging out watching a movie, like you can stumble upon these little moments of difficulty any time for any reason and you need to have the skill set to be able to make sure the temperature doesn't get too hot. >> What is that skill set? >> There's a fabulous research on this. I have found it incredibly helpful in my life um research by Julia Mincson, Mike Yman's, Hannah Collins called receptiveness. So it's receptiveness to opposing viewpoints and it's both the mindset when you when someone comes to you with something that seems crazy, you don't judge it negatively. You have
37:40 to fight the human instinct to think of it as like that's crazy, that's wrong, and now I'm going to win and now I'm going to be right and prove you wrong. Because all of those instincts ruin our conversations and our relationships. >> Why? It makes us defensive on the receiving end. It makes us sort of accusatory and hostile on the attack end. Once we get into an accusation and defense mode, the conversation is broken down. It's no longer about connection favoring, protecting, and advancing. We're now in this new world that is not achieving any of our goals. >> She says someone comes to me and comes to you and says something crazy. They say, you know, the sky is purple. Yeah,
38:25 >> it's actually it's not blue, it's purple. >> Here's a magical phrase that you can say in that moment. It makes sense that you feel that the sky is purple. It makes sense that you feel excited to tell me that the sky is purple. It makes sense that you feel X about Y. Makes sense that you feel skeptical about podcasts. It makes you It makes sense that you feel annoyed that I speak quickly. It makes sense that you are worried about AI. Whatever people are feeling, whatever they express to you, we can validate that feeling because whatever is going on in their mind is their reality. And we have to say that out loud before we go on to do anything else, even if we're about to disagree with them vehemently. But we have to say the validation piece first just like therapists do all the
39:11 time in order for them to feel heard and like, "Oh yeah, I'm safe here so that I can join you on your side of the table and now we're going to untangle this weird problem together." You say the sky is purple. Tell me more like what how did you come to feel like the sky is purple? Um are do you are you color blind? Are you do you see everything in purple? Like now I can ask you questions about how you came to that perspective and we can learn I can learn about it. >> I guess the risk is you don't want to >> validate something wrong. >> Yeah. >> Why not? >> You don't want to appear to be saying cuz if I say it makes sense that you think the sky is purple but it's actually blue. >> The word thinks is important. It's it makes sense that you feel X about Y. >> Not it makes sense that you think X
39:57 about Y. Thinking is like a cognition. >> Is the risk of it sounding patronizing? Maybe, but in in in practice it feels really really good. When I run this, so I run an exercise in my class where we go around. Let's say there there's a group of five students and you have to share something. We start easy like share one song you love and then the next person has to validate that before they share their favorite next song. And you go around and around very quickly. And so it feels very contrived to say, okay, you have to say, I love that you love that Taylor Swift song. That's so interesting. I actually don't like Taylor Swift. It feels very contrived, but when you talk to the students after it, they say, "Yes, I knew what we were doing." It did feel over the top to say that about people's song preferences.
40:43 And still, it felt amazing to have the person next to me say, "I love that you love that Taylor Swift song." Validation. We are all so hungry for validation that even ridiculous validation feels amazing. So then when you get to round two and everybody's sharing something that they're really struggling with and the person next to them says, "Wow, I'm so sorry. That sounds really, really hard." It makes sense that you feel upset about your mom. Now you've got that habit and you're making them feel quite good about something that actually does deserve that validation. So it's all about like developing these habits no matter where the difference or disagreement is coming from. What's the opposite of that? >> The opposite is what how people
41:29 naturally respond, tend to naturally respond, which is by trying to win and prove them wrong and prove that they're right. So you say the sky is purple and I say that's crazy. Skye's blue. And then where does our conversation go? It feels terrible for you. It's so I learned this um because I employed this person once and this person when we'd talk about ideas the first word out of their mouth was always I disagree and then they'd make their point. >> That's right. >> And I don't know what it was about it, but I noticed that it would like get my backup >> of course. >> And so I'd say I don't know. I'd say I think we should do it like this. I disagree. Yeah. >> And then they'd make their point. And I remember thinking, gosh, that's such a >> And it's so ironic because their goal is to persuade you. At the end of it, they
42:16 want you to agree with their position. That's not at all how persuasion works. The only way that we change our beliefs is is usually across many conversations. And we're around someone we like talking to and respect and have admiration for. And then over time, we sort of bend to the gentle pressure of their differing viewpoint. If I say, "I disagree. Now, let's fight about it." >> You're you get your backup and you're not having you're not enjoying talking to me. Even if you're right and right, like it's not about being right or wrong in that moment. >> The goal here is to keep the conversation in an emotional place where it can continue. So, you can continue to engage. And that's what these researchers find in this receptiveness
43:01 research is there. If you qualify your statement saying like, "I wonder if the sky could be a different color rather than the sky is blue with certainty." There are all of these sort of hedging language, you can divide yourself into multiple parts. So if you said to me, "The sky is purple," I would say, "Oh my gosh, as your friend and as a painter, that is so intriguing to me." As a biologist or as a as a meteorologist, maybe we should investigate that. >> Um, literally dividing yourself into two disagreeing parts. It's usually how we actually feel. So if your mother says something crazy to you that seems crazy to you, you could say as your daughter, I'm so intrigued that you've come to hold that perspective. I'd love to hear more. You know, as a representative of Gen Z, I know my friends would want you want me to say this. It means that you
43:47 can hold two perspectives at once and it is very helpful to the other person to keep the conversation going. But all of the elements of this receptiveness recipe have have this flavor. It's a little surprising. I think often people think of these types of things as weakness because it's like our our instinct is to try to win and be right. And instead, what I'm saying is no, hedge your claims. Show that you're uncertain about stuff. Validate their feelings. Divide yourself into disagreeing parts because you're not certain about anything in order to keep the conversation going so that you have any shred of hope of persuading them over the longer term. I remember Tali Sharrett telling me about a study either. She told me, she's a neuroscientist in London and she told me they put two people in a brain imaging scanner and got them to like look at
44:34 photos and come to agreement on the price of something. Yes. >> And then eventually in these studies, I'm super paraphrasing here. She's probably like cringing. >> I think I know what study you're talking about. >> Oh, do could you explain it? >> Yeah. So, so they studied what what lights up in your brain when you're in a situation of disagreement versus agreement. And it is actually more taxing to your mind when someone is disagreeing with you. It's like these neurological um alarm bells go off and all of a sudden >> like you describe what was your afraid? My back goes up. What was >> Yeah, my back goes up. I get my back up. Yeah, >> that's it. It's actually in your brain. Your brain goes up and it's hard. It's it's very hard to continue to engage once that process is underway. >> Yeah. >> Right. Some people call it amydal hijacking, which is not quite right. Um, but your brain does look different when
45:21 you're in a situation of disagreement. So, whatever we can do conversationally to sort of tamp that down so that your back doesn't go up >> is going to be quite helpful. >> She showed pictures of the brain in these scans when someone disagrees with you. And I think, and I might be getting this inverted, that it was almost like the brain had shut down to receptiveness. Yes. In that moment it was like so I always when I wrote this chapter in my book called do not disagree. It's it's an intentionally provocative chapter because people think what do you mean never disagree with anybody but I mean like don't make the first thing you say I disagree. >> That's right. It can come later. It can come later but first has to come like oh it's so intriguing that you said that. I'm so fascinated and it makes sense that you might feel that way. I wonder if and then you can go on instead of I disagree. I met a girl called an who
46:08 always said yes and instead of but >> good >> and it shocked me because it was so different. I having a conversation with her, you say something to her and you go I think this and she goes yes and and then she would make her point and it could be a complete disagreement but I noticed she was doing it and I loved it. >> Yeah. Oh yeah. And you we often think of the yes and as part of sort of improv comedy humor etc. They were the comedians were really on to something much more profound about conversation broadly. If you can come from a sort of mindset or like spiritual place of yes and essentially you're saying uh I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here even though it what you're saying seems a little crazy. >> Mhm. >> That's what is required to have great relationships. It's like we're all going to have these moments where someone
46:55 feels something or says something that seems crazy. And if you react to it in an invalidating way, that's how we kill our relationships. >> Do we need to kill the word but? Because what ends up happening is someone will say the thing you just said about validating relationships. Yes, I completely understand. Um I think you made a great point, Allison, but. And the minute I say but, it's kind of like I've just taken an eraser to everything you just said. >> I would love to get rid of the word but. Not but with two T's but but with one T. Yes. >> Yeah. You never need it. You can make the same point and say and >> but like it just completely it just it immediately says >> it rever it also reveals that you're sitting there
47:41 in a state of I I can't wait. I'm like on the tip of my tongue is something I can't wait to say that's opposite of what you're saying. And it's the the spirit of it is is antagonistic. >> One of the things we notice when we have conversations on this show about uh about conversation >> is people really care about likability. >> Yes. >> Like they they really want to know what's making them disliked and they really want to know how to be liked. >> Good. So being liked is a huge drive. Um but it's just one of many things that we we care about in terms of gaining status. So status is uh respect, admiration, liking in the eyes of other people. Liking is usually comes from sort of warmth and charm. Uh admiration often comes from like perceptions of
48:27 competence. So we want warmth and competence at once ideally. Okay. Let's go back in time. Should we talk about the talk framework because they're going to be little clues about how to be better liked across the whole framework. >> Okay. >> Okay. Let's start with T. I'm going to push these to the side. T is first I just want to say as a whole framework TAK is the most comprehensive teachable practical scientifically rigorous framework in the world for communication. >> Did you invent it? >> I did. >> So you would say that >> but I didn't when I first wrote the book I didn't say it strongly enough. And in the last almost year I've come to realize why. One part is because most people focus only on difficult
49:13 conversations and here we are focusing on all conversations even the ones that seem like they should be easy and fun. It's all conversations everywhere personal and professional. The other piece is that I didn't even really intend this as a scientist but the way we do research is essentially uh natural language processing machine learning fits into this new world of AI. So the framework can be used by humans or machines to coach people to be better conversationalists and used as a rubric after the fact of saying, "Okay, how did this go? Did you do well? Let's look at T A L K and evaluate." >> Okay, it's the best in the world ever. I >> thank you, Stephen. Okay, thank you. >> Um, thank you for recognizing. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. T is for topics. >> Topics. >> Topics. Topics are the building blocks
50:00 of conversation. It is what we choose to talk about. >> Okay, >> very simple. We all have an intuitive understanding that we sort of work through different chunks. First, we're going to talk about your conversation with your girlfriend. Then, we're going to talk about the talk framework. Then, we're talk about the compass, whatever. We're working through topics. What I think most people don't realize is that we're choosing topics every time we talk. It's not just at the beginning of a conversation like an opener like, "Hey, what do you think of this, you know, the diplomat?" No, it's every time you're talking, we're making moves to gently stay on topic or switch to something else. What's so beautiful about that is it means we all have power. We all have control to nudge the conversation one way or another.
50:46 And we can all do a better job with it. >> So, what's the game here? To pick better topics, to know what topic we're aiming at. >> There's a lot of goals. It's both about choosing better topics. It's also about how can we make any topic better. Okay, one huge piece of advice that when you start to realize how much your mind is doing during a live conversation is to offload some of that cognitive work to beforehand. >> Okay. >> Okay. So, prepping topics ahead of time. This does not mean writing out an agenda before you call your parents or before you call your girlfriend. What it does mean is spending even 30 seconds, maybe even 10 seconds before you're in the chaos of a conversation to think about what you could talk about or what might
51:31 be important for you to remember to talk about. >> Did you do that today? >> Always. >> Sometimes you don't have to, right? Like you did it today. You did extensive prep. Um, you even have things printed on cards here. >> And in a way, I have been prepping for this conversation for 20 years. I've been studying these things. I designed the framework myself. I've gone on 80 other, you know, podcasts. I that's all prep for this moment. >> What about in your personal life? >> Yeah. >> Can you give me an example of where you prepared topics? >> Every conversation that I know is coming. I give an example. >> So with Casi uh before I got here, >> which is a member of our team. >> Yes. Thank you. I thought about I wanted to ask her what it's like to be moving from London to LA. I wanted to ask her
52:17 what it's like to work with you. She said all good. All good things. >> All good things. Next question. What does A mean? >> So funny. Um I often will um so you can It's not rocket science. It's literally just a little bit of forethought. What kinds of questions or topics could I ask you that will make our conversation feel a little bit better than just like winging it in the moment and talking about like some random thing I see in the room? >> Mh. I try to do this before every conversation because now I know how powerful it is and how kind it is. If you are calling somebody and you're like, "Okay, oh yeah, their kid was going to take guitar lessons. I should remember to ask about that." Or, "Oh, my friend had this big presentation at work. I should remember to ask how that went." That means you're going to
53:03 remember to ask them and that's super kind and it they're excited to talk about it, too. It makes everything better. So, topic prep is a huge deal. In our research, what we find when you randomly assign people to prep topics or not, the conversations where people have thought ahead even for 30 seconds, they feel less anxious. They're much smoother. There are fewer disfluencies, so ums, stutters between topics. They cover more topics, which is usually a good thing. More likely to land on good topics. You're less likely to blurt, so you're less likely to share things that you don't want to share with people. It's just an incredibly powerful strategy and it doesn't need to be complicated. I've gotten in the habit of putting like two or three bullet points for people in my Google calendar notes when you know you have a meeting coming
53:49 up and and you don't even have to do it right before like oh a week ahead of time if it pops in my head that I want to ask Stephen about do you want to have children I might write that as a little bullet point in my calendar note for the time that I'm going to be here with you and then I'll be more likely to remember it. Do you feel skeptical about this? >> No. I was just thinking it probably makes you more, going back to the point about likability, it probably makes you a more likable person. >> Much more likable. Yeah. In fact, if you can achieve more of your goals, whether they're high informational, lowformational, high relational, low relational, um, all of that makes you more likable. You you seem more competent. You seem more warm, especially when you lean towards those pro-social, high relational uh, goals. Cuz everyone talks about how if you're interested in someone else, like you
54:35 were interested in Cozy. >> Yes, >> that must have felt good for her, which must make her like you more. >> We should go ask her. >> That's a good point. >> I ask um I have my students sometimes do a reflection task where I say, "If you had to walk into a room and your your job was to make people like you a one out of 10, a five out of 10, or a 10 out of 10, what are the behaviors that you would do to try and pursue those three worlds?" Okay. So, if I wanted people to like me, one out of 10. Yeah. What What would you do? You tell me. You tell me. You're the expert. >> I want to hear your I want to hear your guesses. >> My guesses I would walk in quiet on my phone and I would ignore them and maybe I'd look up and make some kind of snide comment. I definitely wouldn't notice
55:20 that they were there. >> Yeah. >> And I wouldn't make eye contact with them. I >> would maybe be rid like take a phone call. >> I was gonna say you one's really low. So you probably insults probably. >> Oh yeah, I'd offend them. >> Yeah, offend them. >> Maybe take a phone call and then while you're on the phone call, talk about how great you are. Or something, right? Like some sort of arrogance, etc. >> Um maybe if they try and talk to you, interrupt them. >> Yeah. >> Uh and be like, "Not now." >> Or look at my phone midway through what they're saying. Like Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. So there's lots of things you can imagine there. >> Okay. >> Already we've touched on topics though, right? When you think about, okay, I'm talking on the phone in front of them and what am I going to be talking about
56:05 that reduces my likability even for someone who's like just observing you talking? >> I'd get the name. >> That's great. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. >> That's a good way to say you don't matter to me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Five out of 10 is an interesting one. You want to do it's probably more blaszeise like you engage with them but not very well. Talk about small talk topics like you were saying things that you could talk about with anyone that are not personalized at all seem a bit disinterested um but not offensive just bland. >> Okay. >> Okay. Then we get to 10 out of 10 world. You >> 10 out of 10 liability. >> Yeah. What are what are you doing if you're trying to get 10 out of 10? >> I am completely focused on them. >> Good. Um, I'm attentive. I'm complimentary. I'm gonna flatter them. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> do you think it will seem obquous?
56:52 >> And I don't know if I get it right. >> Okay. >> Um, because I'm going to mean it. >> Yeah. Cuz it's going to be sincere. >> It's going to be really sincere. >> Yeah. >> I'm going to crack a great joke. >> Yes. >> Knock knock. >> Yeah. Who's there? >> I don't know. I like I don't know. My friend, didn't you? >> Exactly. >> So, yeah, I'm going to flatter them. Crack jokes. Be very attentive. Get their name right. Ask them about their grandchild. >> Good. Okay, let's pause. I want to in that description already you're moving quite quickly through topics as you're interacting with them. You know that you can't be circling the drain talking about the weather for long periods of time. So just briefly let me say we don't need to avoid small talk. In fact, it's a very important social ritual for people who are strangers to each other, people who haven't seen each other in a
57:38 long time. It's where we land and say, "Oh, we're doing conversation now." The mistake that people make is they stay there too long. Way too long. Any more than like one beat of, "Oh my goodness, the weather's really warm. It's like summer in California." Then you need to make it more personal and move up this topic pyramid towards medium talk, deep talk quickly. Right? So small talk is at the bottom. These are topics anybody can talk about. Tailored talk is more exciting, more personalized, more relevant to your
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