Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Why what isn’t said can communicate more than what is spoken.

We often speak in hints and half-truths, not because we can’t be direct, but because subtlety protects our relationships. “An awful lot of the time, we don’t just blurt out what we mean,” says Steven Pinker. “We hint, we wink, we beat around the bush — counting on our listener to read between the lines, connect the dots, catch our drift.”
Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, a celebrated linguist and cognitive scientist, and the author of twelve influential books. His latest, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life, explores how our shared understanding of awareness — what Steven refers to as common knowledge — and the way we signal it, governs everything from friendships to authority to negotiations. “Common knowledge is what ratifies or annuls social relationships, and that's why blurting something out that contradicts the assumptions of the relationship can blow everything up and be deeply awkward.”
In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Pinker joins host Matt Abrahams to discuss why humans lean on innuendo, euphemism, and strategic ambiguity. They examine how culture and context shape what we hear, why our social fabric depends on more than just literal meaning, and offer practical ways to refine our communication by paying attention not just to what we say, but to what others know we know.

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

Episode Reference Links:

Connect:

Chapters:

  • (00:00) - Introduction
  • (01:51) - Why We Speak Indirectly
  • (06:07) - The Role of Context
  • (10:03) - Cross-Cultural Perspectives
  • (11:19) - Hypocrisy as Social Glue
  • (13:11) - Clarity, Conciseness, & Grace
  • (16:35) - Metaphors We Live By
  • (19:34) - The Final Three Questions
  • (23:30) - 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
Steven Pinker
Psychologist | Cognitive Scientist | Linguist | Author

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.

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Matt Abrahams: While many of us focus
on being direct, the reality is,

being indirect strategically helps us
accomplish much 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'm super excited to
spend time with Steven Pinker.

Steven is the Johnstone Professor
of Psychology at Harvard University.

He studies language, cognition,
and social relations.

He has received many
awards for his teaching.

He's written twelve insightful and
impactful books, and his latest is,

When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows:
Common Knowledge and the Mysteries

of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

Welcome, Steven.

I've been looking forward to this
conversation ever since we set it up.

Steven Pinker: Me too.

Thanks for having me.

Matt Abrahams: Excellent.

Shall we get started?

Steven Pinker: Let's start.

Matt Abrahams: Much of your work
looks at language and cognition.

You've distinguished between the what
and the what you mean by it of language.

What do you mean by this distinction
and how can we use this insight to

become more persuasive and effective
in the communication we have?

Steven Pinker: It's long been known by
anyone who studies language that an awful

lot of the time, we don't just blurt
out what we mean in so many words, but

we hint, we wink, we shilly-shally, we
beat around the bush, we use euphemism,

we use innuendo, counting on our
listener to read between the lines,

connect the dots, catch our drift.

And as someone who studies language,
this has always been a puzzle.

Why don't we just blurt out what we mean?

So just some obvious examples.

Politeness, if you could pass
the salt, that would be awesome.

Now that's an awful weird thing to say.

For one thing, it's certainly hyperbolic.

It wouldn't be awesome.

It might be nice, but also why
are you pondering hypotheticals?

We all understand what it means.

Give me the salt.

Why don't we just say, give me the salt.

In more emotionally hot
circumstances, there's uh,

certainly a lot of indirectness.

So imagine you're trying to bribe your
way into a restaurant by slipping a

fifty dollar bill to the maître d'.

You probably wouldn't say, if I give
you the fifty, will you less jump

the queue and seat us right away?

You might say like, I was wondering if
you might have a cancellation, or is

there any way you could shorten my wait?

Or sexual come ons is a, as we all know, a
big arena for indirectness and euphemism.

You wanna come up and see my etchings,
you wanna come up for coffee, you

wanna come up for Netflix and chill.

So in all these cases you might
say, oh, plausible deniability.

But, come on.

How plausible is it?

As if any grown woman could, could be
in any doubt as to what, do you wanna

come up for coffee, means late at night.

So why do we do it?

And the answer that I came up with
is that we avoid common knowledge.

Now my book is about common knowledge.

And common knowledge has a, a technical
meaning in linguistics, in philosophy,

in economics, in game theory, and
political science, and a lot of academia.

What it means is, I know
something, you know something.

I know that you know it,
you know that I know it.

I know that you know that I know
it, I know that you know that.

I know that you know that
I know it, ad infinitum.

Common knowledge is important because
it's necessary for coordination,

for being on the same page.

If you're the only one who knows
that you're supposed to drive on

the right and everyone else thinks
that you're supposed to drive on the

left, you better drive on the left.

It's not enough that you know it.

Even if you're right, according to the
law of the land, it doesn't matter.

What matters is what everyone
knows that everyone else knows.

Relationships are propped
up by common knowledge.

What makes us friends?

You know, it's not as if we
sign a contract, I know that

you consider us friends.

And what does that mean?

Well, it's 'cause you know that I consider
us friends and so on, or lovers, or a boss

and a subordinate, or an authority and
a person who recognizes their authority.

We're two transaction partners.

The relationship exists in our heads,
and it's a matter of common knowledge.

So direct speech, blurting something
out, generates common knowledge.

It's not a question of whether it's
deniable, it's a question of whether

you know that the other person
knows what you meant is deniable.

That is, is the common knowledge deniable.

And common knowledge is what ratifies
or annuls social relationships,

and that's why blurting something
out that contradicts assumptions

of the relationship can blow
everything up and be deeply awkward.

Whereas hinting innuendo, they know,
but they don't know you know they know.

And that allows you to maintain
the previous relationship.

So in the case of, say, a sexual
proposition, if Harry says, you

wanna come up for coffee, and Sally
says, no, she knows she's turned

down a sexual overture and he knows
she's turned down an overture.

But does she know that he knows she knows?

She could think, maybe he thinks
I'm naive, maybe he thinks I, that I

just turned down a coffee invitation.

And he doesn't know that
she knows that he knows.

He could think maybe she thinks I'm dense.

Maybe she thinks I just interpret
it as turning it down for coffee,

even though I know she really
turned down a sexual overture.

So without the common knowledge
they can maintain the fiction

of a purely platonic friendship.

Whereas if he said, do
you wanna come up for sex?

And she says, no, it's never the same.

They can try to go back
to a platonic friendship.

But once it was out there, once it's
common knowledge, that changes everything.

So when everyone knows something,
it's really different than when

everyone knows it and everyone
knows that everyone knows it.

Matt Abrahams: It seems to me that
the context also plays a role in

what we all know about each other.

So taking flirtation, which I
actually, in grad school, my

research was on flirtation, not only
because I wanted to get dates when

I was that age, but I was always
fascinated by strategic communication.

And I think flirtation is a
wonderful venue to study that.

If you go see a doctor and the
doctor says, how are you doing?

That has one meaning.

But if you're in a bar and
somebody says, how are you doing?

That has a very different meaning.

Context seems to add an extra level of
understanding of what you know and I know.

And so we have to be aware, not
just of what's being said, but the

context in which it's being said.

And clearly we can run into some
mismatches if I'm not paying attention

appropriately to the context.

So it sounds to me like we have the
ability to assess and judge these

circumstances and try our best
to fit within that optimal space.

How do we learn to do this?

I don't ever remember taking a class
on indirect, ambiguous communication.

How do we learn what's appropriate?

Steven Pinker: Kids often charm us
because they just blurt things out.

They haven't mastered this yet,
and it's, oh, grandpa just farted.

Or, how come you have hair
growing outta your nose?

They just, you know, sort of say
things, so you do have to master it.

Some of it is from feedback.

You say things that are, as you
get older and the other kids

stare at you, make fun of you.

Some of it is just an
extension of conversation.

We don't lay out every last step
in a logic of a conversation.

Conversation would be impossible.

There's so many missing links.

It would be like a legal contract
and a legal contract is written

so that it would be immune to an
adversary trying to exploit loopholes.

When we have conversation,
we start off cooperative.

That's what we mean by
to be on speaking terms.

When you have two adversaries,
there is no conversation.

Two coaches of two football teams
don't get together for a chat

before the game, so conversation
presupposes some degree of cooperation.

That's a basic law of linguistics.

When you're cooperative, you can leave
things out so that the conversation

doesn't take all day and you just
know that the other person will figure

out what you meant on the assumption
that you're both aiming at the same

thing, namely information coordination.

And so knowing how a listener will
connect the dots will fill in the blanks,

allows you to sometimes to be creative
in making one of these propositions.

And there are formulas like,
could you please pass the salt?

No one even thinks about what that means.

Literally, it's a idle question, not what
it really is, which is an imperative.

But still, that's the case where
it's formulaic, but sometimes there

is no formula and we think about
something that's a prerequisite to the

act, knowing that our hearer on the
assumption that we're not crazy, that

we're rational, that we really are
trying to get at something, they then

connect the dots and think, oh yeah,
of course he wants me to do something,

but he's too polite to boss me around.

So he's stating the precondition.

And we use our natural conversational
skill at filling in the missing premises

in order to convey the imperative.

The reason that we do this indirectness,
this musing, you know, do you

think you could please, et cetera,
is friends and, or just casual

acquaintances don't like to boss each
other around like they're servants.

It's not like, Jeeves,
bring me the butter.

You don't wanna treat a friend like
that, but still the butter's at their

end of the table and you want it.

How are you gonna get it
without bossing them around?

Matt Abrahams: So there's this
level of metacognition that's

required to pull this off.

Steven Pinker: There is in novel.

When they're novel cases.

A lot of these circumstances are
so familiar that we have formulas.

Do you think you could pass the salt?

Could you pass the salt?

Where you don't have to engage in the
metacognition, in that circumstance,

'cause it's so familiar cliche that the
English language gives you these formulas.

But when it's a one time thing then, or
a novel situation, and you're calibrating

it to the other person, a sexual come
on being a classic example, much more

is at stake than getting the salt.

Matt Abrahams: You mentioned in English,
and I'm curious about cross-culturally

if these things apply as well.

I'll share an experience I had, I
was teaching a student who was a

non-native speaker of English, and
he came into my class thrilled.

I mean, he was elated, super excited.

So I said, Hey, what's going on?

Why are you so excited?

And he looked at me and said, the
woman that I'm very interested in told

me that she just wants to be friends.

And I'm really excited about that.

And I had to rain on his parade because
let's just be friends, when he looked it

up, is exactly what he was looking for.

But we all know that was saying
something very different.

So have you found that these ideas
of what you know and other people

know and using the strategic
ambiguity crosses cultures as well?

Steven Pinker: Do all cultures
have some kinds of politeness?

Some kinds of indirectness?

The answer is yes.

Cultures can vary and often tourist,
travelers, businessmen have to get used

to the level of indirectness in a culture.

So Japan is famously indirect and
polite, and there are many layers

of honorifics and to the point where
sometimes people get frustrated that

you just never get down to business.

You exchange so many pleasantries.

Conversely, they're cultures like New
York or Israel where people are famously

blunt and people can easily get offended
'cause they don't realize that's just how

you exchange information in that culture.

But all cultures have some.

Matt Abrahams: What it becomes really
fascinating to me, is when you have people

from lots of different cultures come
together and they have conversation and

you see this play out in how some people
could be offended and others aren't.

So it sounds to me at the end of the day
that this indirect communication is, while

many of us say, Hey, just I want people to
be direct and honest with me, none of this

doublespeak or hypocrisy, this is actually
really necessary for us to function.

Would you agree with that?

Steven Pinker: Well, yeah.

In the last chapter of, uh, When
Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows,

it's about, it's called radical
honesty, rational hypocrisy.

We're all kind of hypocrites
about our hypocrisy.

That is, we say, this hypocrisy is
just such a waste of time, and it's

so annoying, people beating around
the bush, and roleplaying and rituals.

Why don't we just cut the
crap and say what we mean.

Wouldn't life be better?

The answer is no.

It would be awful.

A lot of our relationships really
depend on common assumptions that

are, at the end of the day, fictions.

They're not literally true.

One of them is that friends would
do anything for each other and

they value the other person's
welfare as much as their own.

They value the friendship.

There's no limit on how much
they value the friendship.

Of course that can't be true.

But if you were to say, okay, we've
been on the phone for twenty-five

minutes now, and twenty-five minutes
is about all I can really take of

talking to you and I, there are other
things that I'd really rather do now.

That is often true.

But saying your friendship is worth
only so much to me, but no more.

That kills the friendship.

It changes everything
if you actually say it.

Matt Abrahams: So this kind of
communication really does provide

the lubricant for these interactions
and allows them to keep going.

Steven Pinker: I wouldn't even say
lubricants so much as the basis.

That is, they, that's
what being friends means.

That's what being lovers means.

It means that you accept certain
things as the ground rules.

You know that the other person
accepts them, you know that they

know that you accept them, and that's
what makes relationships possible.

Matt Abrahams: In your book, The
Sense of Style, you argue that good

writing and communication is about
clarity, conciseness, and grace.

I understand conciseness, but
can you tell us a little bit more

about grace, and then clarity?

Steven Pinker: So what makes a
lot of academese, bureaucratize,

corporatize, what makes it so
frustrating to get through is often

what's called the curse of knowledge.

The curse of knowledge is a psychological
phenomenon in which, if you know

something, it's very hard to imagine
what it's like not to know it.

That is, it's false common knowledge.

You assume that your private
knowledge is common knowledge.

That's why in bad writing, the
writer doesn't spell out the

abbreviations, doesn't explain
the jargon, doesn't give examples,

doesn't allow for a concrete image.

It doesn't occur to them because it's
just so obvious, to them, and they don't

realize it's not obvious to anyone else.

So that's what goes into a lot of
clarity, is just the empathy of

what does the reader know and what
can they see in their mind's eye?

Sometimes clear writing
may be a kind of graceless.

It may be an instruction manual.

It could be a memo.

But when we try to persuade, to charm,
even to make our writing pleasurable

enough that other people will pay for
it, we wanna get a job as a columnist

or reviewer, we just want an audience,
the prose has to be compelling.

And there are many
things that go into that.

There's, first of all, just clarity.

If you've got a struggle to
figure out what the other person

means, then you're gonna give up,
and that makes prose graceless.

Imposing on the memory load of a reader.

If you've gotta hold too many words
from the beginning of the sentence in

mind before you get to the end of the
sentence and know what they're doing.

Or if it's not clear where the end of
one phrase is and the beginning of the

next one is, and the reader has to work
hard, and if they're trying too hard

to parse the syntax of the sentence,
instead of seeing through to the

meaning, that makes prose less graceful.

But also even the melody
and rhythm of speech.

In this case, there is no speech.

It's writing, but writing
is mentally always speech.

When you read someone's words,
you're always sounding it out to

yourself as if they're speaking.

And so just the sheer mellifluousness
of the sentence, as it would

be said aloud, goes into grace.

And one other thing is the
vividness of the mental picture

that the reader is supposed to get.

And one of the things that makes bad
writing bad is the reader doesn't

have any image, nothing to grasp.

Instead of someone describing a study
with kids and they talk about the

experimental stimuli instead of the
Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch puppets.

So being concrete, being visual,
being vivid, is an important

way for prose to be graceful.

The other component of grace is, and
I have a whole chapter in The Sense of

Style on this phenomenon of coherence.

That is, even if every sentence
in a passage is a hundred percent

comprehensible, the passage itself
may be baffling if you don't know

how one sentence leads into the next.

And that's why we use connector words
like however, nonetheless, on the other

hand, moreover, that is, for example,
in general, they seem like silly

little fillers, but they're really not.

They're the links, the glue that
make one sentence flow into the next.

And a lot of the feeling of coherence,
flow, indeed grace comes when

you just know why the writer is
saying what he's saying right now.

How does it fit into everything
that I've read so far?

Matt Abrahams: This idea of coherence
that helps people to really understand the

flow of the message, super important, and
I like that as a key component of grace.

You've discussed the concept
of metaphors in language.

What are these and what do they mean
for the way in which we communicate?

Steven Pinker: There are more
metaphors in language than we realize.

Often we're completely unaware of them.

We know this from a brilliant work
by the linguist George Lakoff and

the philosopher Mark Johnson in a
book called Metaphors We Live By, I

think it's forty-five years old now.

They noticed that some things that
we talk about, we keep harking back

to the same metaphorical image.

So a relationship is a journey.

We've gone through a lot together.

We're at a crossroads.

We might have to go our separate ways.

Look how far we've come,
or argument is war.

I tried to defend my position,
but he demolished it.

Knowing is seeing.

I see what you mean.

But that argument is cloudy or murky.

I can't make it out.

We don't even realize we do
it, but we do it all the time.

Matt Abrahams: I have a colleague,
Michele Gelfand, she likes to talk

about mind your metaphors because
in negotiation and influence and

conflict, those metaphors impact how
we approach it and the words we use.

So if I see a negotiation as a
battle versus a problem to be solved,

I approach it very differently.

Well, Steven, before we end, I'd
like to ask you three questions.

One I create just for you and
the rest I've asked everybody

who's ever been on the show.

Are you up for that?

Steven Pinker: Sure thing.

Matt Abrahams: You have written about
cursing, and it's fun to talk about, and

I'm curious, how does cursing, swearing,
how can we use it as an effective tool?

What value does it provide?

Steven Pinker: The thing that
swearing does is it elicits

involuntary emotional reaction.

Your primitive part of your brain,
maybe your amygdala just gets pinged,

usually with some, not just an
offensive thought, excretion, feces,

urine, cuckoldry, copulation, death,
misfortune, those are the subject

matter of swearing across languages.

But also there's common knowledge in the
sense that when someone uses a profane

word and they know that you're trying to
get an emotional reaction out of them.

That's why we avoid swear words
when we have no interest in

getting an emotional reaction.

When you go into the doctor's
office, the nurse might say, well,

we'd like to take a stool sample.

She wouldn't say, we'd
like to take a shit sample.

But shit does, it pings a
little part of our brain.

Now, there is a, a rule for
taboo language if used rarely and

judiciously it can express something
you can't express it any other way.

If you're angry, like, will
you pick up your dog shit?

It's not a very nice way of
putting it, but it's appropriate

to be anger at the moment.

Matt Abrahams: Understood.

That was a damn good answer.

Thank you.

There's some research that I've heard
when I talk and try to help people

feel more comfortable and confident
in their communication, manage their

anxiety, that swearing actually releases
some neurochemicals that can blunt the

cortisol that comes about from anxiety.

So it can actually make you feel a
little more confident or at least

a little less unconfident, just by
blurting out, not in front of public

obviously, but you might do it behind
the curtain before you get out on stage.

Let me ask you question number two.

Who is a communicator
that you admire and why?

Steven Pinker: Oh, geez.

On the public stage, Barack Obama
was a, has a deserved reputation as

a communicator, particularly for the
nonverbal component of trying to bring

the country together in moments of crisis.

Now, he didn't succeed with everyone
'cause there were factions that

still hated him, but just by
virtue of conspicuously making the

effort to bring people together, I
think that had a positive effect.

Among writers, I think George
Will has a way with words.

He's been around for quite some time.

Matt Abrahams: Obama certainly
is recognized as a, as an amazing

communicator, and I appreciate
you highlighting the ability

to bring people together.

Last question for you.

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

Steven Pinker: Well, certainly
empathy, not in the sense of

necessarily feeling someone's pain,
but getting inside their head.

Overcoming the curse of knowledge,
knowing what they don't know.

The simultaneous awareness of the message
to be communicated and the relationship

that you have with your hearer.

That's what all this euphemism
and indirectness and innuendo

is, is all about calibrating it.

Finding the optimal level of directness
or indirectness that's appropriate to the

context, the nature of your relationship,
the culture you're in, and the costs

and benefits of the message going over
your hearer's head or being so blatant

that they know what you're up to.

Matt Abrahams: So empathy, making
sure that you balance out, or

think through, the message and the
relationship you have, and trying to

balance among all of those factors in
terms of directness around context,

relationship, cost, benefit, and culture.

Steven Pinker: Yeah.

Optimal directness.

Yes.

Matt Abrahams: Optimal directness.

Thank you, Steven, for all
of the valuable insights.

Truly a masterclass in how to be
more effective in our communication,

and you've uncovered many insights
into our indirect communication.

Thank you, and I wish you well with
your newest book, When Everyone

Knows That Everyone Knows: Common
Knowledge and the Mysteries of

Money, Power, and Everyday Life.

Steven Pinker: Thanks for having me on.

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

Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast.

To learn more about language
and cognition, please listen to

episode 91 with Valerie Fridland
and episode 224 with Adam Aleksic.

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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