Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Transform how you communicate with tools that make your message stick.

Clarity is the cornerstone of great communication—but turning your thoughts into words isn’t always simple. That’s why Grammarly exists: to help you express yourself with confidence and precision, no matter the context.
For over a decade, Grammarly has helped millions of people improve their writing, from everyday emails to high-stakes professional communications. In this episode of the Think Fast, Talk Smart Tech Tools miniseries, host Matt Abrahams talks with Grammarly co-founder Max Lytvyn about the origins of the tool, how AI is shaping the future of writing, and why starting with your goal is the key to effective communication.
In addition to insight-packed discussions, this miniseries explores innovative tools that enhance the way we communicate and connect. Whether you want to make your presentations more memorable, craft stories that stick, or connect with your audience on a deeper level, these episodes will help you communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact.

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (01:14) - The Origins of Grammarly
  • (02:50) - Grammarly Elevator Structure
  • (04:54) - Lessons on Improving Writing
  • (07:11) - Favorite Communicator
  • (08:08) - Communication Hack or Tool
  • (11:02) - 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
Max Lytvyn
Co-Founder of Grammarly, Inc.

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: This Tech Tools miniseries
is brought to you by Prezi, the

presentation tool that makes your ideas
easy to follow, hard to forget, and

faster than ever to create with Prezi AI.

The best investment is in
the tools of one's own trade.

At Think Fast Talk Smart, we are
taking this quote by Benjamin

Franklin, the famous US inventor
and founding father, very seriously.

As you know, our show strives to share
tips and techniques to help you hone and

improve your communication and careers.

These practices and approaches can be
augmented with tools and technology.

I'm Matt Abrahams.

I teach strategic communication at
Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Welcome to this Tech Tools miniseries
of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

In this multi-part miniseries, we'll
introduce you to tools we use at Think

Fast Talk Smart to help us be better at
our spoken and written communication.

And you'll learn best practices
from the founders who created them.

Taken together, we hope these
communication tools will help you find

new ways to think fast and talk smart.

I'm excited today to speak with
Max Lytvyn, who is one of the

co-founders of Grammarly Max, welcome.

Thanks for being here.

I always love to learn, what
was the origin of Grammarly?

What led you to create it?

Max Lytvyn: First, my co-founder,
Alex, and I previously ran a company

that did plagiarism detection, and
we often had to answer a question

why so many people plagiarize.

And actually staggering
number of people plagiarize.

In our user interviews, we learned that
actually the biggest reason for plagiarism

is the difficulty, and even perceived
difficulty of just taking thoughts from

your head and putting them in writing.

So many people, most people who
plagiarize, they actually knew what they

wanna say and it's just putting it in
writing was the barrier that they couldn't

overcome because of lack of time or lack
of confidence or combination of things.

And they resorted the plagiarism.

So that gave us an idea why don't, instead
of policing plagiarism, we just create

a tool that makes it much easier to take
your thoughts and put them in writing.

But in addition to that, we looked at
where humanity and technology were going,

and we saw that people make fewer and
fewer things and more and more knowledge.

What's knowledge?

Knowledge is essentially communication.

When you write a book, your
communicating, when you make

a video, you're communicating.

Pretty much any knowledge
we create is communication.

How do we create knowledge?

In the process of creating knowledge we
collaborate through communicating as well.

So communication is both
the process and the result.

If we can improve that by even a
fraction of a percent for couple

billion people, it's tremendous
impact on the humanity level, and that

seemed like a very compelling idea.

Matt Abrahams: It is incredibly
compelling and so important.

I find it really exciting that you're
doing the work that you're doing

to help people in this information
based world to communicate better.

Personally, I think it's great that
rather than just building a better

plagiarism detection tool, you actually
said what's causing all this plagiarism?

Turns out people aren't comfortable
writing or feeling competent in

doing it, so you work to help them.

Some of our listeners might
not know yet what Grammarly is.

Can you share what your product is using
the elevator pitch structure I teach

my MBA students, what if you could, so
that, for example, and that's not all.

Max Lytvyn: Absolutely.

What if you could transform every
email, document, and post that you

write into a effective, polished,
professional piece of communication

without spending hours editing.

So that you could focus on what
truly matters, sharing your ideas

with confidence, building trust
with your audience, achieving your

career and professional goals through
clear and effective communication.

With Grammarly, over fifty thousand
teams and millions of individual users

save time and mental effort by instantly
catching any challenges with their

writing, improving their tone, addressing
their audience in a more effective way.

And that's not all.

Grammarly continues to evolve.

Soon you'll see even more support
from real time suggestions tailored

to your unique personal style to the
standards and norms and benchmarks of

your industry, uh, your company culture
and company style, and even compliance.

Matt Abrahams: Wow.

So you get an A plus on using
the structure, and it sounds

like you actually used your tool
to help you with that answer.

Can you share more about that?

Max Lytvyn: Exactly.

I used some of the new AI based features
of Grammarly, and essentially I pointed

it to the structure that you suggested.

And I pointed it to some of the
pitches I made earlier, but also to

make it a little bit more forward
looking, I pointed it to our roadmap.

And that's what it produced.

It took me about two
minutes to accomplish it.

Matt Abrahams: Now you've spent
a lot of time thinking about

how to help people write better.

What have you learned that really
seems to make a difference?

Max Lytvyn: I spent literally years
wracking my brain on this very question.

'Cause Grammarly helps people to
communicate better and what is better?

It's critical for our company's existence
to be able to answer that question.

The answer we came to is, it depends.

The definition of better or what makes
writing better is very situational.

I think what really makes difference
is starting with a goal, understanding

what you want to accomplish with
your communication, and it can take a

moment just like, what do I wanna do?

Do I want somebody to act or do I
want somebody to know something?

Or do I want somebody to
change their opinion or do I

just wanna entertain people?

Having clarity on that before you
start communicating, it helps to

communicate better and faster.

Matt Abrahams: I one
hundred percent agree.

And one of the foundational principles
in all of the work that I do and

many of our guests have shared on the
podcast, is this notion of you have to

understand your audience and you have
to have a clear vision of your goal.

And once you have those two things, then
you can craft meaningful communication

for them and you're just echoing that.

So thank you.

Before we end, I'd like to ask you two
questions that I'm asking everybody

who is part of this miniseries.

Are you ready for that?

Max Lytvyn: Yes.

Matt Abrahams: Great.

I would love to know who is a
communicator that you admire and why?

Max Lytvyn: This is difficult question
for me because my just personal

philosophy is I can learn from everyone
and I pick specific pieces that a

person does really well or differently
from everyone and learn these pieces.

But one name that comes
to mind is Adam Grant.

What I like in his communication,
and what I want to do better myself,

is explain complex things simply in
a way that makes it easier to apply

to practical situations, but without
obscuring the nuances, without

obscuring the depths of complexity.

'Cause it's easy to simplify things,
but that sometimes does a disservice

to your audience because we just
don't get the lead into the nuance.

But the way Adam does it is
making it simple, but without

hiding that there is more.

Matt Abrahams: The notion of making things
accessible is really critical, so it's not

about dumbing it down or oversimplifying
it, as you said, that can be risky.

In fact, what it's all about is finding
ways to make it accessible so people

can appreciate the depth and the nuance.

And Adam Grant does a great job with that.

Thank you.

Final question, question two.

Beyond your tool, beyond Grammarly,
what is one communication hack or

tool or shortcut that you use to be
more effective in your communication?

Max Lytvyn: Oh, I love this.

One thing that dramatically changed
my communication for the better is

whenever I'm in a contentious situation,
an argument or just a high stakes

discussion, and I have an instinct
to attack somebody's point or start

focusing on like differences in opinions,
I just start my response with yes.

And not yes, but, but genuine yes.

And it's for, it's mostly for me.

It's not for the other person.

What it does, it switches my brain into
collaborative communication mode where

I focus first on things that, where
there are commonalities, where there is

mutual understanding, and then develop
into things that we see differently.

And that is a simple thing, but it has
such a dramatic effect in the results.

I'm sure you, you've dealt
with a collaborative versus

competitive communication a lot.

In competitive communication it's
usually a zero sum game at best.

In many cases, it just destroys value.

In collaborative communication
it's one plus one equals three.

To explain that, I often use
analogy of Legos, that I have

my Legos, you have your Legos.

Instead of arguing whose Lego pieces
are better, we just put them in one

pile and build something together.

That's how it can explain collaborative
communication to people who are new

to this concept, but that, starting
answer was yes is a great tool to first

switch your brain into collaborative
communication mode, but then it also

switches your audiences, uh, brain
into that collaborative communication

mode and leads to better results.

Matt Abrahams: People can't see this,
but I'm smiling from ear to ear.

We have talked a lot on this podcast
about the principle from improvisation

of yes, and, and how it really
brings you into collaboration.

And I love that you have found somebody
in your role, as a senior leader of a

company, that's doing really cool stuff.

You start from the yes, and mentality
and you personally see your benefit.

And I just wanna highlight for
everyone listening that what Max

did was he actually followed some
of the things he's talked about.

He repeated himself in
a couple different ways.

He made something that's very complex,
the notion of collaborative communication,

people have spent their academic careers
studying this, and through an analogy

of Legos, made it more accessible.

So Max, thank you so much for
the tool that you've created.

Thank you for taking the time to
share with us key takeaways that can

make us all better communicators.

I appreciate your time.

Max Lytvyn: And thank you, Matt.

That was very enjoyable conversation.

Matt Abrahams: Thank you for
joining us for one of our

Communication tools episodes of
Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

Please be sure to listen to all of
the episodes in this miniseries.

We appreciate Prezi's
sponsorship of these episodes.

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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