Matt Abrahams: Many of us strive for a career full of passion and joy, but how do we do that?
And what does it look like?
And what role does communication play?
I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Welcome to Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.
Today, I am super excited to chat with Maggie Baird.
Maggie is an accomplished actress of stage and screen as well as a voice artist.
She's made significant contributions as an improv teacher at the Groundlings Theater in Los Angeles.
And Maggie is also the founder of Support and Feed, and she is working to move the music industry to more sustainable practices.
Finally, Maggie is the mother of music sensations Billie Eilish and FINNEAS.
Maggie, thanks for joining me.
Maggie Baird: Thanks for having me.
Matt Abrahams: I'm so excited for our conversation.
Should we get started?
Maggie Baird: Yeah.
Matt Abrahams: Excellent.
You are somebody who has changed the focus of your career many times from stage acting to film and television to teaching and songwriting and to being an advocate for social change.
Looking back on the various changes in your career, do you have any insight and guidance for our listeners who might be contemplating making changes in their careers?
Maggie Baird: Yeah, it is funny.
I have done many, many, many, many things and, but I never approached any of them as a career change.
They never were like, I'm going to now do this.
They were all organic and they all just came out of new interests and new experiences.
I think you just kind of let your passion lead you and your opportunities lead you.
And don't be so intent of like, I have to get from here to here that you miss all these exciting opportunities along the way.
Matt Abrahams: Yeah.
So staying open to possibility and listening to what's driving you in terms of your passion.
I'd love to talk a bit about your improv experience.
You taught for many years at the Groundlings, which is a renowned improv group.
I'd love to have you share with us how you came to improv and how you came to teaching improv.
Maggie Baird: How I came to improv, I had been like a very serious actor, which all that meant, you know, you lived in New York, you suffered some successes, you suffered some rejections.
And then I came to LA and I saw a friend do a show at the Groundlings and she took me to see it.
And I was like, this looks like the most fun thing ever.
And meanwhile, I started my life as a little kid, like loving laughing and wanting to be Lily Tomlin.
And then of course watching Saturday Night Live.
So when I saw this show, I was like, this is for me.
It's so much more fun than a normal acting class.
And I literally just did it for fun.
Just like this is going to be so fun.
And I laugh, you know, the great thing about improv class, you are laughing from the minute you walk in to the end.
It's the healthiest thing you could ever do.
And so I just loved my classes so much and I just worked my way up and became a Groundling.
But something really unlocked for me when I became a teacher.
Teaching really changed me because, I mean, I had done big character work, I did noises off, I did plenty of characters.
But as a person, I was always pretty shy and a little pathologically shy, like scared to go into a party kind of feeling.
And I discovered teaching improv, a side of my personality that was radically different.
I realized, oh, when you're in a teaching position, they are looking to you as the expert and you in fact are the expert.
And also when you're teaching improv, you've got to improvise all the time.
The kind of confidence and power and joy you feel, I started realizing, oh, that is the person that I need to walk in an audition as, right?
Matt Abrahams: Or live in.
Maggie Baird: Live in.
Yeah.
Like that teaching role.
And so I think teaching brings out a quality in you that, you know, you may not have found until you start to teach.
Matt Abrahams: I absolutely agree that teaching forces you and allows you, it's a gift really, I think, to really explore yourself while helping others.
Maggie Baird: And you get much better yourself.
Matt Abrahams: Oh, absolutely.
You learn so much more by teaching.
Absolutely.
As somebody who's been teaching for decades, I absolutely agree.
We have talked a few times on the show about improv and the value that the improv mindset can bring to just being a better communicator.
And I want to be very clear that improv is not just about being funny.
In fact, that's a byproduct, but it's really about a way of being.
And I'd love to hear your perspective on that and then any connections you've made between how improv has helped you and those you've taught to be better communicators in general.
Maggie Baird: There are some guiding principles.
And the classic one that everybody knows is the yes and, right?
When you think like, what does that mean?
It's like instead of even yes but, it's yes and.
So I hear you and I add, and I particularly like, it's an exercise you can do.
You begin every phrase with, "that's interesting, that because" blank.
That even goes a step further of like, oh, that's interesting.
And then I'm going to give you some more detail about that.
Oh, that's interesting.
So that as a communication style, I think is hugely important.
Matt Abrahams: So improv for those who are newer to improv have a lot of games that you play to practice these skills and the game you're sharing of "that's interesting" is not only does it teach you to be present and to keep building a scene.
But in everyday life, if you approach a conversation of "that's interesting" and then build on it, all of a sudden you have a conversation that's more engaging.
Maggie Baird: Exactly.
And it's so different than yes, but I'm different than you or yes, but you know, you didn't think about this.
It's like, I hear what's compelling about that and I can add to it, but I'm not changing the subject.
I'm not denying it.
We're moving forward.
Matt Abrahams: We had on the show, Alison Wood Brooks, who teaches at Harvard's business school, and she studies conversations.
And she said that there are fundamentally two types of turns you can take in a conversation.
There's a supportive turn and a switching turn.
And what you're talking about is exactly that.
A supportive turn was, I hear you.
And I'm going to keep the conversation going versus I hear you and now I'm taking us this way.
And her argument is that we often make many more switching turns than supporting turns and that's why our conversations don't feel fulfilling.
So you're giving us a tool and showing us that improv can teach us something that academics have actually found are really important.
So thank you for that.
Before we leave improv, something that I am personally fascinated with, and I'd love just to get your opinion.
A lot of the work I've been doing lately is on what I call spontaneous speaking.
It's in the moment responding.
And that's where improv I think can really help.
What I have learned in my research that helps people is to have some structure.
Structure actually frees you to do what's needed in the moment.
And you talked about the improv rules because improv rules actually give you structures and boundaries.
And yet within that, you can play a lot.
And I'd love to hear how you think about the rules and structure and how that actually gives you the freedom to do a lot of things.
Maggie Baird: Well, for sure in improv you have all these games and I actually like games, not all improvisers like them.
I like them for that very reason.
It puts your brain in a different place, which is fun and challenging.
And then it also takes away the stress in a way you're so focused on that, that you can just be freer in this other way.
And I think that's what you're referring to.
And having a boundary here allows your brain to relax over here.
Matt Abrahams: It gives you a path and you can choose to go down that path or not.
I've been a teacher for a long time, but I only teach one or two things.
You have taught lots of things.
You've taught acting, you've taught music, you've taught aerial acrobatics.
Maggie Baird: I've taught cake decorating, I've taught cooking, I've taught like literally anything I almost know how to do, you know.
Matt Abrahams: Which is fantastic.
So tell me about your approach to teaching.
I find that true teachers actually have a process.
They might not be as in touch with it, but the things you teach are very different, but in some ways very similar.
A lot of them are very physical.
There's a physicality to them, but what's your approach to teaching and how do you target your lessons to the students you teach?
Maggie Baird: Well, first of all, my father was a teacher.
My brother was a teacher.
He was also a congressperson and my other brother's an attorney.
So I think it all stems from the same guiding principles.
I think one of the things that's made me a good teacher is that I started as very much not an expert.
So I really remember what it's like to feel like, oh, this is what made sense to me when somebody taught me this, or this is what really didn't make sense to me when I got taught this.
My aerial circus might be the best example because I had been a dancer, but when I was a mom, I was, you know, I'd had two kids.
It wasn't my healthiest time.
And so when I started, I couldn't do anything.
I couldn't climb two feet up the silk.
And so I have a very strong kinesthetic experience.
So what are the things that helped me and what are the things that made it possible for me to do it?
So really when I'm teaching, I try to think about what does a real beginner need to know?
And I'll tell you this, the better I got at aerial, sometimes the less good I got as a teacher because you forget.
You forget, oh, that's really hard to do ten shrugs, or something.
So there is something to like really maintaining a memory of what it's like to not know and to not assume people do or should know.
But not to be patronizing or condescending.
So I think it's always tricky when people say things like, do you know this?
Because people can feel embarrassed or you throw out terms too much.
Like someone said this to me at the beginning of our nonprofit, which was extremely helpful.
You don't use acronyms, like say the whole thing because it makes people feel dumb when they don't know what it is.
And so you really don't want anyone to feel stupid for not knowing anything.
You don't want to put them on the spot.
Like, tell me what you know about this.
And then they're just on the spot.
So that is a real tenet of it.
Feel generous about somebody not knowing.
Matt Abrahams: Yeah.
It's a true privilege to teach people.
And I hear you saying several things there.
One is having some empathy and reminding yourself of what it was like to be a beginner.
I am often asked, how do you teach the same thing over and over again?
And I always say, because the people I'm teaching, it's new to, right?
And that's exciting for me to connect.
And the notion of thinking about the words you use.
We had Huggy Rao, who's a professor at Stanford on, and he used this term that I love, jargon monoxide, because it sucks all the air out of the room and puts people to sleep.
So we have to be mindful of the language.
We have to be mindful of where people are in their journey.
And we have to remind ourselves that it's a privilege.
And I heard you say all those things and that's fantastic.
Maggie Baird: I'll also add that joy, obviously your passion and your joy needs to be part of it.
Matt Abrahams: Absolutely.
One hundred percent.
I think if you bring your passion and energy, you can have a big influence and teachers do have big influences, not just on what they teach, but how they teach it.
You are also trying to exert your influence in many other areas.
Among your many credits as you're the mother of Billie Eilish and FINNEAS.
And you are actually actively trying to change how the music industry approaches some things as in sustainability and other things.
How do you deal with the challenges of confronting an industry or in the case of our listeners, their bosses or their organizations to get them to change in a way that you support without getting confrontational combative?
What strategies do you rely on to help you affect change?
Maggie Baird: The main thing is just asking questions.
I think for us it just really started with asking questions.
We were coming from a place in our own family and our own experience where we were much farther along on the journey.
And then we stepped into an industry, well most industries, we're not very far along.
They're much better now, but it really just starts with asking questions.
I have a unique experience because I'm not saying anything I wasn't saying twenty-five years ago.
People listen to me more now because we're at more of a crisis point than ever before, but also I'm very lucky that my daughter and son got a lot of power.
And so I literally saw the change between nobody listening to you and people listening to you.
And I certainly was, I think, a fly in the ointment.
My husband always called me Cassandra, Cassandra, you know, destined to speak the truth and have no one listen to her.
And I felt like Cassandra for many, many years.
I think it's knowing what you know and being willing to say it.
Unfortunately, you do have to balance like losing your job to getting what you need done, and be weighing all the time, like, where are my values in this, and where can I make change and how can I make it?
A lot of times that means taking it on yourself, you know, well, I'll make this thing happen.
I will find these things out.
I'm thinking more and more traditional jobs, like how can a person make these changes, you know?
I think taking responsibility and saying, if I organized this, could we have this happen?
If I brought in someone to do a talk or if I made a lunch and I made it different, whatever the changes you're trying to see made, you have to take a lot of initiative yourself.
And then you have to ask questions like, why do we do this?
Why are we doing it this way?
A lot of times you're going to hear financial reasons, just the way it's done.
It's always been done like that.
It's just the music industry.
It's just the way it is.
Or nobody has time.
Everyone's overworked, cost too much money.
And then you go, okay, those are legitimate.
How do we address that?
How can we offset that cost, that time?
And how can I take on some of that to make that happen?
Matt Abrahams: I hear in your response, some of your improv training of yes and like, yes, I understand that.
And how are we going to change it?
And it's through the doing.
I appreciate that.
And I appreciate what you're trying to do for sustainability in general.
You are an ardent supporter of food justice and sustainability.
I'd love for you to share a bit about your nonprofit and how do you think about the way in which you communicate your mission vision values in the world more broadly?
Because you are really trying to affect change in a lot of things.
And I'm just wondering about your strategic thinking about when and how do I message what I message?
Maggie Baird: To begin, like we have an organization Support and Feed and we do address food equity and the climate crisis by providing nourishing, healthy plant based meals to community orgs who are doing amazing work and we're supporting them with food, supporting them with information about the health values of those food.
And then also really talking about the effect of what we eat on the climate.
We know that we need to move away from animal agriculture to a more sustainable diet.
And so we talk to a large audience about how they can be a part of that by eating more plant based food.
And we try to make that more accessible.
So we have a lot of wins because on a daily level, we're feeding people who need food and need more nourishing food.
And then on a larger scale, like you say, we're really trying to affect cultural change.
For many people, eating one plant based meal a day is a major thing.
Like they can't even imagine doing it.
For someone who's lived like this for so long, it seems minor.
But I have to be constantly aware that people may lack the privilege to have access to nourishing food.
They may have a culture where it's really not traditional.
They have also been indoctrinated by a hundred years of advertising and dis and misinformation.
So given all that, we have to come from a place of positivity.
This is hope.
This is where you can make a difference and your small action does matter.
No matter what your belief is, how strong your belief in it, how right you are, and often people who take on activism are right, fully right.
You know, it just does not work to be hostile, no matter how right you are.
You have to come from a place of open heartedness and positive and appreciation, collaboration.
Collaboration is the hundred percent name of what we do at Support and Feed.
It's part of our name.
Radical collaboration, you know, all boats rise, radical collaboration, meet you where you are.
They're all in there and it's just essential.
Matt Abrahams: So meet people where they're at, target your messages and understand that there are a lot of reasons why people do what they do and it might not be because they're bad people.
Maggie Baird: Yeah.
A hundred percent is probably not because they're bad people.
You gotta see where they're coming from.
How did they get where they are?
How can then you move them?
Matt Abrahams: This has been such a lovely conversation.
We've covered so many things.
I like to end these talks with three questions that I ask people.
One I make up and then the other two are standard across everybody.
Are you willing to answer some of these?
Maggie Baird: Sure.
Matt Abrahams: So the question I'd like to ask you that's specific for you is, what do you think the next career change is going to be?
You've had so many, is there something that you're really interested in that you think might be the next step?
Maggie Baird: Well, I feel like kind of at my age and with the situation in the world that addressing the climate crisis is at the fore of what I imagine the rest of my life being.
I don't see the fact that any of us can not be talking about it.
If you're not trying to address the climate crisis, then you're dropping the ball.
Matt Abrahams: Well, I look forward to that career unfolding.
Thank you.
Second question.
Who's a communicator that you admire and why?
Maggie Baird: I think for me, Marshall Rosenberg, that has been such a profound impact on my life and my family.
So it resonated so deeply and we discovered that kids were little and it really affected our parenting.
So I kind of have to go to Marshall Rosenberg as my biggest influence really.
Matt Abrahams: Final question.
I know you like to cook.
So what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?
Maggie Baird: Being interested, curiosity, listening for the support you can give to the conversation.
Matt Abrahams: Oh, okay.
I like that.
So it's almost like being empathetically open.
You're open and want to see where you go next.
What a lovely recipe.
I think that would turn out very nicely.
Maggie, it has been a true pleasure speaking with you.
Your insights on not just careers, but teaching and the value of improv, so helpful.
And I wish you well.
Maggie Baird: Oh, thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast from Stanford GSB.
To learn more about personal growth and career development, listen to episode 118 with Dorie Clark.
To learn more about improvisation, listen to episode 1 and 10.
This episode was produced by Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams.
Our music is from Floyd Wonder.
This episode was recorded at the Spotify Studios in Los Angeles, and we thank Travis Morningstar and Hayley Muse for their support.
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