Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Why curiosity is the best way to start a conversation.

No matter how wide political, cultural, and generational divides seem to grow, Fareed Zakaria is convinced: communication has the power to connect.
Zakaria is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, a Washington Post columnist, and author of Age of Revolutions, a book about the seismic societal shifts that define modern history. In his decades of translating complex geopolitical issues for broad audiences, he’s found the key to navigating change and conflict. “The most important thing is being genuinely curious,” he says, “genuinely believing that everybody has a story to tell. Everybody has something to teach you. Everybody has a lesson you can learn.”
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Zakaria and host Matt Abrahams explore how curiosity opens the door to conversation. Whether we’re communicating across ideological divides or bridging gaps between our past, present, and future, Zakaria shows why maintaining connection starts with a willingness to learn.

Episode Reference Links:
Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (02:36) - The “Age of Revolutions”
  • (04:42) - Do Facts Still Matter?
  • (06:13) - How To Persuade
  • (08:17) - On-Camera Communication
  • (10:45) - Making Radical Ideas Mainstream
  • (12:14) - When To Change Your Mind
  • (13:41) - Helping Adolescents Communicate
  • (21:15) - The Final Three Questions
  • (25:02) - 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
Fareed Zakaria
Journalist | Political Commentator | Author | CNN Host | The Washington Post Columnist

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: The best way to
connect and truly communicate

is to be curious and respectful.

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'm really excited to
speak with Fareed Zakaria.

Fareed is the host of CNN's
flagship International Affairs

Program, Fareed Zakaria GPS.

And he's a weekly columnist
for The Washington Post.

He specializes in translating complex
geopolitical trends for a broad audience.

His insightful book, Age of
Revolutions, is out now in paperback.

Welcome, Fareed.

I have benefited so much from what you
do on television and in your writing.

Thanks so much for being here.

Fareed Zakaria: It's
a pleasure to do this.

Matt Abrahams: Shall we get started?

Fareed Zakaria: Absolutely.

Matt Abrahams: You argue we're living
in one of the most revolutionary

periods in all of history.

What specific forces are
leading you to make this claim?

Fareed Zakaria: So if you look at the
base of change, particularly along

the kind of key drivers that have
tended to produce this kind of sense

of society being upended, they tend to
be technology in the first instance.

Almost always, you know, in my book the
Age of Revolutions, I talk about how

starting with the Dutch and the invention
of the kind of technology that allowed

the Netherlands to become rich, you know,
this was water management, then financial

management, they created the first joint
stock companies, the first stock exchange.

Then transportation equipment, they invent
tour ships that can go around the world.

It produces a huge set of revolutions.

If you think about the information
revolution, this really is the mother

of all revolutions at some level
because you are almost replacing,

or at least replacing in central
importance, the material economy and

supplanting it with a digital economy.

And now with AI, that
becomes even more true.

The second is globalization, which is, we
have seen an explosion of globalization

on a scale, in the last 30 or 40 years,
on a scale like nothing we've seen before.

To put it in simple context,
globalization, you know, the rest of

the world joining in the kind of western
open market system, 1950s and 60's, you

had Japan joining, 80 million people.

South Korea, 40 million people, Malaysia,
maybe Singapore, Hong Kong, 5, 10 million.

Between 1985 and 1995, roughly,
China, India, most of Latin America,

Indonesia, you talk about 3 and
a half, 4 billion people joining

the open world trading system.

So that shock, but then the other
one, which people don't think about

enough is we have gone through enormous
cultural change in the last 40 years.

Think about the role of immigrants
in society, in western societies.

And another point I'm trying
to make is that this is all

happening at the same time.

So when you put that all
together, this does feel like

the mother of all revolutions.

Matt Abrahams: It's amazing how much
has happened, and how much has happened

in a relatively short amount of time.

In an age where we're in the midst
of this information revolution, and

information is infinite, and algorithms
influence who sees and hears our

messages, I'm curious to get your opinion.

Do facts still matter or has
communication just become purely

about identity and emotion?

Fareed Zakaria: It's become much more
about identity and emotion because

of the disaggregation of channels.

I think the fundamental technological
shift here, which is driving all

this, is that there used to be
centralized modes of communication.

You know, think about radio's
a one to many broadcast system.

That's why in the old days when they'd
have a coup, you would try to take over

the presidential palace and you tried
to take over the radio station, 'cause

you wanted the source of political power
and the source of information power.

Then you went to the TV station
and the presidential palace.

Today in a networked many to
many broadcast system, there

is no node to take over.

There's no hierarchy of information,
and in that situation, you are

going to see a much greater degree
of contested facts, contested

narratives, and things like that.

It's very disconcerting because it does
mean, as you're suggesting, a kind of

post-fact or post-truth environment.

But it is where we are, and that
means that you try hard to make

your case as forcefully as you can.

You can't rely on authority anymore to
say, trust me, this is what happened.

You are gonna have to show the receipts.

Matt Abrahams: You know, if you were
to give people advice on how to talk

smart in an environment where all
the incentives are to speak loudly,

what would you tell people to do?

Fareed Zakaria: The first thing you
try to do if you're trying to genuinely

persuade people, as opposed to preach
to the converted, which is what I would

argue, 90% of what passes for political
discourse on television and even beyond

television, social media for sure.

The first thing you've gotta do is
you've gotta try and make the case

as plainly, and I don't wanna say
unemotionally, but in a way that

does not rely on demonizing somebody.

You are trying to present the facts
and you're trying to say, this

is what the landscape looks like.

Now, here's why I think what I do.

So you're not doing, you're not,
there's not a lot of ad hominem.

There's not a lot of name calling.

There's not a lot of screaming,
because otherwise you're turning

off a whole bunch of people.

The second thing I think you have to
do is you have to marshal the facts.

When I say the receipts, you have
to have real evidence, real data,

so that people can see that you are
coming to your conclusions from an

honest place of analysis, rather than
a preconceived place of this is my

team and I'm rooting for my team.

And the third, and this may sound like
it's contradictory to the second, you

have to be able to establish a connection,
almost an emotional connection, with

the person reading you, viewing you.

And what I mean by that is you
have to establish trust and you

can do it in different ways.

One way is to not demean the other side.

Do it in a way that says, look,
I'm trying to be as honest

and honorable as I can here.

This is the situation as I see
it, it seems to me we're going

down a bad path and here's why.

So if you do those three things, you are
likely to help, the way I think about it

is lead somebody down a series of steps.

Now, they may not get to the place you
want them to get to, but at least they've

gone down those steps and they've seen
that you're trying to go down those

steps honorably and reasonably and
fairly, and then they may back away.

Matt Abrahams: What I heard you
say is that it starts with respect.

You don't start with
challenging and vitriol.

You then provide the facts and
then connect in a way that's

genuine, authentic, and that's
how you can foster understanding,

which is different from agreement.

I think that gets conflated a lot
where we see understanding and

agreement being the same thing.

As somebody who does both writing and
video camera work, many people are finding

themselves having to be on air more.

I mean, much of our
communication now is visual.

If you're a leader in an organization,
you have to have a camera presence.

What have you noticed has helped
you be successful in making that

transition from writing and speaking
in meetings, into being on camera, in

a way that we all could benefit from
some of the advice that you've learned?

Fareed Zakaria: What I am struck by is
visual media is actually quite, it's

the opposite of what most people think.

It selects for a lot of things,
but one of them is intelligence.

Think about it this way.

If you have an article that you're
reading in a long magazine, say

The Atlantic or The New York Review
of Books, or the Harvard Business

Review, it's not quite that long.

They can often meander.

They can often be parenthetical.

You can't do that on visual.

People will stop, they'll click
off, they'll switch the channel.

They'll stop watching the YouTube video.

You have to stay focused.

You have to be linear.

There has to be a narrative.

You have to be saying something important.

You can't be doing a
lot of throat clearing.

So that I think I'm just, I happen
to be good at because that's my

way of thinking and talking anyway.

And I tend to think that
it's also that I am myself.

I don't put on airs.

I don't try to speak in a very fancy way.

I, if you watch my show compared to,
let's say you pull up a broadcast from

Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw, old anchors
of 20 years ago, they would speak in

these perfect clipped sentences with
a, usually a low Midwestern baritone.

And I don't talk like that.

I talk the way I would
talk to you normally.

I also will have an
occasional, um, in there.

I think that conveys to the viewer, this
is a real human being and you're getting

him talking the way he normally talks.

I, I tend to think that's an advantage.

It's maybe partly I say that because
I don't think I could pull off this

sustained staying in that anchorman
mode, but I do think it's an advantage.

Matt Abrahams: So I'm hearing concision
and authenticity are really important,

and the visual medium is not as forgiving.

And these are skills that you can
learn and you have to practice,

and yet it's becoming more and
more relevant and important.

I want to tie in some of your
work on revolutions to things that

we think a lot about, which is
entrepreneurship and disruption.

Many of the revolutions you described
started with radical ideas that

eventually became mainstream.

Are there lessons we can learn that
can help entrepreneurs and activists

take their disruptive ideas and
make them more generally acceptable?

Fareed Zakaria: I think that more than
anything else, the ones that seem to

succeed have two elements to them.

One is luck.

I will be totally honest with you,
and I think anyone who doesn't

admit this is just being silly.

You know, you get the right
time at the right place.

The timing worked.

Other factors came together
to make something happen.

But the second is a certain kind of
determination, a certain doggedness.

You, you can't get too disheartened when
you're trying to do something and you have

to be willing to ride the ups and downs.

The way I think about it is so many of
the people who I've seen who've been

successful entrepreneurs, the, the company
that worked was their third company.

They were determined to find something
that works and you adjust and say,

okay, the market doesn't want this,
or the consumer doesn't want that,

but you are going to do something.

You're going to make it work
in some way or the other.

Matt Abrahams: So it's determination
and taking advantage of the

situation that is around you.

Fareed Zakaria: Maybe the thing about
luck is to recognize when fortune

is favoring you and ride the wave.

And that does take skill and that does
take, you need to be prepared, you

need to work hard, and you need to ride
the wave when you see the wave coming.

And the other side to it is recognize
when you are against the wave.

I remember having this fascinating
conversation with George Soros once.

And he said, you and I do the same thing.

We look at the world
and try to analyze it.

The difference is I put my money where
my mouth is and you don't have to.

I said, okay, given that, what
do you think are the differences

in the way we approach it?

And he said, I'll tell you I think
one of the principle differences.

People who are intellectuals get very
wedded to their ideas and they're

very wedded to their theories and
they're slow to notice that the

world is disconfirming your idea.

He said, if I see that the market
is telling me I'm wrong, I will

sometimes wait, but it's very
expensive to wait and so you really

need to take in that feedback that the
market is telling you you're wrong.

And there are times when I have made
a bet and the market is telling me

I'm wrong, and I'll bet against myself
twice as hard on the opposite side of

that bet because I've realized that
the market is right and I'm wrong.

And intellectuals tend to be way too
stubborn in holding onto their theories.

And you know this from being at a
university, 'cause people in a way

get famous for their theory, right?

Matt Abrahams: I think that's
a really valuable point.

In addition to tenacity and recognizing,
and being able to observe the patterns

to decide what decisions to make, we need
to be willing to let go and cut bait.

And that's so hard.

There's so many things
that conspire against that.

I'm gonna be very curious to
hear your thoughts on this.

I and a fellow colleague at the
GSB, Rachel Konrad, have become very

concerned about how teens communicate
and the challenges that they have.

I'm sure you've seen the same
decline that I have, that critical

thinking, interpersonal communication
among teens has really taken a hit.

Do you have thoughts on what parents,
teachers, communities can do to

help adolescents communicate better?

Fareed Zakaria: I do.

I hate to be clichéd about this,
but I do think that Jonathan Haidt

is dead on when he talks about the
effects of phones and social media,

and it's the combination of the two,
I think, and I have personal examples.

I've seen this with my kids, and in one
case, one of my kids put aside their

smartphone for two years, they only had
a flip phone and it totally transformed

the way in which they had the ability to
connect and think and savor life almost.

I think that the thing about a
smartphone, which is like a supercomputer

in your pocket, is it creates a
certain kind of learned autism.

What I mean by that, say when
you and I were younger, we were

in a awkward social situation.

We're at a cocktail party, school mixer,
you have to make your way around, right?

Like you have to figure out what to do.

You find somebody you can talk
to, you look around sheepishly and

hope that you catch somebody's eye.

You are engaged in social interaction.

Today, you know what happens.

The minute somebody feels socially
awkward, take out their phone.

And they're on their phone and
they're now looking at Instagram or

they're connecting with some friends.

But those are people that already know.

You're not engaging in the hard
work of social interaction, which

is with the people you don't know.

Breaking the ice, finding a way in.

Similarly, if you're listening to a
lecture, the minute it gets boring

for you, you take out your phone.

You're not asking yourself, okay,
is there something interesting here?

Is there something I can connect with?

Is there, no.

So that's what I mean by
the learned autism, right?

Like it, you immediately
retreat to yourself.

And the supercomputer in your
pocket allows you to retreat to

yourself so quickly that you lose
the muscles of doing those other

things that you should be doing.

I think that's most of it.

I do not believe that kids today
are stupid or, they're good, they're

hardworking, they have good morals,
they have good ethics, but I think

we have given them the biggest
temptation you could ever imagine.

Imagine if you and I were trying to
study in the old days, and you were

given a machine on which you were
told, you can watch every movie that

has ever been made, every song that
has ever been recorded, you know,

here, or you could do your homework.

You are giving them an
impossible temptation.

And so I just think the degree to which
you can limit it is the best you can do.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.

I do agree that social media phones
absolutely have implications.

I do think adults in kids' lives can
take action by role modeling, good

communication, walking through the
decisions that we make as we communicate

with others, just so that we can
make sure that these skills are, at

least, demonstrated and encourage.

Fareed Zakaria: Yeah, I would,
I'll give you an example.

In my family, we always sit
down to dinner together.

No phones at the table,
and we always talk.

Now, contrary to what a lot of people
think, we don't talk about the world and

international affairs and what's going on.

We talk about just pretty mundane stuff.

I think that's the more important,
'cause I want, I don't want them to have

to feel like characters in my movie.

It's about what happened in their
day and what happened in the

dog's life and things like that.

And that I think just, it seems very
simple, but it does seem to me that

it's a fairly good force multiplier.

And when I've talked to them, they often
point out that when they talk to their

friends, it's becoming uncommon for family
to just sit together dinner and have

that meal together and sit down, talk.

No phones.

It's usually, let's be honest,
it's 30 minutes, but it's

a very useful 30 minutes.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.

And I love that you take
the time to do that.

And I'd love to be a fly on the wall on
those conversations because in my mind,

I would imagine one thing and you're
telling me it's something very different.

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

One I create just for you,
and then the other two are

similar across all the episodes.

Are you up for that?

Fareed Zakaria: Sure.

Matt Abrahams: You have made your
career, or part of your career, by asking

tough, insightful questions of people.

What makes for a good question
and do you have a go-to question

that you like to ask people?

Fareed Zakaria: No, I
think that's a mistake.

I think that ,in general, you really
should be listening to people and

watching them, and that's each person
has a different button you want to press.

I think the most important thing, and
you've said it, it is being genuinely

curious and genuinely believing
that everybody has a story to tell.

Everybody has something to teach you.

Everybody has a lesson you can
learn, and I really do believe that.

And if you have that kind of curiosity,
it's fun to ask people questions.

If I go to dinner parties and I
find that, like, people have just

asked me lots of questions, I leave
disappointed because I know what I think.

I'm only learning when I'm
listening, not when I'm talking.

Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.

One of the mantras we learned from
another guest we had on the show was,

it's all about being interested and
not interested, and when you take

that approach, it can be very helpful.

I'm curious to know your answer to this.

Who's a communicator
that you admire and why?

Fareed Zakaria: Well, there are
many, but let me give you one right

now just because it's top of mind.

I think Mamdani, the new mayor
of New York, is remarkable.

He may be one of the best
communicators I've seen because

he's figured out the medium of the
moment, you know, these short form

videos, they're very expertly done.

They're not, this is not amateur.

Remember, his mother is one of
the great directors of our age,

you know, so they're done, right.

But then he brings to it
a kind of intelligence,

imagination, and authenticity.

So the imagination is, if, I
dunno if you remember, he's

advocating for rent freezes, right?

So he jumps into the Long Island
Sound in February in freezing waters

in his entire, in his full suit.

And he comes out saying something
about how he's freezing and how

he wants to freeze the rents.

That's the imagination, to get
your attention to, he, that

is really very compelling.

That, that mixture of intelligence,
imagination, knowing the

medium and being authentic.

I should say, I find many of his ideas
deeply troubling and I don't agree

with the substance of the policies,
but I am irresistibly drawn to the

power of his communication skills.

Matt Abrahams: Isn't it interesting
how somebody can appreciate

and understand the new way of
communicating, new technologies,

and still bring that authenticity
intelligence to take advantage of it?

Thank you for sharing that.

Final question for you.

What are the first three ingredients that
go into a successful communication recipe?

Fareed Zakaria: I would start
with authenticity because I think

that's where you get the trust.

Some say, you know, clarity and,
you know, kind of a concision.

And then the final one is probably
that leap of imagination that

allows you to be a little different.

That allows you to do something arresting.

That gets you into the top tier, I think.

Matt Abrahams: So it's about
authenticity, clarity and concision,

and creativity and imagination.

And I think when you combine that
recipe together, you get great

communication and certainly you are a
good example of putting those together.

I appreciate all of the ideas and best
practices you have shared, and I really

appreciate the intelligent conversation
that you role model for all of us.

Thank you for your time and best of luck
on your paperback of Age of Resolutions.

Fareed Zakaria: Thank you so much.

This was so much fun.

I actually learned a lot while doing it.

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

Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

To learn more about managing complex
issues and communication, please listen

in to 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 the
Podium Podcast Company.

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