Episode Transcript
We are so in our heads that we're not actually spending time really connecting with the other person. We want to do our communication right, and that gets in the way of us connecting and doing it well at all. So I like to say it's about connection, not perfection. Turn that volume down a little bit. Think to yourself that you need to be in service of the audience you're communicating to. When I ask a question, I am actually setting up the person who is receiving the question for success. Hey everyone. It's Antonia back with another episode of QuestionAble Strategy. And the voice you just heard was Matt Abrahams. Matt is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in Organizational Behavior, as well as the author of several popular books, all on communication, and he's worked extensively as a communications coach. He is also the host of the award winning podcast, Think Fast, Talk Smart. Now I may be wrong, but I think that I can safely assume that anyone listening to QuestionAble Strategy is interested in how to become a better communicator, how to be a better speaker, a better listener. And for that reason, I highly recommend that you all go check out the Think Fast, Talk Smart podcast. I've personally learned a ton from Matt and his fantastic guests. In fact, if you remember the very first solo episode I did, I actually gave Matt a shout out for teaching me some very helpful questioning techniques. I'm so excited to share this conversation with you. This is how a communications expert asks questions with Matt Abrahams. Matt, welcome to QuestionAble Strategy. It's really nice to have you today. I am really excited to have our conversation. Thanks for having me. So just to kick this off, I want everybody to know that you are the author of a fantastic book called Think Faster, Talk Smarter. You're also the host of a podcast that everybody listening to QuestionAble Strategy should go and listen to. It's called Think Fast, Talk Smart. I have listened to, I don't know how many of these episodes, but I've always really looked up to you, and your thoughtfulness when it comes to breaking down the elements of effective communication and a big part of that is curiosity. So, Matt, who inspired you to be curious? Well, thank you. And I have enjoyed all of our conversations leading up to this. Uh, my curiosity, you know, as long as I can remember, I've always been curious. My parents cultivated curiosity. My mother was an elementary school teacher as I was growing up, she later started teaching adults English as a second language. But, anytime I showed any interest in anything, we did a deep dive. So I had a stamp collection, a rock collection, a coin collection, a shell collection, you name it And in elementary school, when we'd have to do a report on something, we would go full on into it. As my academic career progressed, I was attracted to researchers who were just really curious about different things. While at Stanford, I know you're a Stanford graduate as well, I studied with Phil Zimbardo, famous for the Stanford Prison Experiment. And while that has some questionable, um, background he is a fundamentally curious individual. And so I've always been attracted to people who are curious and myself just really interested in it. And one of the best ways to demonstrate your curiosity and to scratch that itch is to ask questions. So I think it fits nicely with what you're doing now. Absolutely. And you talked about being curious about loads of different things. What about communication piqued your interest in the end? So communication is something I've focused on a lot. You know, I'll, I'll tell a quick story when I was about seven years old, my father was reading a newspaper and this is back in the day when people actually held the paper and read it and he was laughing from behind the newspaper and I said, "Dad, what's so funny?" He said, "Come here." He's reading the comics and it was a comic strip where a father clearly had his arm around his son looking at a store that the father owned and across the store it had going out of business sale as a sign and then the caption of the comic was "someday son, this will all be yours," and my father thought this was very funny and I I didn't understand how to make the store's going out of business, how's the person gonna pass it on? And my dad explained to me that this was a trick. This was a tool to get people to come shop because they thought they would get better deals. And from that moment on, I think I've just been really curious about how we can use communication to influence, motivate, help, teach, educate people. And, and ever since then, I can remember just being very curious, observing how people communicate, playing with communication myself. As somebody whose last name starts with A B, Abrahams, I always went first in class. So communication was always very salient because teachers would always put me in the same seat. I always knew where I sat cause they'd always go alphabetically and whenever anything had to be done in class, they'd always start with me. So I began to see communication differently than perhaps some of my Kid friends who were later in the alphabet. So it's just something that's always been a curiosity for me. And then when I went into the corporate world after graduating from graduate school, I just, I saw how valuable and important effective communication skill was. It made a difference. You can be amazingly bright and effective in work, but if you can't communicate it well, it can actually put you at a disadvantage. So I've always been really fascinated by how communication works and have dedicated much of my life to helping others hone and develop their communication skills. I really like the framing of effective communication as being a survival mechanism at the beginning of the alphabet. I can't say that I Necessarily got that with a name that starts with H, but what I did learn actually in a course in college that I took, it was a public speaking course where every week you had to come up with a speech that you'd have to do in front of the whole class. And every single week, every single person had to do a speech. And I found very quickly that if you volunteered to be the first speaker, Nobody wanted to be the first speaker. Everybody was very, very shy. If you volunteered to be the first speaker, then nobody was ever critical of your speech. I don't know if this is something that you've found in your own work, but I would always volunteer to give the first speech, and because everyone was just warming up to listening to these speeches, they would always have very positive, very glowing feedback for me. As opposed to people who gave their speeches later in the class, they would be compared to everyone else who went in front of them. I think there's some really good sense in that. One, the stewing in the anxiety doesn't help. Two, you set the bar. Three, people tend to just be so glad you went, they don't provide the feedback that might be harsher later. And fourth, which is really interesting. I do a lot of work on anxiety management around speaking. There's, there's some research out of Israel that said that if you do something courageous before you do something that's fear invoking, it actually reduces the fear response. So volunteering to go first actually can make you less nervous and it has to do with neurochemicals. When you do something that's risk taking, you release a whole cascade of neurochemicals that can blunt those that actually make you nervous. So I think you were on to something by volunteering to go first. Wow. Thank you. I didn't know that my, uh, my way to hack my public speaking class was actually backed by science, but I appreciate that. In that vein, do you have words of advice or encouragement for people who don't consider themselves to be great question askers right now and might feel that anxiety in social situations? Yes, so anxiety around communication looms large in both planned and spontaneous speaking. And asking a question just like giving a presentation or responding to a question can invoke a lot of anxiety. There are many reasons for this past experience, the risk that's involved, sometimes we fear asking a stupid question or an inappropriate question. And so. We, we need to realize that it's normal and natural to feel nervous in these circumstances. That said, there are things that we can do to manage the anxiety. Part of the fear of asking a question, especially if the question has some stakes to it, high stakes to it, is that you will feel foolish, you'll say something inappropriate, somehow this will diminish your social status and how people perceive you, and perhaps even the social status and credibility of the person to whom you were asking the question. So there's a lot going on here. There are things we can do to manage the symptoms and sources of our anxiety. So for many of us, when we get nervous, physiologically, we have some responses. And in a moment, I'm going to ask you what happens for you. I'll share what happens for me first. I blush and I perspire, when I get nervous in, in my communication. What happens for you when you get nervous? When I get nervous, I get a stomachache, usually. I get a stomachache and I feel this like, throbbing sensation in my head. Yeah, yeah. So, and that's normal and natural. So your body in these moments is invoking fight or flight. When you have to flee a situation, your body is trying to be as efficient as possible. And you certainly don't need to be carrying around a lot of excess baggage. So your, entire Gastrointestinal system is like, "Hey, we, we, we don't need any of this." so it is preparing to evacuate as much as it can. Uh, your body is tensing up. Uh, that's why a lot of people have to go to the bathroom when they get nervous. And the, the throbbing in the head, your, your heart is beating faster and sometimes people can feel that as a headache or things of that nature. These are normal and natural. So a few things you can do to mitigate some of the symptoms. First, deep breathing, deep belly breathing, the kind of breathing you'd do if you've ever done yoga or tai chi or qigong, where you're really filling your lower abdomen. And interestingly, the exhale is more important than the inhale. So you want to take some deep long exhales. And you only have to do two or three of these to calm down some of this autonomic nervous system. If you're like me and you blush and you perspire, that's because your core body temperature is going up. You can cool yourself down by holding something cold in the palms of your hand, just like your forehead. If you've ever had a fever and you put a cold compress on your forehead, the palms of your hand can help regulate your body temperature. I'm sure on a cold morning you've held warm coffee or tea in a mug and felt it warm you up just doing it in reverse. So there are things you can do to mitigate some of these symptoms. But the sources are the things that's really interesting and sources are the things that initiate and exacerbate our anxiety. When it comes to Q&A, often what makes us nervous about asking questions is that it feels really intense right away. Here's the question I'm putting before you. So if you can have a slower on ramp, a great way to do this is to do a paraphrase before you question. So before I ask the question, I can paraphrase something that you said to connect my question to something that you've said. It's a slower on ramp. It gives you a little bit of time to warm up. It also prepares the person who is receiving the question, so it's not hitting them hard quickly. So you're doing yourself and the other person a favor. So there's a nice warm up. You can paraphrase what somebody has said. Perhaps connect your question to what was said before by somebody else. So you could say "as a follow up to the question about this, I'm curious about." And Having some kind of prefix preamble. "I'm curious about," "what you said is really fascinating," "I'd like to learn more." Those little preambles also can soften the directness and can be a great way of commencing questioning again in a slower way. So big long answer there. There are things we can do to manage anxiety, both symptoms and sources that can help us feel more confident when we are questioning others. I really like that and what I'm hearing is that it's important to take any sort of social situation and change the pace to be more comfortable. If you're feeling anxious, then what you can do is just slow it down. And the same with public speaking, as slow as you think you're speaking, you're not actually speaking that slowly when it's hitting people's ears. You always feel like it's a lot slower than it actually is. In that vein, when it comes to asking questions what is something that people often pay too much attention to that they ought not to? The biggest thing we pay attention to in our communication that we shouldn't is all the judging and evaluating that we're doing in our head. I'm not saying you should not judge and evaluate when you communicate. You should. But a lot of us dial this up to 11. Right? On a scale of 1 to 10. We are so in our heads that we're not actually spending time really connecting with the other person. We want to do our communication right, and that gets in the way of us connecting and doing it well at all. So I like to say it's about connection, not perfection. Turn that volume down a little bit. Think to yourself that you need to be in service of the audience you're communicating to. When I ask a question, I am actually setting up the person who is receiving the question for success. I'm helping them to expand, to extend, to collaborate, to connect. And if I remind myself that it is about giving them that platform rather than about me asking the right question, it can really help. So turn it to be audience focused, be audience centric, and that can really help. The attention we put on ourselves and on our judging gets in the way of effective communication. Something that you say a lot on your podcast is I think there's this great quote from a guest that you had who is a matchmaker, I want to say, where she says that you should be interested not interesting and that really resonates with me because it's all about going into any sort of social interaction caring more about what the other person is saying versus yourself. That takes a lot of the burden off your shoulders. Yes, absolutely. You're talking about Rachel Greenwald. Rachel is a fascinating person. She's an academic and a professional matchmaker. She likes to really emphasize that being interested is much more important than being interesting. So this notion of being curious, of highlighting things in the, in the moment and in the situation, all of that is really powerful. I want to jump back to that story that you were telling about your dad reading the newspaper and, laughing at the comic. You stress the importance of improv in a lot of your work. And as an improv comedian myself, I'm very biased. I'd love for you to talk more about this and the benefits that improv has specifically when it comes to asking questions. Yes, improvisation is fantastic. Many people when they think of improv, they think of being funny. In improv, while it might have humor as an outcome, that's not the purpose of it. Improv is really about being present oriented, being connected with what's going on, and following a series of rules that liberate and allow for a lot of freedom. A lot of people when they see improv think, oh, they're just doing crazy, wild stuff, but as you well know, you're following a whole series of rules. The rule that most people are familiar with is, "yes, and." When somebody comes on stage or you're in the midst of a scene and somebody says, "Hey, how are you doing grandma?" You instantly become grandma. You don't say, "I'm not grandma. I'm grandpa," right? You go ahead with it. And there are a whole series of other rules. Make your partner look good. Don't just do something, stand there. You know, there are a whole bunch of rules that they follow that enable this creativity and freedom. Many of these rules apply to communication in general, but especially to question asking. So this notion of "yes, and" is incredibly liberating and powerful when you apply it to your communication. So when somebody says something that is challenging or not clear, a way to embrace that rather than resisting and saying, "Oh, you're just silly or stupid. I don't understand." A way to embrace it is to say, "yes, and let me ask you more. Let me dive in." And by giving you permission through asking questions, you can expand and extend and really help connect to me. So these rules of improvisation are really powerful. It can be intimidating at first to study some improv, but it can really help. And there is an amazing book that I think can ease people into it. It's by Patricia Ryan Madsen. Patricia taught improv for decades at Stanford. She's emeritus now, and her book is called "Improv Wisdom." It's a short little book and it's life changing. It talks about how you can take improvisation principles and apply them to your everyday life. And part of that is embracing questioning and really following some of these guidelines to help you connect better. This is a completely shameless plug, but I think that everybody should go and take at least a beginner improv class because it completely changed the way that I see the world, that I interact with people. It's helped me see humor in everyday things just on the street randomly. But also the best part of a beginner improv class is that everybody in the class is a beginner and everybody genuinely wants to be there. And so if you're ever nervous about looking dumb or being the worst in the class, you don't have to worry about that because literally everybody else in the class is starting from zero. One of the key elements of improv though is listening. And I believe that that is the majority of what makes a great question as well. But some people really struggle with listening and retaining details. What are some tips to help those types of folks improve? Listening is hard. Listening is really hard. And yet listening, I think helps you to be, not I think, listening makes you a better communicator. Many of us listen just for the top line, not the bottom line. And as soon as we get the gist of what somebody is saying, we then begin to judge, evaluate, criticize, uh, ourselves and others. So we get in the way. So we need to listen better for the bottom line, what's the key essence of what somebody is saying? And when you listen that way, it changes your whole demeanor. But notice that what I'm doing there is I'm actually asking myself questions about what the person is saying. So this internal inquiry helps you be a better listener. I'm constantly saying, what's the bottom line? What does this mean for me? What is the most important thing? So I'm asking myself a series of questions to help me better listen. Now, there are three things I talk about in my book that I borrowed from a colleague of mine. Uh, his name is Collins Dobbs. He teaches a class on crucial communication, and he uses these three steps as a way to help people respond in those situations. The three steps also help you be a better listener. So with his permission, I apply it to this: pace, space, grace. You have to slow things down. You have to slow the pace down to be a better listener. You have to give yourself space, not just physical space, be in a place that's quiet, but mental space to actually listen and quiet down all the things going on in your head. And then finally, you have to give yourself grace, permission to listen intently. Permission to listen, not just to the words that are said, but how they're said and where they're said. So by listening for the bottom line, doing a lot of these internal questions to really get what the person's saying and applying pace, space, and grace, we can all become better listeners that will help any communication, not just question asking. Pace, space, and grace. I'll keep that in mind. That's really important. I also think that the first step of learning how to be a better listener is understanding the actual words that people are saying, and then the next step, once you really feel like you've improved at that, is to read the undertones. So sometimes somebody says one thing and then means another, or somebody says one thing but really the important thing is the emotion underneath, and that's signaling that they want to talk about something else. So there are lots of levels to listening that you've mentioned. And I think that people can definitely work their way up.. I want to switch gears a little bit to talk about your podcast as a podcaster myself, I'm really fascinated by the process that you went through when deciding to launch your podcast in 2020, I believe, right? Uh, yes, it's been around four and a half years now. What questions did you ask yourself when you were deciding whether to start your podcast in the first place? The question that was asked of me was, are you willing to do an experiment?" Because the business school at Stanford, who has up until this point, sponsored the podcast, they'd never done a formal podcast and yet they were really interested and intrigued. And they knew that there was a big appetite for communication skills. So the question that was asked of me was, "are you willing to do an experiment? We have no idea if this is going to work, but we'd like to try it." And so I said, "Yes," I tend to be the kind of person, who when opportunities come, I get excited and move forward and just try. And then the question we asked ourselves, once there was agreement that we were going to do this thing is, "What is the focus of the podcast? What are we going to do?" We knew we wanted it about communication, but what is it about communication that we were interested in? And we decided that it's really about helping people hone and develop their communication skills in business. Over time, we learned from our audience that we were more of a careers podcast than exclusively a business podcast, which meant people were coming to us to help them augment their skills to do better in their professions. So we were constantly asking ourselves, "who are we? What are we? What's our purpose?" And we listened to the answers from those who were listening to us. And that's how we've evolved. But we certainly started with the question is, "are we willing to experiment and "try something new?" That's so tantalizing. It's hard to say no to something like that. It certainly was for me. I mean, I try to live my life by the "yes, and" attitude, which is when opportunity presents itself, explore it. It doesn't mean everything's going to work out. So when the opportunity came, I said, "sure, let's try it." I mean, my goal is to help people hone and develop their communication. Here became an avenue to do that. So it made a lot of sense to me. And by the way, for everybody listening, I am the recipient of Matt's teachings as well. So back when I was starting Toucan in early 2020, we were introduced and you were instrumental in helping me hone my pitch, both me and my brother. We worked with you, and admittedly, I didn't know at the time just how lucky I was to have had that connection made, but it was so very important for us to learn from you. So I appreciate that a lot. Well, thank you. It was fun to chat with you back then. And it's been fun to stay in touch ever since. Of course, well, Hold on, we're getting sidetracked because I'm, I'm too excited that you're here, but back to the podcast. How much preparation do you put into your questions for your podcast interviews? A lot, a lot. And in fact, I, there's, I enjoy the whole thing of podcasting. I enjoy the actual connection and the interview in the moment, but I really like doing the research to then come up with the questions. To me, that's really, really fun. So I spend a lot of time. Now, some of the people I interview, I know, and I know well, so I don't have to do as deep a dive and the questions come more naturally. Other people I don't know well at all. And so I, I have a whole process. I'll read as much as I can about the person. If they have books, I read the books. I also listened to other podcasts they're on, just to get a sense of how they answer questions. And then I, I put together a whole long list of questions of something I know you're familiar with and from there, prioritize them. But I never want my questions to be restrictive. So they are really just gateways to other conversations and follow up questions, but I, I spend a fair amount of time with each person. I often will send questions in advance. Not so that people memorize and prepare their answers overly, but I want to make sure that I respect what they want to talk about, and I don't ask questions that are not in line with whatever their goals are. So I iterate once I have the questions. Yeah. Something that I appreciate about the way that you engage with your guests is that you do a great job of getting them to explain their areas of expertise from the ground up. You're having these conversations with experts and you're an expert yourself. And sometimes you have to ask them questions that may seem like they have an obvious answer because you guys know a lot about this topic. How do you make sure that you're asking questions that make the subject matter understandable to a complete beginner? One of the big things that is important to me in all communication is that we make it accessible. And accessibility to me is very specific. It's not about dumbing it down. It's about making it so people can understand it from whatever point they come to it from. So some people, might have language issues, so they don't speak English as a first language. Some people might have experiential issues, where they've just never come across this idea. I am very mindful in crafting of my questions, and when I'm asked questions, as you're doing to me today, of my answers to try to make it accessible. So how do I do it? Well, I will often use analogies or comparisons or tell stories to help reinforce the point I'm making. I often at the end of my answers will summarize the point or the key idea. I've tried to do that with some of your questions today. And when I formulate questions, I will often define in the question a term that I think might be challenging for somebody who's newer to the information or isn't exposed. So, I definitely take it very seriously. I look at the language that's used. I reflect on the experience somebody has to have. And then when somebody answers a question on my podcast, I paraphrase their answers often, and in that paraphrasing, try to reframe it or rephrase it in a way that might make it more accessible for somebody. I focus a lot on that because it is very easy in your communication when you have what's called the curse of knowledge, where you just know more than others to obfuscate what's being said. So I could use jargon, I could take mental shortcuts, I can use acronyms. And for people who are new to that information, it's really hard. So we all have to think about how to make things accessible when we have some level of experience and expertise in what we're communicating. When you're narrowing down that major list of questions that you come up with after you research, how do you decide which questions are most important to drive the most effective conversation? That that's a there's more art than science to that. Part of it is selfish, my own curiosity. Which of the things am I most interested in? I also try to gauge, you know, when I do interviews, I like to start with something that's provocative because people are making choices, especially in podcasts, right? The people are making choices. Do I want to keep listening or not? So I want to start with something that I think is relevant and provocative at the beginning. And then dive deeper. So those are probably the two biggest criteria I use. The third would be I want to set the person up for success and ease them into it. Some of the people I interview are not as comfortable being interviewed as others. I mean, a lot of people I interview are academics. And while very comfortable lecturing and doing research, you know, being in this, media format is not something that they're used to. So the third criteria that I use is, are there questions that can sort of ease people into it, so they feel more comfortable? Sure. That makes complete sense. I mean, a lot of the people that you're having on your podcasts are incredibly accomplished and wildly smart, and they've got a lot to say. And so you want to tee them up for success, especially in a short amount of time. Your podcasts are really digestible. They're roughly 25 ish minutes long. That's right. Yeah, we do that on purpose. Yeah. How did you go about deciding on that format? We did a fair amount of focus grouping and asking questions of people as we were developing this. We didn't have a lot of resources, we still don't have a lot of resources to produce what we do. So we wanted to be as efficient as we could. And so we asked people, you know, about their consumption of podcasts, uh, when they do daily tasks, because a lot of people listen to podcasts while doing things. And so we settled on between 18 and 25 minutes is ideal for us. We do some shorter ones, but that became very early on something that was important and we were rewarded for that. People told us that they really liked it. In fact, we've won some awards. We won best commute podcast and best dog walking podcast. I didn't even know those were categories, but again, because 20 minutes is roughly the time that people do those things. So we ask questions in advance. We did some focus grouping and then we listened as we started releasing things. We will occasionally release a longer episode and because we have people who are used to listening to us, they'll stay with us, but we never want to become longer form. It just doesn't fit our style and what we try to do. And plus, you know, my whole goal in this is you should be able to listen to us for 20 minutes and leave with some skills that you can immediately apply. That's how I measure our success. Can you, after that 20 minutes, leave and do something meaningful in your communication? And so we put a lot of focus on that. And I personally put a lot of pressure on myself to make sure that we have actionable takeaways in that short amount of time. That's the dream for QuestionAble Strategy as well. Question asking, I believe is one of those skills that you can hear a piece of advice and then go and apply that in your next conversation with somebody. You know, five minutes later, you can be doing Love it. And on the episodes I've listened to, you do that. There are things that people can take away and apply. And I, and I appreciate that. And so you can relate to the challenge that we have, in terms of getting people to think things really quickly, and respond to them or use them very quickly after we're done. I mean, it means a lot to know that you've listened to my podcast. So thank you so much. I feel famous. OH yeah, no, of course I did. Hey, it's not about famous. It's not about being famous. It's about having impact. If you, if you affect just three people, then in my mind, you have been a huge success. Absolutely. Now I feel selfish, Matt. No, I didn't mean to make you feel selfish. I just wanted you to, you are, you are, you are serving many other people, you are not being selfish. You are being very giving in the work you do. Oh, well, thank you very much. And I really like the emphasis that you've always placed on your podcast being community driven. So you talked about the focus groups, asking questions of people to get an understanding of whether they wanted it to be a business podcast or a career podcast in general. To this day, what kinds of questions do you receive from listeners? Oh, well, so we get very specific questions. I get very specific questions from listeners who are asking for my advice and guidance to help them in their tricky communication situations. That's the most frequent type of question I get. So for example, somebody just wrote me yesterday saying, "I am moderating a high stakes panel. I've never done this before. What advice and guidance would you give to help me prepare to do that?" So they're very tactical questions that I tend to get. Occasionally I'll get questions around, uh, guests or, or topics for the podcast, and, and, and it makes sense. I mean, that's what we're all about is helping people. So when people have issues or challenges, it's not surprising that they come and ask questions about it. That's really nice that your door is open for people. It doesn't matter where they are in the world, but because you are on their Spotify or their Apple Podcasts, they feel like they know you. That's a huge testament to what you've built, the reputation that you have, and the quality of the advice that you give on the podcast. Thank you for that. It's, um, it is an honor and a privilege to connect with people. I'm a big podcast listener. I don't know about you. Oh yeah. All the time. There's something intimate about podcasting that you don't see in other forms of media. And I really appreciate that and respect that. As a listener, I feel very connected to the shows I listen to and as a host, I respect that there's a connection going on and I really want to honor that and try to serve the people that choose to listen as best I can. Speaking of connections, you are also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Is there anything that you do deliberately as a lecturer to foster a culture of curiosity and open questioning among your students? I really appreciate that question. Thank you for asking because I do. I co teach my class and my co instructor and I, we, we work very hard to help people feel comfortable and safe. Much like in improv, we're asking people to take risks. We're asking people to try new things. On the very first day of class, I say, "I want everybody to go back to your high school chemistry class. Remember when you would do experiments and sometimes they would blow up, and you learned if they worked and you learned if they blew up and that's this class. Take risks, challenge yourself. You will learn more and grow as a result." So that's the underlying ethos. How do you do that? Well, you ease into it. So the very first day of class, We have students get up after we do some introductory lecturing. Uh, we have them get up in groups of three and share some information that they learned about somebody else. So they're up in front of the class speaking, but They're not talking about themselves, they're talking about somebody else. And that's a nice, easy way to, to move up into this area that we're asking them to move up to. It's also all based on inquiry. So in order to get the information they share, they're asking questions of each other. So that facilitates dialogue, conversation, sharing. So we are very purposeful in trying to establish an environment very early on where people feel comfortable taking risks, challenging themselves, and then, shortly thereafter, giving feedback that enables others. We don't start with the constructive feedback right away, cause that can be intimidating both to receive and to give, but we build that in because we firmly believe that feedback from others is critical to becoming a more effective communicator. I love that exercise and I'm a major proponent of asking people to talk about other people. I think that that shows a handful of things. First of all, what they're the most interested in, because that's the stuff that's going to stick in their brains the most. It also, it doesn't just show what they're interested in other people, but it shows what they idolize themselves. So values that they have, those tend to come out when people are talking about folks that they really admire. That exercise though starts off with a lot of small talk and one of our previous guests has actually mentioned that he believes that small talk should be illegal. You have an entire section of your book that's dedicated to making the most out of small talk. If you were to go to bat for small talk in a debate, what would you say? I am shocked that somebody will say it is illegal. Uh, so, uh, of course I would come from a place of wanting to understand. So I would ask some questions. I believe small talk is amazingly valuable and incredibly important and needs a rebranding. Big things happen during small talk. We connect, we learn, we extend, we expand our knowledge, our, our social networks. In fact, I challenge you and this other person and anybody listening, think about your friendship network. I mean real friendship network, not the social media friendships that we have. How did you connect? I I can guarantee everybody in their social network has somebody they connected with and got closer to through small talk through chit chat. The issue with small talk is that we feel very intimidated by it. We don't know how to start. We don't know how to end. We talked about Rachel Greenwald's advice about this notion of being interested not interesting. There are a lot of things that you can do to make small talk feel easier, but it boils down to curiosity. Asking questions is the lubrication that makes small talk work. So I think it's incredibly important and it can actually be really enjoyable when you approach it not like a tennis match, where I have to serve the ball over the net and ace it and score, but more like a game of hacky sack, that little bean bag game where you just toss it back and forth with the goal being just to keep the ball off the ground. And when you all collaborate, it can be incredibly enjoyable and can lead to just some really good, fun outcomes. I love that. And I think you're absolutely right. Small talk is the gateway to big talk? Is that what we would call it? big thing. Big things. I don't know if it's "big talk," but it is certainly, it is certainly all about, um, big things can happen in small talk without a doubt. It also takes just that added little bit of courage to ask people questions that they might not normally get asked. So instead of asking, you know, where are you from? You can ask something interesting about their hometown. Like what is it that you like about your hometown? Or what do you dislike about your hometown? Why did you move away? Right. Or, or what brings you here? I had this wonderful, I had this great interaction with somebody. I was at a conference and there was a cocktail party after the conference, and we're waiting in line for food. And I didn't know him. I didn't know many people and there was certainly nobody around me I knew. And I noticed everybody was wearing different color blue. It wasn't like a coordinated thing. And I turned to him and I said, uh, "have you ever seen so many people wearing blue at the same time?" He looks around and goes, "no, that's really strange." And then all of a sudden we started talking. We exchanged information, we're now LinkedIn buddies. And then when he comes out to California, we're going to get together for coffee. All based on a conversation that started with me simply making an observation and asking a question. That requires a really keen sense of observation though. And there are a lot of people who wouldn't be that observant in those scenarios. What advice do you have for people to, improve their skills of observation in order to ask questions like that? Well, so I'm going to change your question a little bit and say, it's not so much about being observant. It's about being present. And when you're present oriented, observation is, it just comes more naturally. Again, getting out of our head, taking a deep breath, being in the moment and seeing what's going on opens up all the possibility of observation. So it comes from a place of curiosity and of being present. And I think we can all practice this. This is helpful in so many areas of our lives, not just small talk. Being present can be rejuvenating, can help you feel less depressed, more satisfied and fulfilled. So I think everybody should find some practice that helps them get more present. I've done martial arts for decades. You do improvisation and gymnastics. People play musical instruments, people exercise, whatever. There should be some activity that you do, often physical in nature that can help you be present oriented. And when you're in that state, you are more alive and more aware, and that allows you to observe more. So being curious, being present I think is the answer to that question That's fantastic advice, and what it boils down to in a lot of social situations, maybe like that networking situation you were in, is get off your phones! A lot of people, their first instinct at a social function is, "Oh, I don't have somebody to talk to right now. I need to be on my phone to look like I'm doing something. And that way I don't look like a loner." But if you pick up your head and look around, you will inevitably find something to talk about to somebody who is open to talking to you. That is correct. That is correct. Absolutely, the phone gives us a crutch or an excuse not to engage. I am certainly addicted to my phone, just like anybody else, but I also try to be present and put it down. And you You know, you can use what you find on your phone as a way of initiating a conversation too. So it's not always a bad thing. That is true. It's about balance. I have two, two more questions. The first is adapting a question that you ask a lot of your guests, which is what are three crucial elements of great question asking? So this is a, this is a spin of the question I ask, which is what are three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? So I'm going to give you a before, during, and after for this. The first ingredient is curiosity. True curiosity that is other- focused. So that's the initial ingredient to making for good questions. Second is asking a question that is very open, but directional. So it's not just you can go anywhere, but it's more directional in nature. So "tell me of about a time where you first experienced..." That's a question that's directional, but still very open. And then finally, I really believe paraphrasing is critical. We often think of just asking the question is, is, is the goal. The goal is actually transmitting information successfully from the asker to the recipient and the recipient back to the asker. And paraphrasing is a great way to acknowledge. "I heard you." It's a fidelity check. The person can say, "no, you didn't get it right." So to me, the three essential ingredients are what you do up front, which is your approach. One of curiosity that's other- focused. Second is formulating a directive, but open question. And then finally paraphrasing to check for fidelity and acknowledge. That to me is the recipe for successful Q&A. And the last question is, what is one question that you like to work into a conversation, whether it's at work or even in a social setting, that really helps you get to know someone? So this is, it's not a question because it doesn't have a question mark after it, but it does everything a question will do. And I learned this from my mother-in-law. My mother in law had a black belt in small talk and in getting to know people. She had incredibly high emotional intelligence and she used three simple words: Tell me more." So when somebody would say something, the inquiry or the opportunity and invitation was, "tell me more, tell me more about that." And that's a question really. It's doing the same thing a question does: it's giving the person space, it's giving them directionality, and it's showing that you're interested and want to learn more. So I try to use, "tell me more" all the time in, in everything I do with my students, with my children, with, the guests I have on the podcast. "Tell me more" is something that is a very powerful tool to help you be a more effective communicator. That's a question or phrase that every question asker should keep in their back pocket. Because if you don't have something to say, I guarantee you, whoever you're talking to has more to say about the topic that they were just talking about. It's like peeling back the layers of an onion. Absolutely. And when you show that you're willing to give somebody the opportunity to speak more, they often return the favor to you. And then all of a sudden, the play space that you have grows. That is, perfect advice for anybody who is looking for questions to have as a Swiss army knife to use in any situation. So great advice. And I look forward to using that more myself. Matt, this has been an absolute pleasure. You are such a genius when it comes to all things communication, and I'm truly honored to have you on this podcast. You are somebody that I look up to greatly. And so the fact that you would sit down with me and have this chat means the world. Thank you for your time and for your kind words. I am still growing and working on my communication, and your area of focus on inquiry and questioning, I think, is very, very powerful. And quite frankly, if somebody of your age being focused in on this, I think, is incredibly valuable. If we can help others, to question more efficiently and effectively, I think we will have much better communication. So thank you for the work you're doing and I'm excited to be a partner on the journey for you! Matt. We're going to print that on the QuestionAble Strategy merch. Awesome. I want, all I need is a t shirt. I'll do anything for a t shirt. So there you go. I'll let you know, I'll send one to you. Thank you so much for coming on QuestionAble Strategy. Really appreciate it. Thank you. That was a lot of fun! I really love that Matt left us with the phrase, "tell me more." And the reason why I love it is it just goes to show that you don't necessarily have to end a sentence with a question mark to have it function as a strong question. Tell Me More" is an easy tool to have in your toolkit for three main reasons. The first is that it works practically in any kind of setting. The second is it's a perfect last resort when you don't know what to say. And the third is that it usually will. Ingratiate you with whomever you're talking to because let's face it everyone really loves talking about themselves. So recently i went to a tech conference and i used tell me more countless times i can't even tell you. And the reason for that is there were a lot of instances where I didn't know what people were talking about. They were in different fields than I am, or I didn't have the deepest understanding of their technology. And so to clarify things, I found myself saying, tell me more, tell me more. That expressed my interest in what they were saying. And it didn't necessarily expose My ignorance. It was also fantastic because a tech conference is someplace where everybody is trying to talk about themselves. They're trying to network and they're trying to make themselves look as legit as possible, so people always had more to say and were genuinely excited when i said "tell me more." Now I'm not saying that I didn't contribute meaningfully to these conversations, But I am saying that whenever I felt stuck or lost "Tell me more" was the perfect way for me to get anyone to elaborate on their company, their Role, their founder story, their family life, etc Until I could find something else To say. So the bottom line is, this is a perfect addition to any question askers toolbox. And it's super easy to use right now. So good luck and have fun. This has been an episode of QuestionAble Strategy. I'm your host, Antonia Hellman, and if you like what you just heard, go back. We've got some great episodes already up with practical tips that you can apply to asking questions in your everyday life. And in fact, here's a question that you can go and ask your friends: Have you listened to QuestionAble Strategy?" And if their answer is no, just send them the link. And while you're at it, follow, like, subscribe, leave a review. It all helps. Let me know what you're interested in hearing about and who you're interested in hearing from. Where there's a will, there's a way, and we can get them on the podcast. Till then I'm Antonia Hellman, and I will see you next time.
