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.
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Matt Abrahams: One of the biggest
barriers to interpersonal communication
is our concern that people aren't
interested in what we have to say.
If we're just a little bit more
social, we can dramatically change
the impact of our communication.
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 look forward to
learning from Nick Epley.
Nick is a professor of behavioral science
at the University of Chicago Booth School
of Business, where he also directs the
Roman Family Center for Decision Research.
Nick's research focuses on how people make
inferences about the minds of others and
why we routinely misunderstand each other.
His first book is called Mindwise:
How We Understand What Others Think,
Believe, Feel, and Want, and his
latest book is A Little More Social:
How Small Choices Create Unexpected
Happiness, Health, and Connection.
Welcome, Nick.
I am so excited to chat with you.
You have the distinction of being the
person most cited by other guests,
from Charles Duhigg to Katy Milkman
to Laurie Santos, and I am so glad to
finally get a chance to talk to you.
Thanks for being here.
Nick Epley: Yeah.
Thank you.
That is very flattering.
And you should be flattered to know
that one of your recent guests, Sonja
Lyubomirsky, also said, who she does
a lot of podcasts, said this was
one of the favorite that she'd done.
Matt Abrahams: Well,
that's very kind of Sonja.
We've known each other a long time,
and we had a great conversation.
So shall we get started?
Nick Epley: Yes, absolutely.
Matt Abrahams: So in your book
Mindwise, you discuss how we are
fundamentally overconfident in our
ability to read other people's minds.
We often rely on what you call
outside perspective, things like
the way people use their bodies,
facial expressions, to really
figure out what someone is thinking.
Why is this the wrong approach?
Why are we ineffective, and how
can we get better using what
you call the inside perspective?
Nick Epley: So the thing that
really makes us stand out on the
planet as a species, at least from
a psychologist's perspective, is our
ability to think about other people.
Much of our neural capacity here, this
fat part of our brain up above our
eyes, is dedicated to social cognition,
thinking about other thinking people.
The problem is that other people's minds
are the most complicated things you will
ever think about, and so we're imperfect.
We're imperfect, though,
in predictable ways.
One question we can then ask is, how do
we overcome these mistakes that we make?
One common approach is to just try to pay
attention to other people's body language.
The problem we find with that, or that
many psychologists find with that,
is that bodies can often mislead.
It's easy to lie to people
or, or deceive other people in
ways that are hard to detect.
We're often barely above chance,
for instance, at being able to
detect whether somebody is telling
us the truth or lying to us.
So body language doesn't work actually
that well, or reading body language.
Sometimes we can try to put
ourselves in other people's shoes.
We find in our research that doesn't
actually increase accuracy a whole bunch.
You're still playing with things
that are in your own head.
You're not gaining new insight.
Perspective taking isn't
quite the magical elixir for
understanding that we might imagine.
The only way that we have found for
people to understand the minds of
other people better is to, wait for
it, ask them what they are thinking.
Now, I remember when we started
running these experiments, that is, I
actually have to get on your inside.
I have to ask you what you're thinking.
To be good at understanding
another person, you have to become
a good journalist, it turns out.
A good interrogator.
When we first started running these
experiments in my lab, we referred
to these as the stupid studies,
that obviously asking somebody what
they think is gonna give you more
insight into what's on their mind.
But what was interesting to us was
that people didn't seem to know
that they were actually using a good
strategy when they were using it.
So we had people engaging in perspective
taking, thought they were doing just
as well, just as accurate understanding
the mind of another person as people
who were directly asking another person
what they thought about something.
And that was what was interesting to us.
Using this most effective strategy
from people's own perspectives
didn't seem to be something that
they are, were aware was actually
helping them out as much as it was.
Matt Abrahams: I want to dive deeper
into this notion of, you said perspective
taking doesn't really work, and I
know you've done a lot of work on
what you call perspective getting.
Clearly, asking is one way to
get another person's perspective.
Can you define what you mean by
perspective getting, and what are
some tools that we can use, especially
in high-stake situations where
reading the room and understanding
somebody else's likely response
could be really helpful to us?
Nick Epley: All we mean by
perspective getting is just
an analog to the psychological
process of perspective taking.
And we didn't mean anything magical
by it when we came up with the term.
In fact, it's hardly the kind
of thing that even needs a term.
Psychologists for decades have been
studying what happens when we do this
little bit of mental gymnastics to move
from my perspective to yours, to try
to see things from your point of view,
try to understand things from your
perspective, recognizing that you might
see the world differently than I do.
To be clear, doing that does a lot
of things psychologically for us.
It makes me feel more similar to you.
It makes me feel more empathy towards you.
It makes me feel like I understand
you better when I do this.
The problem is, when I actually ask
people to predict what you're thinking
and you write down what you're actually
thinking, people, perspective taking
doesn't actually make people, we found
in a series of 25 experiments, doesn't
actually make people more accurate.
If anything, it made
people a little bit worse.
So by perspective getting, all we
mean is simply asking other people
questions directly about what
they might think about something.
In a negotiation, you could ask somebody
directly, "Look, I really wanna understand
what you want in this situation, what your
position is." You might be worried that
they might not tell you, but you can ask.
You might wanna know, for instance,
what your spouse wants for
Christmas or for a birthday, right?
Instead of guessing, it turns out the
best way to know is to ask them, and they
tend to be just as happy getting the gift
that they wanted when you ask them as
when you guessed and got the wrong one.
They're not so happy about that.
So what can you do in a
high-stakes situation?
I think the big thing, one thing
we're finding out in recent
research, is that people are often
reluctant to ask direct questions.
They feel like it's being too nosy,
it's being impolite, it's being
intrusive, and so they're reluctant
to ask the questions they would need
to actually understand another person.
In our research, we find that people think
it's gonna be awkward to ask somebody a
direct question about what they believe
about some topic, particularly if it's a
personally relevant or meaningful topic.
But people who are asked those questions,
even sensitive ones, so this is work
by Einav Hart and Maurice Schweitzer,
for instance, they find that people
think it's gonna be much more awkward
to ask somebody direct questions than
the person actually finds it to be.
When you ask somebody a direct
question, they typically don't
mind as much as you would guess.
So I think that's the big thing.
In a high-stakes situation, just ask the
question you want to know the answer to.
Matt Abrahams: I'm hearing a theme
that asking is very important.
So my question for you is,
what makes for a good question?
On the show, when people have said
open questions better than closed
questions, do you have recommendations
for what are questions that can give you
insight perhaps over other questions?
Nick Epley: So one of the things that I'm
most interested about in my work is trying
to understand why we don't do the social
things that are necessarily good for us,
why we don't communicate in the ways that
would otherwise be good for us, creating
connections with other people, allowing
us to understand them better, and so on.
What are the barriers that
keep us from doing it?
And a big one is just misunderstanding
how other people will respond.
So for me, the best kinds of questions
to ask somebody are the meaningful
ones, meaningful questions, deep
questions that ask about somebody's
thoughts or their beliefs or
their attitudes or their feelings.
In conversation, these are the kinds
of things we often wanna be talking
about with somebody, and yet these
are also the things that we're
often reluctant to ask people about.
And so we spend a lot of time in
conversation, say, or even when
communicating with other people,
talking about shallow, superficial
things that don't really enable
understanding, don't really enable as
much understanding as it could, and don't
allow us to connect with other people
as meaningfully as we otherwise could.
So for me, the questions that are
of most interest to ask are the deep
ones, and the ones that we're often
overly reluctant to ask people about.
Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.
And you can think about some
of those in advance, right?
You can stockpile some questions.
We've talked with Alison Wood Brooks
and others about how we can leverage
questions to build more connection,
trust, and intimacy with people.
Do you have advice or guidance
on how to move from those shallow
conversations into more meaningful ones?
I might feel very uncomfortable
starting by asking you a very
deep question right off the bat.
How do we migrate from the more
shallow to the deeper questions?
Nick Epley: Much faster
than you think you can.
You might not ask that your
first question, but I usually can
get to something meaningful by
question number two, if I'm trying.
And I think that's a thing that people
really misunderstand in conversation.
Usually, that transition for me moves from
talking about something or asking about
something early on that's on the outside
of a person, "What do you do for a living?
Where do you live?" to something that's
very quickly on the inside of a person.
And that often involves a shift from
asking about what might be happening to
asking about why or some deeper meaning.
So, you know, once I find out what you
do for a living, I can ask you, "Why, why
do you do that and not something else?"
Or I can ask what you do for a living,
and I can ask as a follow-up question,
"Is that always what you wanted to do?
Is this your dream job?
Do you have your dream job right now?"
And if they say yes, then you can now
ask, "Why is that your dream job?" And
if they say no, you can ask, "Well,
what is your dream job?" And already
there, on like the third question,
I've gotten to somebody's dreams.
It just doesn't take that long.
Matt Abrahams: I like that distinction
of going from what to why, and it's
really important to put an exclamation
point at the end of what you said, is
that while we feel it might be awkward,
in actuality it's not that awkward.
Nick Epley: What we found was creating
the barrier, why people didn't wanna
talk, was that people didn't think that
others were interested in talking to them.
And that's also what keeps people
from having the deep, meaningful
kind of conversations we'd like
to be having with each other, too.
We find that people think that
others aren't gonna care about the
stuff that they have to share, the
meaningful things that they would
have to share in conversation, the
sense that other people don't want to
be bothered with this or wouldn't be
interested in having this conversation,
and turns out we're off about that.
Matt Abrahams: Wow.
So it's our fear that the other person
just doesn't care or wanna be burdened
with our stuff is what gets in the way.
Nick Epley: It's not that
we misunderstand ourselves.
We know in our experiments people
recognize that if you had a conversation
with somebody, if you shared something
meaningful about yourself, people would
enjoy their experience more if they
were in a conversation than if they
were being ignored by other people.
But what keeps them from doing it is a
social cognition error, a mind-reading
mistake, is that I think you don't
wanna talk to me, and of course,
if I don't think you wanna talk
to me, I won't try, and I'll never
find out that I'm wrong about that.
Matt Abrahams: And your research
shows that when you do actually
initiate the conversation, there
are wonderful benefits from it.
People vary.
A lot of the work I have done is
with people who are highly anxious in
communicating, introverts, extroverts.
How can somebody who might be nervous,
a non-native speaker, for example, or
somebody who's just extremely shy or
introverted, how do you encourage them to
take advantage of this wonderful benefit
of talking to people and reaching out?
Nick Epley: So I empathize with this
very much because I was one time there.
That is, I now can stand up in front
of 1,000 people without any trouble
and give a speech, and we're academics.
We do this for a living.
When I was in graduate school, I
was horrified by the thought of
standing up and presenting in public.
I was horrified about the thought of
taking questions, so I very much can
empathize with the challenges that
come from opening up and reaching out.
The long-run answer is that you overcome
mistaken fears through practice.
That's it, is you learn that these are
mistaken by exposing yourself to them
and learning the truth of the matter.
In fact, cognitive behavioral therapists,
psychologists who treat clinical
levels of anxiety, the way they do this
is through what's known as exposure
therapy, where they put you in the very
situation that you are anxious about.
Now, exposure therapy doesn't work for
everything, but if your concern is about
talking to people, as social stuff,
those anxieties tend to be misplaced.
So putting yourself in those
situations is the step that you
need to calibrate your beliefs.
Now, how do you do that?
What I recommend to people is
doing a choice audit of your day.
Just think over the course of
your day, like your day tomorrow.
And, you know, you might
think about a moment where you
could engage with somebody.
It'd be easy.
It wouldn't be hard, right?
Where you could reach out
and engage with somebody.
It wouldn't take a lot of time, wouldn't
take a lot of effort, wouldn't take
a lot of energy, and start there.
Sometimes these can be really simple
things, like when I enter the University
of Chicago Business School where I work,
the Harper Center here, I've got about
a 200-yard walk up to my office where
I'm standing right now, and I have taken
on as a habit making that a hello walk.
So I've done this very deliberately.
Like, I had this realization one
morning that I kind of walk into the
office, head down, on my way, not
wanting to bother anybody, and I decided
to do something different, right?
There was a moment where I was
choosing to ignore people, and
I could do something different.
So now when I come in, I
have my head up, I'm smiling.
Now, that seems small.
It is small.
A lot of these things are small.
Saying hello to somebody
on the train one morning.
You're there.
You're not doing anything anyway.
It's easy, relatively speaking.
It's not particularly hard.
It's not risky, and
that's the place to start.
What we're talking about
here is a behavior change.
The way you change behavior over the
long run is you don't do it all at once.
You're not gonna overcome
anxiety all at once.
It's, you don't move a mountain by
pushing the whole thing at one time.
You move a mountain shovel
by shovel, bit by bit.
And so my advice to folks
who are nervous about this is
you don't have to believe me.
You don't have to believe our data.
You can go out and test this yourself,
and my suggestion is to start small.
Pick a little thing you
can do that's pretty easy.
Give somebody a compliment.
Say hello to somebody in the morning.
Do it multiple times so you get some
data, and that's where you start.
Matt Abrahams: So many things there that
you said are so valuable and insightful.
One, I would never have believed that
you were shy and nervous about speaking.
You come off as quite the
extrovert and very comfortable.
This idea of doing a choice audit to
think about where those opportunities
are for those little experiments
that you're talking about, and I am
certainly going to try, and I encourage
everybody listening to try, a hello
walk and see what happens as we go.
Your new book is called
A Little More Social.
It's not be social.
It's not jump into the deep end of social.
Talk to me about the thesis
of A Little More Social.
Tell me a little bit more
about why you used a little
bit more and what it's about.
Nick Epley: The book is trying to
reconcile what seems like a fundamental
paradox that sits right at the
core of human life to me, which is
that we're highly social animals.
We're made happier and
healthier by reaching out and
connecting with other people.
And yet that choice to reach out and
engage with somebody, to approach them, or
to hold back and avoid them, that dynamic
shows up, that choice shows up in so
many different parts of our lives, right?
So do I talk with a stranger?
Do I type to them or pick up
the phone and call them, right?
Once I'm talking, do I go deep or do
I stay in the shallow end of the pool?
I've got a kind thought, do I share it?
I feel grateful to
somebody, do I express it?
I need help, do I ask for it?
I've got this thing about myself that
I'd like to share with my partner,
but I'm a little nervous about being
honest, so I keep my true self to myself.
Over and over again, there are these
opportunities we have to reach out
and engage with others in positive,
meaningful ways that make our lives better
that we're often nervous about doing.
And what we find just over and over
and over and over again is that
avoidance voice, that, that voice we
have on our shoulder that's telling
us, "They're not gonna like that.
This is gonna be bad. I shouldn't
do this," is a little too strong.
And people consistently underestimate
how positively these interactions
are going to go, and as a result, I
think, are overly reluctant to reach
out and engage with other people.
Now, we're not idiots.
Nobody is confused that reaching out
and expressing gratitude to your old
high school band director, which I did
not long ago, Craig Aune is his name,
one of the best teachers that I've ever
seen in my life, nobody's confused that
doing that is gonna be negative, right?
We can distinguish between a pat on
the back and a punch in the face.
This, we're not confused
about this, right?
But what we do find is that even when
we think it's gonna be a little good,
we still underestimate how positive
these things are likely to be.
We're a little bit off.
So our data don't suggest you should go
out to talk to everybody all the time.
You got things to do, right?
They don't suggest you should dive into
the deep end of the conversation pool
with everybody all the time or spend
your life writing gratitude letters.
That's not what it suggests.
It suggests that your estimate, your
belief about how this social interaction,
this attempt to reach out and engage
with somebody's gonna go, is off a bit.
And all of life is a gamble.
All of life's a gamble on the
outcomes our, of our decisions and
our choices, and our data suggests
that we're a little off about that.
And as a result, there are probably
lots of social interactions
that you could have, but you're
mistakenly choosing not to have.
And finding those decision points
where, you know, that avoidance voice
is just a little too strong in your
life, that's the margin you have for
improving it, for making your life better.
And again, the title of the book comes
from what I think is the real implication
of our work, not that you should be a
nonstop extrovert talking to other people
all the time, but that there are choices
you're making to avoid people that are
often mistaken, and that you could be a
little bit more social and it would make
your life probably considerably better.
Matt Abrahams: I am absolutely
convinced, and as somebody who's
read the book, you do a great job of
helping articulate that point of view.
You know, Nick, I knew this was gonna be
wonderful because everybody, your resume
came to me as, "Oh, my goodness, it's
gonna be a great conversation." I don't
wanna bring it to an end, but we will.
Before we end, I ask three questions,
two questions I ask everybody,
one I come up with just for you.
Are you ready for these?
Nick Epley: I'm ready.
Matt Abrahams: You teach an MBA
course called Designing a Good Life.
What is one communication-based
design flaw you see most
high-achieving people make, and
how can we change it to be better?
Nick Epley: I think a big design flaw
is people focus too much on their
competency and too little on their warmth.
What other people care about
when they interact with us,
is this person trustworthy?
Is this person honest?
Are they kind?
Are they a friend, or are
they somebody I should avoid?
We spend a lot of time thinking
about, what exactly should I say
to communicate to this person?
That's a good second thing to pay
attention to because that's what
they're paying attention to second.
But the first thing they're paying
attention to is, is this person warm?
Are they a friend?
And I think that's a mistake.
We overestimate the importance
of competency, exactly what we're
communicating when we're communicating,
when really what matters a lot, first
and foremost, is, is this person warm?
Is this person trustworthy?
That's the thing to start with.
Matt Abrahams: Thank you for echoing that.
In the strategic communication class
I teach, that is the very first topic
we discuss, and we talk about lead
with warmth, follow with competence,
and that can make a big difference.
Thank you for sharing.
Who's a communicator
that you admire, and why?
Nick Epley: The person who popped
into my mind, and it's possible that
it's 'cause I was just listening to
a podcast from him, is Michael Lewis.
And I think Michael Lewis is
amazing as a communicator because
he has this stroke of genius that
makes him seem not like a genius.
And I think that's where true genius sits.
So a really good communicator, and
I think this is true in academia as
well, is somebody who can take really
complicated topics, like the financial
sector or Kahneman and Tversky's
research in the behavioral sciences,
and make it so simple that it feels
like you understood it already.
Like, not very hard, okay?
And Lewis is just a master, both
in writing as well as in speaking,
so he's just as good on his
podcast as he is with his books.
The other thing that Lewis does which
is great as a communicator, he's
extremely good at asking questions.
He's really good about not imposing what
he thinks on somebody else, but rather
letting the other person share their
wisdom and pulling that out of them.
He's a good perspective getter.
Really good perspective getter.
And that's why he gets
the nod from me today.
Matt Abrahams: Not surprising
that you would pick somebody
who asks good questions, given
what you do in your research.
And the other notion that you started
with, I call accessibility, how you make
complex ideas accessible to somebody.
And I like that you added, "So that they
feel like they already knew it." I know
exactly what you're talking about, and
really effective communicators do that.
All right, Nick, final
question, question three.
What are the first three ingredients that
go into a successful communication recipe?
Nick Epley: So I think the first
big one is to take an interest.
A lot of good communication is
about the mindset you take to it.
In a conversation, this is
particularly true, I think, if you're
communicating in conversation, is you
gotta take an interest in the other
person, in getting to know them.
People spend a lot of time
focusing on specific words to use
or specific sentences or phrases.
I think that will get you potentially
over the hump to start something.
But what makes for a really
good conversation is for you
to be flexible in the moment.
If I take an interest in getting
to know you, the stuff to talk
about is just gonna come up.
I'm gonna think about it
often if I start with that.
So I think being in the right
mindset, taking an interest in,
understand somebody, getting
to know them, making sure they
understand you, I think is critical.
If you're not interested, you're not gonna
teach them, you're not gonna reach them.
Second one is warmth.
We already talked about this a little bit.
Again, I think this is one thing that
people under-emphasize, and this is
suggested by the research, that what we
tend to think about when we think about
ourselves is our competency, right?
I'm gonna stand up and I'm
gonna give a speech, right?
I'm gonna, or I'm gonna speak in class, or
I'm gonna have a conversation with you, or
I'm gonna write a gratitude letter, right?
What I'm worried about, I'm not concerned
about whether I'm trustworthy or not.
I take that for granted with myself.
What I'm worried about is, what
the heck am I gonna say, right?
That's what I'm really focused on.
But what other people focus on when they
see us is, is this somebody trustworthy?
So warmth is a big one.
I think that's the second.
And then the third one,
I think, is openness.
Really good communicators
are open about themselves.
People who are willing to share
things about themselves, be
open about themselves, that
builds trust very quickly.
So a good way to really have a
deep, meaningful conversation
with somebody isn't just about
asking them meaningful questions.
It's also about being willing
to be open and share meaningful
things about yourself, right?
The fact that 20 years or so ago,
when I started my career, was
a terrified introvert, at least
when it came to standing up and
speaking, sharing that story.
I lost 20 pounds before
my first job interview.
I was so nervous.
I didn't sleep, I didn't eat for weeks.
I was terrified by this.
Being willing to be open and share
those meaningful stories allows other
people to open up with you, too,
and that's what makes for a really
good conversation and communication.
Matt Abrahams: That reciprocity there
is really important in building trust.
So the three I hear you talk about are
mindset, which drives interest and the
flexibility needed to engage, and then
that warmth rather than over-indexing
on competency, and then finally, being
open and divulge and share information.
Nick, this was fantastic.
You were so helpful in illuminating
the good work that you're doing and
helping all of us to feel better In our
communication and the challenge that you
bring to us, which is to take that step,
initiate the conversation, be a little bit
more social, and you can see the benefits.
Thank you for your time.
Nick Epley: Thank you so much, Matt.
Matt Abrahams: Thank you for
joining us for another episode of
Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.
To learn more about how to
leverage communication for deeper
relationships, listen to episode one
thirty-three with Charles Duhigg.
This episode was produced by Katherine
Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.
Our music is from Floyd
Wonder, with special thanks
to the Podium Podcast Company.
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