Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

When it comes to leading a team, there’s no such thing as too much information.

Good leadership is about good communication. And for General Stanley McChrystal, that means creating a culture of free-flowing information: “The goal is to have everyone know everything all the time,” he says.
McChrystal is a retired four-star general, former commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan, and a renowned leadership expert. In his experience building cohesive teams in complex environments, he’s discovered that successful teams are built on a “shared consciousness [where] all have a common contextual understanding of what the situation is.” The key to creating that kind of culture, he says, is radical transparency — from leaders and subordinates alike. Whatever your position, “You are responsible for informing other people of things that they need to know,” he says.
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, McChrystal and host Matt Abrahams discuss how to build shared consciousness within teams, how to communicate across cultural divides, and how to lead with clarity, context, and character.

To listen to the extended Deep Thinks version of this episode, please visit FasterSmarter.io/premium.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (02:25) - Building Shared Consciousness
  • (06:35) - Leading Across Differences
  • (08:15) - Delivering Difficult News
  • (10:40) - Communicating in a Virtual World
  • (16:39) - Character as an Iterative Practice
  • (18:49) - The Final Three Questions
  • (23:41) - Conclusion

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Creators and Guests

Host
Matt Abrahams
Lecturer Stanford University Graduate School of Business | Think Fast Talk Smart podcast host
Guest
General Stanley McChrystal
United States Army Retired Four-Star General

What is Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques?

One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication.
Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges.

Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance your communication skills to elevate your career and build stronger professional relationships.

Tune in every Tuesday for new episodes. Subscribe now to unlock your potential as a thoughtful, impactful communicator. Learn more and sign up for our eNewsletter at fastersmarter.io.

Matt Abrahams: Effective leaders,
effective communicators, focus on

clarity, context, and character.

My name's Matt Abrahams and I
teach strategic communication at

Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to Think Fast
Talk Smart, the podcast.

Today I am grateful to speak
to General Stanley McChrystal.

General McChrystal is a retired four
star general, former commander of US

and international forces in Afghanistan,
and a renowned expert on leadership.

He is best known for revolutionizing
counter-terrorism operations and building

cohesive teams in complex environments.

He's a highly successful author with
books like Team of Teams and his latest,

On Character: Choices That Define a Life.

Welcome, I have been excited for
this conversation for a long time.

Thank you.

General Stanley McChrystal:
Well, Matt, thanks for having me.

I'm looking forward to it as well.

Matt Abrahams: Excellent.

Shall we get started?

General Stanley McChrystal: Please.

Matt Abrahams: General McChrystal, I'm
a huge admirer of your book Team of

Teams, and in it you talk about shared
consciousness and shared information.

What is it that leaders can do to
build that shared consciousness,

especially in an environment where
we're drowning in emails and Slacks?

How can we actually come together
around a shared point of view?

General Stanley McChrystal: The first
thing about sharing information that I

found later in my military career is we
had natural silos vertically, and then

we also had the hierarchy creates other
boundaries for the flow of information.

So information in structures,
bureaucracies, think pyramid shaped

hierarchies, tend to follow carefully
prescribed routes up and down and

whatnot, and not across as easily unless
it is encouraged and in fact demanded.

And so what I found was first,
you need to change the mindset.

In the old days in, in the military,
you never got in trouble for

information you didn't share to someone.

But you could be criticized if
you shared some information that

you didn't have approval from your
boss or your chain of command.

So we tried to flip that on its head
and say that you are responsible

for informing other people of
things that they need to know.

And then you say, how do I
know what they need to know?

And the answer is, you never really do.

So the default needs to be
to share and then overshare.

In fact, I, I said something when I took
over the Counter-terrorist Force, which

was a complex community of different
organizations, the goal is to have

everyone know everything, all the time.

Now, that's impossible, clearly.

But the concept of shared consciousness
is we all have a common contextual

understanding of what the situation
is, what we are trying to do, and

then people can make decisions without
going and get approval for everything

they're gonna do because they have
the context, they're informed.

And so the biggest thing I found was
first change the rules of information

sharing, and then more slowly change
the culture of information sharing.

Matt Abrahams: So context is critical.

And also the approach, being that the idea
is get all the information to everybody

and not worry about the potential negative
ramifications of that information.

General Stanley McChrystal: The idea that
information is power, you don't want to

share information 'cause someone knows
that you won't be quite as important.

So it becomes very important to break down
those hesitations in sharing information.

And then there's the last one, which I
really see more in civilian business.

We don't want to scare the children,
so we don't want to tell 'em that

revenue's down or that there are
headwinds in the marketplace.

The reality is when we leave a vacuum
in our teams, they fill it with the

darkest ideas available because there
are all sorts of information sources out

there, many of which are very flawed.

So you have to not try to
prevent information, you have

to compete with information
that they're already receiving.

Matt Abrahams: That's a really powerful
point, that if you're not communicating,

people will find and fill that vacuum
on their own, and it might be much

worse than what the reality is.

I'm curious, I totally appreciate
and understand changing

the mindset and approach.

Were there certain things that you've
implemented or have seen implemented

that really help reinforce it?

It's one thing for the leader
to say, share everything so we

all have the same information.

But a lot of people
inherently might not do that.

So is it role modeling?

Is it rewarding when it's done well?

How do you actually get people to do that?

General Stanley McChrystal:
I could mention several.

The first of course is role
models, senior leaders.

They've gotta be as
transparent as they can.

We like to look up at the sphinx
like CEO, who only pronounces

something occasionally, but I found
it's better to over communicate.

The second is you've
gotta set up processes and

technologies which allow that.

And so nowadays with information
technology as omnipresent as

it is we can usually reach
everybody almost at any time.

We need to leverage that.

Matt Abrahams: So it's really about
people, process, and tools are the ways

that you actually affect that change.

Thank you.

You have often worked in very
diverse situations with military,

government, international
partners, and local populations.

All of these have very different goals,
communication styles, and cultural norms.

How do you adapt to ensure clarity and
build trust, especially when you are

in very ambiguous and uncertain times?

General Stanley McChrystal:
Yeah, Matt, first you have to

start out by recognizing it.

I remember, and I've described this,
I'd be in Afghanistan and I'd be

meeting with Pashtun elders with a
different language than I spoke, a

different religion, a different culture.

So when I sat with them and talked,
it was just absolutely obvious

that we had a cultural divide in
communicating, and so we were very

careful about how we communicated.

Then I would meet with people from the
US Department of State, for example.

They speak English, we have
a shared culture, a shared

religion, all of those things.

But actually the cultural divide was huge.

And I could be speaking military and
thinking that it is being heard with

the same kind of understanding that I
hope it will, and that wasn't the case.

And then vice versa.

And sometimes just titles or uniforms or
difference in organizations can create

this, but we don't seem sensitive to that.

And so we walk out of the room and
we say, Matt's just, he's stupid.

He's got a bad attitude.

He doesn't listen.

When in fact that comes at it from a
completely different direction than

I do, and we need to appreciate that.

Matt Abrahams: I have certainly been
called stupid and unprepared in many

situations, but the point you are making
is very clear that we have to first

appreciate and understand the differences.

And sometimes those cultural
differences aren't just the things

you see on the outside, how somebody
looks or where somebody is located.

Those cultural differences can
be within the same organization.

You and your colleagues in the State
Department are part of the US government.

So really important to recognize it and
then adjust your communication, for sure.

All leaders have to give difficult
news and challenging information.

Maybe it's a failed project, a change
in strategy, or even negative feedback.

How do you approach giving
bad news or challenging news?

Is there a structure you use?

A way of going about it that you have
found helps you to be more successful?

General Stanley McChrystal: I
think the first is you've gotta

communicate it as clearly and as
quickly as you are capable of doing.

There is no real advantage in
trying to make it seem not as

serious as it is or to sugarcoat it.

And so I think you start by
saying, okay, I've got some very

serious information to pass.

Here it is.

Now the other thing though,
occasionally a leader will do that

and then wanna walk out of the room.

Drop the bombshell and
wanna walk outta the room.

Context is very important because if
a CEO walks into the company and says,

everyone's pay is gonna be cut fifty
percent, life's hard, and walks out,

you get one response from everybody.

If the CEO goes, okay, lemme be upfront.

Everyone's pay is being cut.

Here's why.

Here's the context, here's the rationale.

Here's what we're trying to do with it.

Now you gotta avoid the temptation to
say, and you know it's gonna be okay,

if you're not sure it's gonna be okay.

But you can communicate things
like, I am committed to this team.

We will work through this.

If we think back to COVID-19,
when it first started, the

great thing was uncertainty.

And so we had to all communicate
with our teammates who are now

geographically distributed, and
many of 'em are sitting in their

apartments or at their kitchen table.

They don't know if they're
still gonna have a job.

They don't know how to interact.

And so we can communicate,
Hey, this is serious.

We don't know exactly how it's gonna play
out, but here's what you can count on.

I'm gonna be committed for your welfare.

Promise those things that are
within your power to promise.

Matt Abrahams: So it sounds to me like
three things are really important.

One is clarity, being
very clear and direct.

Second is understanding and appreciating
the context and sticking in that context.

And then what I also heard you talking
about was connection, really connecting

to the people, not just dropping it and
running, but connecting the information

and the next steps to the individuals.

And I think those three steps of
clarity, context, and connection are

really important for any communication,
let alone that's challenging.

I'd like to follow up on this
COVID situation that you mentioned,

because that fundamentally
changed the way we communicated.

We were all remote and distanced.

How have you dealt with leading
and communicating when you're

doing it through a screen, when
not everybody is in the same room.

What best practices do you employ to help
you be effective and continue to connect

and build trust with those you're leading?

General Stanley McChrystal: Yeah.

Let me start, Matt, I actually had
a head start on this because in the

Counter-terrorist Force starting in 2003,
my force was spread across seventy-six

bases in twenty-seven countries,
and we were just at the beginning

of secure video teleconferencing.

And so that's how we communicated
essentially all the time.

Now, I learned a number of things.

I learned first that it's not nearly
as effective as we wanna believe it is.

It's not like being in the room.

And so, the first is you try to build
up, whenever you have the opportunity,

relationships, usually in person, that
you can then build and communicate later.

So if you and I had a real close
personal relationship, we could

then do virtual things at a much
higher level of effectiveness

than if we didn't know each other.

So you're building upon a foundation.

The next thing is communication,
particularly between different ranks

in an organization, can be fraught.

So for example, I would communicate
with very junior people and

I was a commanding general.

And they would come on the screen
and clearly they are terrified

because they've never spoken
to someone that senior before.

And I tried to first say,
hello, Susan, how are you?

And in many cases they go,
how does he know my name?

The answer is, I had a cheat sheet because
I knew that was important to do that.

And then when they communicated at the
end of their communication, I would always

ask a question, even if I knew the answer.

And that was for two things.

It was to communicate to them that what
they are doing is important and listening,

and to give them another opportunity
to demonstrate their expertise.

Because you're building their
confidence and you're trying to

build this relationship as you go.

I would never sit there just
quietly and go, thank you.

We're okay.

Because if you're a young person and you
brief Matt Abraham's, and then at the end

of it you just go, thanks, I have no idea
whether you're thinking, thanks, that

was terrible, or, thanks, that was great.

So you have to exaggerate your positivity.

You have to be very careful about
your negativity because I found

that if I am multitasking, if you're
briefing me and you spent a lot

of time and I'm down looking at my
computer or I'm talking to the person

next to me, one, it's disrespectful
and it's embarrassing to you.

And two, it just, it makes you
not want to communicate and so

it becomes really difficult.

And finally, if you got bad news to
communicate, that's gotta be done

very carefully because if you've got
a group of people and someone does

something and you sort of take 'em on.

It's not like in a room where at the
end of the meeting you can walk to

the end of the table and put your
hand on their shoulder and go to the

coffee maker or something like that.

They are going to literally stew in what
they think was your negative impression.

And so it becomes very important.

And then the last thing, in big
groups, you even have to watch your

facial expressions 'cause somebody's
briefing you and I used to take my

glasses off and go like this, and the
chat rooms would light up and they'd

say, what's bothering the old man?

Well, sometimes I just had to wipe
my face off, but I became sensitive

to the fact that without being in
the room, they are relying on fewer

cues, and so they over-index on those.

So I think we've all gotta make a
real conscious effort to understand

that virtual is not the same.

And a lot of people say, no,
we're a virtual society now.

We don't need to be in person.

My counter to that is we found out
during COVID that remote education for

our children doesn't work very well.

And you say, well, that's kids.

No, that's all of us.

We ought to pay attention to that
because if it didn't work, hasn't worked

in education, why do we want to tell
ourselves we're as effective, remotely

working as we want to believe we are?

Matt Abrahams: That last point is a
really important one because if you think

about it, you have teachers who have been
trained in ways to communicate and to

connect, and if they can't make it work,
how can we expect those of us who don't

have that training to be able to do it.

So several things there that
you said are really important.

I'm gonna start with
the nonverbal presence.

When we have fewer cues, we really pay
attention to them and we have to make sure

that we do things as simple as looking at
the camera when we're talking to people,

reminding ourselves that what we do
signals information, not just what we say.

The fact that you would go out of your way
to build connection and comfort is really

important because when we don't have that
preexisting relationship, it really is

mandatory that we actually try to connect.

And I love that you would not only connect
with the person by identifying their name.

But at the end, you would check in
with them through asking a question.

Others paraphrase or summarize.

There's a lot you can do to
signal that you're interested

and that you heard the person.

And being virtual really
forces us to do that.

So thank you for those best practices.

In your latest book, On Character, which
I love and think is really important,

especially in this day and time.

You argue that character is iterative.

It's built through a succession
of choices and actions.

How can individuals leverage their
everyday action and communication

as tools for their own personal
development of their character?

General Stanley McChrystal: Yeah.

I feel very strongly about that,
Matt, and thanks for the kind words.

We start something, think of a diet
you start, or you quit smoking, or you

make some other promise to yourself,
I am going to do something differently

than the way I've done it that's gonna
make me a better person in some ways.

As you do those things, typically
the longer you go, the more reason

you have not to break the strength.

If you've been on your diet
for two days, you can break it

and you don't feel that bad.

If you've been on it for two
months, you say, I don't wanna break

this because I really feel good.

On character the same way applies.

Some of them are just simply habits.

I am going to be honest, and you
might say, no, wait a minute.

I'm an honest person.

I don't have to remind myself.

We do have to remind ourselves.

We have to remind ourselves what
we mean by integrity, how honest we

intend to be in every interaction,
and we have to hold ourselves to that.

How we treat people, the respect we show
for people, the grace we give to people.

Again, it's something where we have to
establish a clear standard and says,

my standard for dealing with this kind
of people in this kind of situation is

this, and I am not gonna violate it.

Now, you will find you get tired
or irritable and you might, but

that can't reset the standard.

What you've gotta do is you
say, my standard is this.

I didn't do that.

I'm gonna, that's a mistake.

I will try not to do that again.

But we have a series of things that become
almost like the rules of civility that

George Washington made so famous when
he wrote 'em down when he was a young

man, and some of 'em are very basic,
but they were just reminders to him.

There's certain things
you do and don't do.

We need the same for ourselves.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.

And you highlight something that you talk
about, this say, do gap, how you have to

commit to something and then you actually
have to show it and demonstrate it.

Before we end, I like to ask
everybody three questions.

One I create just for you and the
other two I've been asking people for

as long as we've been doing this show.

Are you up for that?

General Stanley McChrystal: Sure.

Matt Abrahams: Alright.

I've done a fair amount of work with
the US military and intelligence

agencies, and they're known for very
structured communication with briefings.

For those of us who are outside
the military, what are one or

two valuable communication skills
that you learned that help you be

successful in the things that you did?

General Stanley McChrystal:
The first is to be very clear.

You know, we'd call it
bottom line, up front.

Say what you're trying to
communicate, don't obfuscate

it, and a bunch of other data.

Just say, X is X, and that's what I think.

The second is, understand
that there is a hierarchical

pressure for a certain outcome.

Sometimes people have a briefing
because they want to get a certain

answer, and you've gotta understand
that that's not your role.

Matt Abrahams: So managing and maybe
even pushing back against those

conformity pressures is really important.

And again, clarity, and make
sure that what you're saying is

upfront, not buried in the details.

General Stanley McChrystal: That's right.

Matt Abrahams: Question number two, and
I'll be very curious to hear your answer.

Who is a communicator
that you admire and why?

General Stanley McChrystal: There are a
number of very effective communicators.

If you go back to someone like
Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Abraham

Lincoln, they had a very measured
cadence in communicating with the

American people, and they always
tied it to values and general goals.

And so like Franklin Roosevelt at the
beginning of his first term, you know,

depths of the depression, he's trying
to communicate hope, he's trying to

communicate action, he's trying to
communicate we are all in this together.

And so I find when I read and listen
to the old recordings of that, a real

sense of he knew what he was trying
to accomplish with communication.

He wasn't just communicating
for the joy of it.

And so I admire people with
that kind of discipline.

Matt Abrahams: So it's the discipline, the
focus, and attaching it to bigger values,

and not surprising for somebody who has
studied and thought a lot about character.

Our final question, what are the
first three ingredients that go into

a successful communication recipe?

I can almost be sure that clarity
is going to be part of that.

General Stanley McChrystal: Yeah,
it's gotta be timely and it's gotta

be genuine because at some point,
whether or not we believe what we're

communicating matters, we may get
out and think we can disassemble in

front of a bunch of people and they'll
buy it, but over time it comes back.

So if you don't believe it, it is
problematic to stand up there and say it.

Matt Abrahams: Clarity, timeliness, and
genuine and authenticity really important.

Well, thank you General McChrystal
for your time and for your insight and

for the good work you are doing around
character and character building.

Clearly in our time that's very important.

I appreciate the
learnings and the lessons.

General Stanley McChrystal:
You're kind to have me, Matt.

Thank you.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for
joining us for another episode of

Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

To learn more about high stakes leadership
under pressure, listen to episode 155 with

Susan Rice or Episode 161 with Jen Psaki.

This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.

Our music is from Floyd Wonder.

With special thanks to
Podium Podcast Company.

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