Talk About Talk - Communication Skills Training

Body language has a significant effect on our communication. Here’s a 3-point body language scan to help you optimize how you are perceived and how you feel. Perhaps you’re not sure what to do with your hands? Or perhaps you catch yourself slouching and your mind is wandering. Think: “3-Point Body Language Scan!” Suddenly, you’re engaged, credible, and enthusiastic.   Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com Communication Coaching Newsletter:  https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube Re-release of ep.96. The post #134 The 3-Point Body Language Scan appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Explore the power of the number three in communication and its significance in everyday life, religion, sports, and cognitive load. Discover how using the power of three can improve understanding, memory, and content creation. Make three your default.

Learn the tactical strategies to become a better listener, reasons why listening is difficult, and the impact of listening on relationships and job interviews. Discover the power of asking great questions, tracking the ratio of speaking and listening, and enhancing listening skills with three strategies.

Mindfulness can elevate our communication skills. Learn how to be mindful in specific communication contexts by pausing, communicating with intention, and acknowledging our inner critic. Anne Muhlethaler (yogi, meditation teacher, podcaster and luxury brand consultant) shares her experiences and valuable insights.   RESOURCES Anne Muhlethaler Out of the Clouds podcast, AVM Consulting LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-muhlethaler-a1323010/ Instagram: @annvi Recommendations: “Deep Work” by Cal Newport “Being Well” by Rick and Forrest Hanson “Design Matters” by Debbie Millman PRACTICING Our Communication Skills Episodes #73 “Practicing with V.R. Technology” with Robson Beaudry: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/73-practice-with-robson-beaudry/ #72 “What is Practice” with Dr. Nadine Kelly, YogiMD: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/72-practice-with-nadine-kelly/  Talk About Talk & Dr. Andrea Wojnicki Website – https://talkabouttalk.com Podcast – https://talkabouttalk.com/podcasts Email – Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com Free Weekly Newsletter – https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Book Andrea for a free 20min “communication skills training” consult Andrea on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki   INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Dr. Andrea Wojnicki: Thank you very much, and for joining us here today to talk about mindful communication. Anne Muhlethaler: I’m so excited to be here. AW: Let’s get into this. What is mindfulness? AM: Mindfulness is a term that’s over-used. And I feel like a lot of people are confused about it. So let’s break it down. Mindfulness essentially means maintaining a form of awareness, moment-by-moment, of our thoughts, our feelings, our physical sensations, and the surrounding environment. But the difference that it has with awareness, for example, is that mindfulness has a quality of kindness or nurturing lens, if you wish. One of the best definitions of mindfulness meditation was coined by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He is the founder of MBSR, which is called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program. And he comes from a big family of scientists, he was at MIT before he got introduced to mindfulness and meditation. So his definition always stands well against two people who, who need clarity on this… AW: like myself. AM: Yeah, but this is particularly to the meditation part. So he says, and every word is important in this. Mindfulness Meditation is the awareness that arises from paying attention on purpose in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. And I think that what most people do not understand is the on purpose part. You can be self-aware and not be self-aware on purpose. Of course, we’re assuming that you’re being self-aware in the moment. And the piece that I think took me a lot longer to learn is the non-judgmentally. And these four key parts really, altogether, sum up what mindfulness meditation is. Now, just to make it clear, for everybody who is listening to us, there are two sort of basic pillars of mindfulness if you wish, in terms of practices. There are the non-formal practices, and there are the formal practices. So formal practice is seated, standing, walking, or lying down meditation, all four types are equally as valid as the other. So for example, when I teach groups and I can see someone’s very fidgety, I encourage them not to be doing the meditation seated, but to stand,. And then the informal mindfulness practices is to cultivate this state of moment by moment awareness, but doing everyday tasks. My favorite teacher for this is Thích Nhất Hạnh, who’s a really famous Buddhist, virtual thinker, and activist, and he teaches you to pay attention to eating. So mindful eating, mindful walking, and he has really delightful examples of practicing mindfulness, when you’re washing the dishes, listen to the sound of the water, smell the smells in the kitchen, really tap into all of your senses. Feel the water on your hands. And you really, this is one of the ways that you can feel yourself being present rather than just necessarily being in your mind and your thoughts. AW: What I have two thoughts about that. So one is it it just sounds idyllic? Right? It’s almost like okay, how you feel? Yeah, I guess. Yeah, feeling the water. It just sounds like a sensual. And I don’t mean sexual. I mean, like, through the senses, you’re really, really aware of your sense of touch, and the temperature and the flow of the water, for example, as it comes out of the tap, and over your hands. The other thing is, you were listing some of those contexts for me was, I hear people talking about being aware of those contexts, when they’re diagnosed with a mortal illness, right? Like when they realize they’ve got a month to live, and then suddenly, they want to, and then they do feel the rain on their face when they go outside? AM: Yes, yes, absolutely. We are all I would say, in our natural state, reactive as human beings as animals, with our old limbic brain. And so mindfulness invites us not to live in the limbic brain, not to solely be in our minds in our thoughts. And yes, you’re right. One of the keys for me, the one thing that I keep on pulling out is that connection through the body and the senses, which I think is misunderstood in most types of meditations that are not transcendental per se. So I know that for me for my personal experience in the 40 or so years that I’ve spent on this planet, a large part of my life, I wasn’t particularly connected to my body. And our body is, first and foremost, the gateway to experiencing this life. AW: Yeah, I love that. That’s a great quote. AM: Thank you. Yeah, but it is through our senses. And it is largely through our bodies that we experience the world around us. Not solely, but it is the major source of this experience. My teacher calls this the body suit, the space suit that we use to get around. AW: Very cool, very cool. AM: So the body piece for me is very important. And you’re right, that is an element of we can really anchor ourselves in our senses to feel present, it is one of the easiest ways into the present moment. AW: Okay, so before we get into being mindful with our communication, can you share with us what the benefits are of mindfulness? AM: there’s the obvious stuff. So I also come from a family with a lot of scientists and doctors. And I love the studies that have been published in the past 20 or 30 years, because there’s a lot of them around less stress. So stress, decrease, better sleep, low anxiety levels, and more serious diseases. Obviously, chronic back pain, chronic pain, in general, is something that can be really very much decreased through the mbsr program, amongst others. I heard that surpasses IBS. So in terms of the overall health benefits, they are numerous, they are incredibly well researched, and I think it still feels to me like it’s early days in terms of in terms of the research, because each type of practice offers, I guess, a different types of benefits. So I mentioned the broader definitions of mindfulness. But I should say that the pillars in terms of the formal practices of meditation, so the four pillars are mindfulness of breath, mindfulness of body, mindfulness of thoughts and emotions, and then what’s called Mindfulness of the constructs of the mind. And so these are the types of meditations that I teach in various class formats, that all feed into each other so that we become more intimate and more aware with the sensations in and around our body. With the breath, the breath is key. And it took me years to figure that out. And then the content of our thoughts and emotions, and the stories that are constructed in our minds around those. AW: Okay, so the fourth pillar that you mentioned there, the constructs of the mind, that’s really stories? AM: yes. AW: Okay, now you’re speaking my language. But back to the first pillar, I keep hearing over and over and over again, in all sorts of contexts, of course, in terms of our health and kind of medical benefits, but just in terms of communication, breathing really is king. If you’re not leveraging breathing, for example, you’re getting up on stage, just thinking first about your breath. You know, it has such a huge impact on how you feel, and then also on how you’re perceived. AM: Well, I’d reverse that actually, it’s almost like, if you check what your breath is like, it will tell you about your state. So I would like to encourage everyone and I’m reminding myself of that, too, that the breath is the language of the nervous system. If you can’t inhale, if you have trouble exhaling if you feel that your breath pattern is not normal, it’s a sign of disruption. And one of the great reasons to adopt mindfulness practices is essentially Well, this is I’m going to tell you a story from my teacher, Annie Carpenter, who’s an amazing yoga teacher. She’s an avid birdwatcher, like she’s obsessed with birds. And there’s a very similar practice in bird watching and watching our breath. She was saying that she was taught by this very, let’s say seasoned Birdman. And we call them who said, who said, what you want to do is you want to find a spot and you want to come at the same time every day. It doesn’t matter whether you watch five minutes or 20 minutes or an hour. The idea is you want to establish an understanding of the baseline. What is the normal state and in coming back over and over again, you’ll then pick up if something has happened, you know, if if a bird of prey has arrived or any other disruption in the natural environment, and I think that one of the reasons why It is so helpful and so fascinating, even if you only manage for five minutes a day, is when you get a sense of the baseline, you’re going to get a better sense of when you’re not feeling okay. And then the next step is the inquiry about what’s not okay about the situation. Right? That’s the beauty. And the real juicy part about mindfulness is we don’t, I love this quote, We don’t meditate to become good at breathing or good at meditating. we meditate to get better at life. AW: Oh, that’s beautiful. I love that. AM: Isn’t it good? I mean, when the first time I heard it, I was like, Oh, yeah, of course, we knew that. But that is just eloquent. It’s perfect. I may have butchered the quote, but yeah, you get the, you get the benefit of it, AW: I definitely get the benefit of it. Okay. So in your Out of the Clouds podcast, you say that your topic is at the crossroads between mindfulness and business. So my question is, how can the listeners adopt this mindfulness in their business or at work? AM: So I was reflecting the other day, because I was graduating from this two year course, our teacher invited us at the end to say, if you had only one last opportunity to teach, if you were to teach only one more time, what would you talk about? AW: Wow. AM: I know, I was not ready for that. And I think that’s what I would say, it’s the same about business or about life. First, I would cultivate loving kindness or self-kindness, which is one of the compassion practices that you get taught alongside mindfulness of the body. Because first, we need to be kind to ourselves, it’s not just enough to be aware of the content of our thoughts, it’s also important for us to be kind to ourselves, a lot of us most of us have difficult inner dialogue, particularly around work around performance. AW: And this is amplified in an environment where hard work and busy-ness is celebrated, right? AM: 100%. Yeah. So the first piece that I would say is incredibly important for everyone is to first to look after your inner dialogue, self-kindness, and self-compassion. It’s almost like this principle of we need to put our oxygen mask on first, right? You cannot look after others well, if you’re not looking after yourself first. And so for me, I think it’s the most essential. Now more specifically, when we are at work, the biggest thing is to learn to pause. So when we establish a baseline, and we notice some things going wrong, we need to pause we need to stop. One of the difficulties is that the more stressed we are, the more reactive we become. And so essentially, the biggest gift we can give ourselves is when we find ourselves to be reactive, when we find ourselves not being our best selves, or showing up in our best light is to take a break, go to the loo, sorry, go to the toilet. Anything that you can do to just remove yourself and just take a breath. AW: Right, right. AM: I think that one of the biggest things that we can learn to do is to step away, when you find yourself in reactive mode, when you see that there’s a big trigger, that’s happened, give yourself from five minutes to 24 hours until you choose to respond. So you need to be able to brush it off. Before you can engage. AW: Yeah, absolutely. These stress triggers, if that’s what you want to call them, are not just affecting our mind, they’re affecting our whole body. AM: Yes. AW: And then that impacts what we end up communicating and sending back out in the world. And we don’t want to be on autopilot when that happens. AM: Absolutely. So I would say the third piece of advice I would have to say for business or work, it’s remembering our intention. Sometimes we can be a bit petty, or we do something we don’t even know why maybe it’s actually because we’re hungry or thirsty or tired. And it has nothing to do with the person in front of us. So I would encourage everyone to actually write this like write intention on a poster and stick that in the center of your computer screen, or put it on the mirror in your bathroom. And a few times a day, remember your actual intention before you send an email before you have a conversation. Because I think most of the time again, because we are used to being in a place of reactivity, we forget what is the underlying intention of What it is that we’re doing? To be honest with you, I have to practice this every day, several times a day to make it feel like it’s taking a dent in my reactivity. And I’m pretty chilled compared to most people. AW: Yeah. Wow. So my brain is exploding right now. AM: Well, let’s take a pause. AW: I haven’t used the term intention. But I have been talking about this. and dare I say, preaching this in a variety of communication contexts. So for example, small talk, maybe you’re at a networking conference, and you’re meeting people for the first time and you’re feeling awkward. One of the tactics that I encourage people to do is to take a step back, think strategically about what your purpose is. In other words, as you would say, what’s your intention here? AM: Andrea, you’re encouraging them to be mindful! AW: Exactly. AM: Taking a step back is a metaphor for pausing. AW: Right. And more recently, I’ve been coaching people on how to prepare to be more productive in meetings, whether you’re leading or participating, a meeting, and whether it’s in real life or in a boardroom table, or whether it’s online. And one of the things that I encourage people to do is at the top of your meeting agenda, write down what your personal objective is for the meeting. In other words, put your intention for participating in this meeting. Right? AM: Absolutely. Hmm. That’s exactly what it is. AW: So we’ve got kindness, we’ve got pausing. And we’ve got focusing on intention. Do you have any other frameworks or other ways that we can just remind ourselves to be more mindful? AM: Yeah, of course. So these are again, considered more informal sides of mindfulness. So intention would be a first. But the second one, there’s a great acronym that really spells it out, when you find yourself to be in that place where something’s wrong, the acronym is STOP. So S is for stop and put things down for a minute. Whether you take a break, leave the room, go to your balcony, if that’s where I can do my home, or you go around the block, just put things down and step away. AW: Okay. AM: Then T stands for Take a few deep breaths, as I was saying before, the breath is the language of the nervous system. So taking what is often called square breath, four counts in four counts out is a great way to calm yourself, if you can take a few deep cycles of breath. For people who aren’t particularly anxious, like really, you’re triggered by something bigger, I can even recommend, the goal is to make the out breath slower. So let’s say that you breathe in for two or three or four, you breathe out for six, seven or eight, a period of time. The O stands for observe, this is the inquiry moment, observe, what are the thoughts that are going through your mind? What are the emotions and what is going on through your body? AW: So it’s internal observation. AM: Exactly. AW: Okay. AM: And then hoping that by then you have found some levels of steadiness. P stands for precede, so you get back to the person in front of you. This is not a tactic to deal with trauma, this is more of a day to day framework. There’s another one, which is even more simple. And you can try to put this in your calendar so you can practice it every day. It’s called “2 feet 1 breath.” And essentially, it does the same job of anchoring us into the present moment. So if you want to close your eyes and try it with me, AW: sure! AM: So I’m going to ask you first to feel into your left foot and start pressing into the floor, pressing into the floor and maybe wiggle your toes and feel your foot around, whatever is covering it. And now I’m going to ask you to feel into the right foot, maybe you wiggle it around, and then you push down and get a sense of the steadiness under the surface. And really set then take a deep breath in. And a deep breath out. It’s a grounding practice to just make us feel more in the present moment. How did that feel? AW: I feel so chill now. I really do. AM: I’m wearing really comfy socks. So that was a nice experience for me too. AW: I’m gonna go put on some more comfy socks after this. Wow. Yeah, so. Wow. So let’s talk about mindfulness in other communication contexts. So for example, if you’re in a meeting, something that may be relevant for a lot of listeners say you’re in a really boring zoom meeting and you know that you got to pay attention. Do you have any ideas or recommendations for how people can successfully become more mindful, or I guess, reap the benefits of becoming more mindful in this boring online meeting context? AM: Sure, essentially, I would recommend to try and give your whole attention to the person who’s speaking. And what I mean by that is, try to cultivate this state of presence, without judging, without commentary. And without engaging in what possible response you’re going to bring. But really try to simply take in what the other person is saying. AW: So as you were describing that, I was thinking of the word absorbing, so you’re really absorbing the verbal communication and the nonverbal communication? And really, that’s listening. Right? AM: Oh, absolutely. AW: It’s harder than we give it credit for. I mean, listening is, I call it a superpower, it is probably the superpower of communication. Before we move on to something else, I just want to go back to this word, non-judgmental, you said before. It’s one of the hardest things and as you’re describing it now, for me, I’m realizing that’s got to be one of the most challenging parts of being mindful. Do you have any advice on how we can be less judgmental? AM: Yeah. And starting to have a practice of mindfulness of thought and emotions, you first need to become a little bit more intimate with the content of your own thoughts. Well, a lot of us don’t want to do it, because it’s a bit scary in there sometimes. And I think it’s important to be aware, because you’ll end up being able to group thoughts together, you’ll be like, Oh, yeah, that’s planning mind. Or, oh, that’s judgment, judgment mind. And you’ll see that there are some areas and all thoughts come back. I think it’s important to be aware of your internal critic, your inner critic, in order to be able to not as the silence said, but I think the best advice I’ve heard, the important thing about the inner critic is to recognize that generally, it’s there to point out something. So maybe it’s afraid that you’re going to fail, or it’s the voice of different things that could be in your life on your past. And I think that one of the ways to stop being judgmental, is to stay say to yourself, thank you, I hear you, I don’t feel this business you helpful right now. But thank you for pointing this out to me. AW: So one way to think about it is that you don’t want to judge the judger AM: Exactly. And more to the point, you don’t want to resist, because we’ve all heard it, what resists persists. And so the more you yell at it, the less likely it is to go away. It could also just be your thought, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but not all of our thoughts are worthwhile. And some of them are fake news. Some of them are just thoughts. So you want to be aware of the content and decide for yourself, whether it’s just a passing thought, or whether it’s got energy to it. And then going towards that negative energy, instead of resisting it, looking at it and acknowledging it almost as if it was a part of your brain, like, you know, scared on or anxious on is rearing up her head because she wants to protect me from failure. So in order to do that, she’s going to try and keep me from doing certain things because they’re scary, or they’re exposing or they’re vulnerable. And so in a lot of the things that we do that are not the norm, where we extend ourselves, when we want to change things, our inner critic is going to be very vocal, because essentially back a few millennia, or before that change meant potential death. So I think it’s a, you know, it’s an ancient mechanism to keep us safe. And keeping us safe often keeps us small. So that’s one of the reasons why examining the content of our thoughts and becoming friendly with our inner critic is such an important and worthwhile experiment. AW: I am so glad that I asked you that question. That helps me immensely. So I’d love to shift gears just for a minute before we get to the five rapid fire questions. And I just wanted to point out to the listeners, in case it’s not obvious to them just from listening to you, that you are a Modern Renaissance woman. And I mentioned this to you when we were offline. But you’ve got your meditation and your mindfulness practice, your yoga, your singing, your digital marketing, and you also have a career in luxury branding, which to me is just so fascinating. And I’m wondering, is there a link between luxury brands and mindfulness? AM: I think there is. The brand that I worked out for 17 years is Christian Louboutin, the, you know, red soled king of shoes. AW: Yeah. AM: I think that Christian was always, for me an example of intentionality, at least, towards what he wanted for his company, his teams, his interactions with people, his interactions with his fans, the consistency with which he talked about everything that touched his work, there was always an incredibly clear intention around everything. He always wanted women’s legs to look amazing. So if you ever come to him and complain that you’re not comfortable in his shoes, I think he’ll sleep well at night saying yes, but I made I made your legs look great. So there was a great sense of integrity, about his purpose, I would say there’s a more recognizable sense of purpose and integrity with a number of the luxury brands that I worked closely with, I discovered, not the luxury brands that universally know or see in a big mall. But I worked with a lot of beautiful, amazing small businesses that really work at the top of luxury, but are not necessarily very well known. And these also have a very strong sense of what they stand for. And I think that I see this as a form of mindfulness, if you can remember to treat your clients and your vendors and your staff the same way. AW: I didn’t think that this is where this this question was going to go. But I have to say, I’m thrilled because lately I’ve been obsessing on the topic of personal branding, when you were describing the Christian Louboutin, his vision for his firm, as you said, not the brand, but his firm, and the consistency and clarity through which he communicated the integrity of his intentions, right with all of his stakeholders, so that it was recognizable. This is branding, right? This is personal branding. And then these tokens, i.e. the shoes that he’s creating, in manufacturing, become part of other people’s personal brand, and they signal the integrity and the quality. AM: Absolutely. He was obsessive about it. AW: Wow, that is so cool. What an incredible experience. It sounds like you had working for him. But I have to say, I bet you’re not everybody who was in your shoes, would have been self-aware enough to understand and to perceive that his personal brand was permeating your values. I mean, that’s that’s a pretty heavy layer of self-awareness, I think. AM: Well, that’s very, very good point you’re making. So here’s the thing, I was exposed to him a lot. But also I was his PR for many years. That means I was with him in interviews. And sometimes it was a week of interviews in you know, Dubai, or in Tokyo and Hong Kong, then Shanghai. So, but I want to just add one more story that I think is a huge link to mindfulness for me. Years ago, I had this theory that Christian had a stronger inner voice than other people. I said this out loud to people. And as it turns out, I realized it’s not that he had a stronger inner voice. He just listened to it more. And I think this is something that we can all benefit from being mindful of your own body’s reactions, when you’re not sure about a choice that you want to make. Reading the signals when our minds are clouded. Oftentimes, our bodies can give us a clue as to whether to make left or right or say yes or no. AW: Yeah, they say the body doesn’t lie. AM: Yes, absolutely true. AW: Okay, let’s move on to the five rapid fire questions. Are you ready? AM: Yes. AW: First question. What are your pet peeves? AM: I don’t like mess. I like a really clean, harmonious, balanced environment. And it’s really funny because if when I was younger, I figured that if I would ever get a tattoo, it would be the word harmony. At the time. It’s because I was a singer and I love harmonies, vocal harmonies. Turns out I actually just like harmonies as a whole and I hate a messy environment. AW: Oh, that may answer the second question, which is, what type of learner are you? Visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or some other kind of learner? AM: I think of a mix because I want to say that I’m a really big auditory learner. I feel like I retain information so well through sound. But I need my environment to be clean as much as you know clean as possible to be neat or it’s not a freak or an obsessive thing at all. It’s more that it’s like a disturbance at the back of my nervous system. And I won’t retain as much if I don’t feel like the environment is relatively balanced. Does that make sense? AW: That makes a lot of sense. And I think I’m with you on that. Question number three, introvert or extrovert? AM: Haha. “Social introvert.” That confuses a lot of people. AW: Okay, question number four: communication preference for personal conversations? AM: I text – which when you’re in Europe means WhatsApp, mostly WhatsApp and Instagram messaging. One of the things I discovered I really like about texting, particularly around trickier relationships are people that you don’t know what to say to you, or they offer this opportunity to pause naturally. AW: Oh, that’s true. AM: It’s a mechanism that really works for me. AW: Okay. Last question. Is there a podcast, a blog or an email newsletter that you find yourself recommending the most lately? AM: Lately, I’ve been talking quite a lot about “Deep Work,” the podcast by Cal Newport, who also had a book called Deep Work. Another one I really, really like is the “Being Well” podcast by Rick and Forrest Hanson. So Rick Hansen is actually a PhD in neurophysiology, if I’m correct. And he was one of the teachers who guest teachers in my course. And he came to talk to us about neuroplasticity. And I’m a geek, I loved it. The last one is, it’s always good, but she’s also just like the best interviewer ever. It’s Debbie Millman. “Design Matters” by Debbie Millman. I just I think she’s amazing. AW: Okay, well, I will put links to all of those in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time and all of your insights. And I can tell you, I’m really inspired to be more mindful and to approach so many aspects of my life including communication but beyond that with intention. Thank you so much, Anne. AM: Thank you, it was such a pleasure to talk to you, as always.   THANKS for READING – and Talk soon!   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/ Web:         https://talkabouttalk.com/ Email: Andrea@TalkAboutTalk.com         ***When referencing resources and products, TalkAboutTalk sometimes uses affiliate links. These links don’t impose any extra cost on you, and they help support the free content provided by Talk About Talk.   The post #74 MINDFULNESS Practicing our Communication Skills with Anne Muhlethaler appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Communicating with confidence: there’s the mental preparation, then there’s confidence in the moment. In this first of a two-part series, we focus on the 4P’s of mentally preparing to communicate with confidence: Practice, as in rehearsing; Proverb, as in adopting a mantra; Pep talk; and Pirate, as in copying that confident feeling.   Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com Communication Coaching Newsletter:  https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube Re-release of ep.58. The post #131 Mentally Preparing to Communicate with Confidence appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Andrea answers nine communication skills questions from Talk About Talk listeners, including how to deal with negative people, how to network when you’re working from home, gender differences in communication, and more.   Resources: “Smart Brevity” book by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen & Roy Schwartz “Your Brain at Work” by Dr. David Rock (S.C.A.R.F. model) Ep.39 “Dealing with Negative People” with Tamara Finlay    Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com Communication Coaching Newsletter:  https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube   The post #130: Communication Skills Q&A with Dr. Andrea Wojnicki appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Power is everyone’s business. In this episode, Andrea interviews Professor Tiziana Casciaro, author of POWER FOR ALL. Learn 3 fallacies or misconceptions we commonly believe about power, how we perceive power, and how we communicate or signal power.   RESOURCES Power For All Book: Audible Paperback Tiziana’s Top 3 Podcasts: The Ezra Klein Show Science Vs  Ground Up Governance Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com Communication Coaching Newsletter:  https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube   TRANSCRIPT Power.  What do you think of when you hear the word POWER? If you’re like most people, the word power may be a slightly dirty word. Like networking or sales. Power? Power for all? What the heck does that mean? Welcome to TAT episode #129, Power for All.  I hope you have an open mind. Because after you’ve listened to this episode, you’re going to have a different idea about what power can and should be. First, let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki and I’m YOUR executive communication coach. Please call me Andrea!  I’m the founder of Talk About Talk, where I coach communication skills to ambitious executives to help them elevate their communication, their confidence and their clarity, so they’ll get noticed for the right reasons and ultimately get promoted!  That’s my goal here.  I want to help you accelerate your career trajectory. If you go to the Talk About Talk.com website, you’ll find many resources to help you out. There’s information there about one-on-one and group coaching, online courses, corporate workshops, the archive of this bi-weekly podcast, AND, I really hope you’ll sign up for the Talk About Talk newsletter. That newsletter is your chance to get communication coaching from me every week. I choose a communication topic and coach you on 3 things related to that topic. Alright – Because you listen to this podcast, I’m going to guess you have a growth mindset and you read a lot.  Or at least you try to. Recently when I was browsing in Audible, I came across this book. Power for All That was written by one of my favorite colleagues at the University of Toronto, professor Tiziana Casciaro. Of course, I downloaded and devoured it right away. After I finished the first few chapters, I decided to e-mail Tiziana and ask her if I could interview her for this episode.  I love this book! Lately my strategy for consuming books has been listening to them. I listen when I’m getting ready in the morning. I listen when I’m outside going for walks or gardening, and I listen when I’m in my car. So I manage to get through a lot of books. And when I really like one – like this – one power for all, I usually go to the bookstore and also buy a hard copy of the book. Then it’s easier for me to reference back to it. And of course, I’m happy to support my favorite authors. Anyway, I’m really excited to have reconnected with Tiziana and to share our conversation with you.  Whether or not you decide to buy and read the book, you will learn a lot from this episode. Let’s get into this. I’m going to start by introducing Tiziana right now, and then get into the interview. Please stay tuned to the end, because I’m going to summarize with my top three favorite insights from this interview. Always – the power of 3, right? Let me tell you a little bit about Tiziana. Our careers have crossed paths twice before. Years ago, Tiziana was on the faculty at Harvard Business School when I was a doctoral student there. And then we both served on the faculty at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management, where she’s now a Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Marcel Desautels in Integrative Thinking. Tiziana is originally from Italy, as you will hear from her beautiful accent. She received her B.A. in Business Administration from Bocconi University in Milan, Then her M.S. and Ph.D. in Organization Science and Sociology from Carnegie Mellon.  Her research on organizational networks, professional networking, power dynamics, and change leadership has appeared in top academic journals in management, psychology, and sociology, and has received distinguished scientific achievement awards from the Academy of Management.  (Yep, she’s a smart one.  And her research is making an impact.) Thinkers50 recognized Tiziana as one of the 30 thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led. She regularly publishes in the HBR, and her work has been featured in the Economist, the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fortune and TIME magazine.  In this episode,. , you’re going to hear our conversation about the book she co-authored with Julie Battilana, who serves on the faculty at Harvard Business School. The book is called Power, for All: And the subtitle is “How It Really Works and Why It’s Everyone’s Business”.  Like I said, this award-winning book is going to change how you think about Power.    INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT Thank you so much, Tizana, for joining us here at Talk about Talk to talk about your book, Power for All. Tiziana: Thank you for having me, Andrea. Andrea: I’m so excited for this conversation. Tiziana, I want to start with a definition because different people have different things in mind when they think about power. So can you define power for us? Tiziana: Absolutely. And you’re right that the definitions are bound and we have to pick one that helps us the most. And my wonderful co-author, Julie and I picked the following Power is the ability to influence the behavior of others. So influence is kind of embedded in the definition of power. And what makes it comprehensive. That definition is that influence can take multiple forms, some benign like persuasion where influence you by depicting a future, a possibility, a goal, a scenario that is attracted to you and you want to kind of hop on and influence you because you want to be there. And influence can also be a little bit more malign in the form of coercion where influence you a change your behavior by force because make you and all of that is belongs under the umbrella of power. Andrea: Okay, So you brought up influence, which was going to be one of my next questions because I want to compare Power to some other terms that we throw around when we’re talking about similar things. So. Is it necessary if there is power to have asymmetry? Tiziana: Not necessarily, no, because power is relational by construction, meaning don’t have power in the absolute. I have power relative to someone in a specific context. So this is really a very social definition of power. So if you think about where does this ability to influence others come from? Where does power come from? It comes from my having something you want or need, and you needed me to get it. Such that it’s not easy for you to get access to that thing you want from someone other than me. In that sense, I control your access to something you want and I can influence you because you depend on me to get that desired thing. Got it. So in that sense, that’s right. In a sense, power can go both ways, such that I may have something you want and it’s hard for you to get it elsewhere. So you depend on me, so that’s okay. But we’re not done in understanding our power relationship because you could also have something I want and also may find it hard to get it from people other than you. And therefore, in that sense, we have a mutual level of power on each other. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that I lose power if if you gain some, we could both be increased in our mutual dependence. Andrea: Got it. Okay. So it is. It depends on the person and then or the at least dyad, if not more. Right. And also on the context. Absolutely. Okay. So. How does it differ from leadership or how does leadership play into this? Tiziana: So you can you can see that leadership is an exercise in influence because, you know, again, you can define leadership in a million different ways. Sometimes you have the very straightforward definition. It’s basically the act of leading a group of people. Which is almost tautological. Leadership is leading, but the idea is you conduct people in a certain direction and intrinsic to that leadership is influence because you cannot direct them. You cannot conduct them anywhere if they are not changing their behavior in response to your leadership. So without influence, there is no such thing as leadership. Power is essential to any leadership endeavor. Andrea: Got it. You will be quoted on that, too. I can guarantee it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So as I was sharing with you, talk about talk, we talk a lot about the power of three. And when I was reading your book first listening to it, then reading it, I was thrilled to see that you’ve identified three fallacies of power, which I think really help define further, define what power is. So can you take the listeners through the three fallacies of power? Tiziana: Absolutely. That the number three is a magical you know, it has a way of working all the time and it allows us to kind of zero in on something that we can’t remember. So the first of the fallacies of power. Is that it is a pretty much absolute, like we said before, that it resides in the person. That is something that you have. You, Andrea, are powerful. In the accident. And that is never, ever, ever, ever True power is always relative to the person in front of you, the group in front of you, the multiple people that you are trying to influence so may have power over you in this moment. But the circumstances change and all of a sudden don’t. And we observe this all the time, except that we tend to personalize power. We tend to attribute it to people as a as a set of characteristics or traits or backgrounds that allow somebody to be particularly influential in a given context. But it’s always context driven. So we have to kind of disentangle ourselves from this notion that we are to attribute a lot of power to certain people and not to others, because that changes over time as the circumstances change. Andrea: So it’s so power is not permanent. And I’m thinking in my head about when people say, oh, he or she is so powerful. It’s like, you know, in that statement, it sounds as if they believe that it is, as you said, a trait when in fact it’s not a trait and it’s not permanent. It’s just context dependent. Tiziana: That’s right. And of course, you know, there is something to be said about certain characteristics and things a person can offer being relevant in multiple contexts. Right. That make you relevant and therefore powerful in multiple contexts. So the infamous notion of charisma. Yeah, that is as nebulous as it sounds, really is a representation of certain things you do say moves. You make feelings that you elicit in others. They make you attractive to them in their in their particular set of circumstances. And that could potentially translate if you have a certain intelligent, piercing intellect or sense of humor or capacity to understand the future and help people understand a big picture. Those are those could be things that are relevant to multiple circumstances that lead people to think, oh my God, Andrea, such charisma. And all of a sudden we attribute this kind of permanence of power to your person when in fact, you know, it is always circumstantial and changeable. And that’s important to understand because it frees us to reshape that power relationship when it’s not working for us. If we believe that it’s a trait that is going to be with you no matter what, I’m going to be intimidated and and discouraged from trying to mess around with your power. But if I go like, well, you know, it’s right now, it’s in this moment. The Andrea is so cool and everybody follows her. But we can change that. We can change it. Don’t mean to do that to you, by the way. I’m really happy. Go on, Go on. Powerful. Very happy. Very happy. But, um, it. It makes us a little bit more agentic. In acting on a situation because we’re not prisoners of this notion that you are just it and nothing’s going to change it. Andrea: I can imagine that being very. I was going to say powerful. So I won’t say that that would be very, I guess, important to consider. For example, if you’re in a negotiation and you have this idea, this preconceived idea that that your person that you’re negotiating with is powerful. Right. Maybe there’s a context that you can change. Okay. Tiziana: That’s right. You can certainly open up different possibilities in finding territory that you can work within with that person without being captive of this aura. And that leads me to the second fallacy that we see all the time, people assuming that power and authority are one and the same. So you are in an organizational context would be a company, could be a public institution, could be whatever. And there are the CEOs. There are the presidents, there are the senators, there are the VIPs. And because of their rank in the formal hierarchy, we attribute lots of power to them. It’s not completely off because, of course, they have some power. By definition, if you are in a certain positional role, you may have decision making power and control over resources as a subordinate. Need and want. If you’re my manager, you control my performance evaluation. That in turn controls my compensation, my promotion ability, my ability to land in a team that I really want to work with. So you do control valued resources that are really, really would like to have access to. In a sense, you do have power, but the things that people value are much more varied than that, such that we encounter all the time situations where you have this executive with potentially even a good strategy, a strategy that makes sense. It’s good on paper, but they can’t execute it and they can’t execute it because the strategy doesn’t speak to what the people they’re supposed to implement it really want. And so they push back and so they resist because you haven’t figured out what thereafter and you’re not offering it to them through this vision of yours. And you lose them along the way. So you, you, your ability to influence them wanes, basically. So this notion that power and formal authority are one and the same needs to also be thrown to the side because it captures only part of the action, there’s much more that can lead you to gain power than just formal rank. Andrea: Yeah, we’ll get into the power mapping in a minute, but you’re reminding me of some examples in my past work history where we were focused on instituting some organizational change and we were purposefully seeking the opinion leaders, right? These are the opinion leaders who have the power. And I know I remember also in your book you have the example of the maintenance workers in a manufacturing plant. They really have all the power, right? Tiziana: Yeah, absolutely. They control the one thing that everybody needs, which is a working machine. Exactly. You know, if can produce anything and you’re paying me based on production and these machine maintenance folks don’t tell me how to fix the machine, they hoard that knowledge so that we all depend on them. And it’s simple as that, right? Andrea: So we’ve got power is permanent. No, it’s not. Power is a function of authority and formal status or rank in a hierarchy. No, it’s not. What’s the third fallacy? Tiziana: The third fallacy is that power is dirty. Power is dirty business. That is predicated on coercion, manipulation, meanness, cunning, all the bad stuff, just like authority. It’s not the case that power is never dirty. It can be right. It often is. And it’s and it’s the the version of power that we pay more attention to because human beings have to be especially attuned to the negative because the negative can kill us. So evolutionarily we respond to negative instances of power use more than the positive. So we had the Lia Grimanis who changes the world for better by helping these homeless women. We don’t even remember that. But we remember all the house of Cards type people that use manipulation, right? To get ahead to achieve their goals. And they step on everybody’s bodies and they don’t care. Yeah. So this is all true. But again, it misses some of the important facets of power that really would would allow us to have the impact that we want because power is nothing but energy. It’s the energy to affect the world around you. And like any form of energy, it can be used for constructing purposes or destructive ones. A hammer is a hammer. I can use it to put a nice picture on the wall in my office. I can use it to smash somebody’s head. Tiziana: I can use it in all kinds of different ways. It’s still a hammer. So much of the decision when we when we deal with power is not only how we how we’re going to get it, which is very important, but what you can do nothing. You’re paralyzed without it. But once you have acquired it, how are you going to use it? Toward what? And that is more the moral ethical dimension of it. But if you let yourself be caught in this notion that power is devious. And if you engage with it, you’re going to get dirty in the process. You’re going to be dragged down into the mud. Then you’re never going to get to. Really. Make it part of your life and you’re going to lack the essential energy that we all need to accomplish anything. Anything. You want to be promoted. You need power. You want to change this process in your organization that you think makes no sense. You need power. You want to make your neighborhood a little bit more welcoming and safer. You need power. Everything we want to do requires it. So we better learn to take the good and create guardrails so that we don’t fall in the bad quite as easily as one can when it comes to power. Andrea: Oh, wow. Tiziana, I’m recalling now the first time I told you I listened to the book and then I read the book the first time I was listening to it. I think it was when you described this third fallacy that I was like, I absolutely need to interview Tiziana about this book because I experienced the same thing with my clients with reference to several other terms. In fact, you know, even marketing just starting at a high level, right? People say that say sometimes marketing is manipulative. Manipulative. Well, no, it can be, but it’s not inherently so. Same thing with networking, which I know is very near and dear to your heart and the research that you do. A lot of people feel icky about networking, but networking itself is. I guess, benign. It’s an opportunity, right? And it can be done in ways that that create good or maybe, maybe not. But it’s not networking itself that is negative. And it applies even to personal branding, right? So some some of my clients, they’re like, oh, that feels so manipulative. And I’m like, Well, if you’re telling lies about yourself, maybe. But if you’re creating a narrative that’s already true, that inspires you and communicates to others the truth about yourself, how is that a negative thing? Right? So. Oh, so this I love this third fallacy the most. If I had to choose a fallacy, this is the fallacy that I love to think about. That’s right. Tiziana: Yeah. You’re speaking. You’re preaching to the choir. Because I feel very strongly that we allow those kinds of perceptions to to be not only determining of our behavior, but. And they prevent us from understanding where those reactions come from. So the example of personal branding is very good because as you said, well, you know, if I am lying about my personal brand, that’s one thing. But if it’s an honest representation of me. That already changes things. And so we found the same logic with networking. So there are two reasons really why people feel icky about networking and people do. Not everybody, of course, is always a nice distribution of responses to any and all of these things. But a lot of people fall in this trap of finding networking. Aversive. One because they think that inauthentic. In that moment. If I go to a networking event. Infamous networking event. Yeah. Which is, by the way, not the only place for your network because you and I are networking as we speak right now. Right. We are reconnecting for this fabulous podcast of yours after not seeing each other for a while. This is an opportunity for us to know what each one of us has been up to. Maybe find territory where we can cooperate, we can find some learning. So there are many opportunities for you to network that are not inauthentic. But when we go to those networking events, we feel pressured to present a certain persona, a certain facade that doesn’t represent us really faithfully. And that’s where we feel the moral contamination of the activity. Anything that is dishonest is morally a little reprehensible, and we feel we know it. And the second reason why people feel that networking is a little yucky is that it tends to be selfish. And, you know, our network. Typically when has my career to enhance my prospects? And you could be networking to make the world a better place. Right. But not everybody does that. Let’s face it, for the most part, it’s a kind of self-focused activity. Andrea: Yeah. And can I just can I just interject? I have to mention one of my colleagues that I work with a lot. She’s an executive recruiter named Sharon McGinn. She and I have coached many executives to change this paradigm of networking from being a selfish thing that we feel icky about, to feeling like it’s an opportunity to provide value. And once you enter into, you know, the proverbial networking event with a mindset of generosity and adding value, it changes everything. Everything. Yeah. Tiziana: And that is very much rooted in this reaction that we all have that we feel more morally worthy when we do something that is altruistic. We behave selfishly all the time. Of course we do. But. But our our moral setup as humans gives value to altruistic acts from a moral standpoint. So if you do exactly what you described, the notion that when you focus on giving in networking, how can I be of help to you? How can I make your life easier? How can I help you achieve your goals? How can I contribute to making your professional life better, more successful? More effective? You’ve changed the focus of the activity and relieve the person of this moral weight that comes with it. Likewise, if you focus on networking, something you want to do to learn to grow. That’s what I do when I go to any of these conversations, any of these lunches, any of these conferences. I always aim to meet somebody new that can teach me something I didn’t know. That’s all I really want. And then in the process, I might teach them something they didn’t know. And then it becomes mutually beneficial, mutually enhancing. Tiziana: And that’s where the best relationships really are, the ones where, you know, we find joy and growth and a sense of possibility in learning from one another and giving each other a little bit of support. Nobody feels guilty about exploiting anyone and nobody feels useless because we all want to feel that we have impact that we had. We meet something. If you want to talk to me, that’s hugely enhancing for me because it means that you find value in the things I have spent time researching and writing. You’re already giving me a valued resource, which is my self-worth. Or in this conversation, is that a bad, nasty networking exploitation? Not at all. It’s a mutually beneficial interaction that can make us both better. And that’s very much the logic. And it comes right back to power, right? Because power is control over acts, over resources that you want. Right. And in this interaction, we both have some things that the other person appreciates, and we’re simply exchanging them in a way that can make us both better. What’s wrong with that? But you have to reframe it in your mind. You doubt it? Andrea: Yeah. I love this. I love this. So I want to shift gears a little bit into the So what for the talk about talk listeners. Right. So so what what does this mean about what I can and should be communicating in this context of understanding how power and asymmetries of influence and the fact that many of us think power is a dirty negative thing. I think a great place to start at Tiziana might be in terms of power mapping. I find this content, this idea to be fascinating. So. Tiziana: Yeah, I like this pivot because. You’re right. You’re interested in the power of talk. The power of what you convey with your image, with your words, with your all kind of external signs. And that’s very relevant to power, because power is not only substantive. It’s also perceived. And you, through your talk, your way to present yourself in the world. Are conveying. That you have value. In the eyes of the audience. I may have resources that you desperately want and you cannot get anywhere, but you don’t know it because I have not conveyed the existence of those resources and their importance to you. I have not done enough to understand your needs. At this point in time and telling you a story where I demonstrate that I could satisfy those needs. That’s all about talk. It’s all about how you present yourself. It’s all about how you narrate the story wherein I can be very useful to you. Yeah, I can provide something that you value deeply. So it’s completely intrinsic to to the story because it’s not just substance, it’s also presentation. It’s also perception that drives it. Andrea: I was going to say some it can be communicated explicitly or directly. And I’m thinking of, you know, some movie scenes where someone says, you know, I have all the power here or, you know, what I could do to you. Right? But it’s perhaps more often communicated implicitly or indirectly. Right. That’s right. That’s right. You reveal your resources. You reveal your influence without being so explicit about it. Tiziana: Yeah. And power mapping is in part the exercise of understanding who has influence in a in a certain social context. It could be a business, It could be a community, It could be a group in which you work a team and you observe their behavior. The the subtle or not so subtle signals they send out. To understand if they are the ones who are holding the resources that everybody wants around here. Yeah, if they are the ones that people lean on to get access to what is important and that could be knowledge of certain technology, perhaps that becomes particularly critical for the organization to master and acquire and realize that entry is the only one who knows that. And you become instantly influential in that context because we all need you. You just just brings to mind that movie Hidden Figures about the African-American women who worked at computers at NASA. And they were literally doing computational work by hand with pencil and paper. Yeah. Up until the introduction of the computer the IBM made. And that is a good example of understanding the shifts in the landscape where you say, okay, up to this point, the resource that your organization valued was ability to do handwritten computations accurately and with speed. Yeah. Ibm shows up. And he shifted because their ability to compute by hand becomes all of a sudden obsolete. And these women were so attuned with the shift in what what resources become relevant that they could acquire the new technology which was came in this in the form of learning how to program in Fortran. Remember Fortran? Andrea: Maybe I do too young. Tiziana: And they decide to navigate the power landscape in NASA toward acquiring that resource that had become relevant. So power mapping is all about monitoring the environment so that you only pick up on who has access to what’s valued right now. But you’re also able to predict what will become variable. And then you position yourself accordingly so that you don’t lose relevance in that context. This is something that goes back to the fallacy that power is intrinsic to a person, but it is not because the moment IBM shows up with a new technology and you are stuck in your old capability, you become irrelevant very quickly. Right? So we need to be in tune with that and sometimes in power mapping the talk. How people express themselves conveys signals as to their power, their relevance. They may actually sometimes not be substantiated by actual resources that they have control over. It could be all talk and no action, but at least for some time, it can lead people to think, Oh my God, you know, really that guy I really need to cultivate because he’s so critical to what we do. Look at, look at the look at the way they walk around. But so it can be pure, pure appearance. But it may take a while for people to scratch under the surface and understand it. And so it can carry you for a while, even without something very substantive. Of course, in the long run, substance matters and it shows up. But power mapping includes also this perception that people are able to construct around them. Andrea: Right. Okay. So I want to I want to get into the perception and you said the word signaling love that word. I use that word a lot in my dissertation signaling. But before we do that, I just want to summarize. So in my mind, before I read your book, if I was thinking about power mapping in the context of power and social network analysis, I would be thinking of a physical network that I would draw on a sheet of paper where I have all these individuals and I’m drawing lines with arrows of who has influence over who. And the big thing here that I’m getting is that it’s it may be that, but it’s in a specific context. And so if you’re really going to use this tool of power mapping effectively or optimally, you’re going to think about what the current context is and what might change. Tiziana: Absolutely. And that the instability and the constant dynamics of where we are are part of our mapping. This is not a geographical map that, you know, pretty much the mountain is there. And yeah, unless something really major happens, the mountains are going to be there in 100 years and social maps are extremely variable, right? So we have to stay with it. And that’s why the two skills of our mapping are dynamic by definition. They are observation, literally looking around, even in this moment, you and can infer some things from the background of our calls. Andrea: Of course you’re speaking my language, right? Yeah. Tiziana: Already you’re conveying something and then inquiry, asking questions. Sometimes something you cannot observe. You’re not in the car, don’t get to be in your room. They’re seeing what what you have in your office, the signals, your interests, the people you love. I don’t have that. So I have to ask questions. I have to ask around. Say, what’s up with Andrea? Why is she been. I don’t know, a little bit distant lately, and people might give me insight into what goes on in your life. So that would. Oh, okay. She really needs this right now. Can I provide it? Okay. Connect with people who can help and all of a sudden become relevant to you. Not because I knew it from the start, but because I observed the environment enough and asked enough questions to understand you. And understanding you is the first step toward influence, because it allows me to identify what you have at heart in this moment. And how can be relevant to you in achieving the things that matter to you? Yeah, of course it has a dark side too, because could also find out the things you’re scared about, right? The things that elicit vulnerabilities and then can and can really stick the knife into that wound and use it to make you do things. Tiziana: Or I can use it to claim that I can protect you from these threats. And that will also be valuable. Right. But it’s the it’s the the dark side of how you deploy your power. And I want to acknowledge it because, yeah, the last thing you want to do when you present power as is more kind of neutral energy is to lead people to think that you are in some La-La Land of optimism where power is so wonderful and let’s all enjoy it, because we understand very well that power always has this double edged nature. Yeah, we do have to look out for it, right? But yes, the signaling is essential for my navigating who’s who, who wants what. Who is capable of providing valued resources, not because they say they can, but because they actually can. Yes. And you can scratch underneath this. This is appearance. We have politicians. They do this masterfully. They come out and they tell us, oh, only I can protect you. Andrea: Right. Andrea: Because. And permanent power. Tiziana: That’s right. That’s right. And exactly. And so the power education we all need is is the one that allows us to see through some of those signals, some of those words. So there you go. Well, you know, you say that. Yeah, but truly, Yeah. Can you do these things for for us? And can you even understand what the needs are? Uh, sometimes it’s enough to just understand what you want and can speak the right words to you. They make you feel that you will look out for me. Andrea: Wow. So. So, Tiziana, your your whole spiel there just really reinforced to me that this third fallacy really is the one. And you guess it sounds like you agree. It really is the one that people can get a lot of traction in. If we think about our perception of the word power and challenge ourself with it. And I have to say, I also certainly appreciate the responsibility that you’ve taken. Right. And you’re saying as someone who’s writing about it, I’m not in La la land. And it reminds me of Robert Cialdini’s work with his Influence book. He talks a lot about how influence itself is a benign thing, right? And even as Everett Rogers, the the author of Diffusion of Innovations, he also talks about. Andrea: Oh, right, right, right, right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. No, that’s right. Tiziana: And all of these all of these forces are forces. Yeah. That can be directed in whatever way. Yeah. Fit. And that’s where the moral reasoning that we are called to, to really elaborate on becomes essential because otherwise you see what we do see. Yeah, world is full of people that misuse and abuse power. Andrea: Yeah. So I just want to say I appreciate how this book is educating us on really understanding the power, not just how we can use it, but how we can see how others are using it. Sometimes in a way that’s not moral. If you want to use it, use that term. So I just want to get back to a couple of of the signals or ways that we’re communicating power. I know in the book you talked about power. People have initiative. They take action and they’re more persistent. Can you elaborate on that a little bit in terms of communicating power? Tiziana: Yeah, it has to do with. The infamous confidence that matters so much. Uh, to give people the. Yeah, the agentic sense of possibility that you can take action that have only the ability, but also the legitimacy to take action. And when you are always surrounded by signals that you are not. In the right group. In the right position. You’re not the right person to do something. It becomes very difficult to to have enough confidence to say, no, no, I am I can. And that the narratives we construct all the time, they make it more difficult for some people to move and try and take the initiative are very powerful. These are much bigger than just the individual or even the interaction that the the relationship. They’re out there. They’re very macro. They impose a certain view of what a woman can do. What a person of color can do. What a person with a disability can do. And the constraint or expand. Our sense of what we are able to do in this world. Are we legitimate people in pursuing a certain goal or are people going to say, are you crazy? Calm down, It’s not for you. People like you don’t do those things. Now we are we are living a society where, thankfully, most people. Feel that there can at least try certain things. But we have to go very far for a world where you and I would never, ever, ever, ever be doing this podcast. Andrea: Yeah. Tiziana: You we certainly would not be doing it. Showing our entire, uh, you know, wild hair, whatever. Yours is not wild. Mine is. And it doesn’t take much change to completely destroy the sense of possibility for different people. So if I’m subjected to that kind of feeling all the time, confidence that I can take action is put under pressure. And then, you know, it’s very difficult to find that initiative. And then you have to really. Dig deep and sometimes be lucky and sometimes encounter people that that give you the sense of confidence again. And and that’s why influence can be so beautiful. Imagine you are down in the throes of depression and the sense that there’s nothing for you to look forward to and somebody comes along. And injects a sense of possibility in you. That’s influence. Right. They have influenced you, but boy, is there a better form of influence. Don’t think so. And it’s all part of the same logic, but it can have magnificent effects on people. And it speaks to this idea that you need to be corroborated. By your census self, your capabilities, by the signals that the world is sending you. That is, say, of course, a woman can be in this occupation. Of the person of colour can achieve this level of prestige. But you need the signals to construct a story where you can be that. That’s why when Barack Obama. And give a speech of the. Yes we can. It was all a boost of the sense of possibility, the sense of capability that people sometimes forget they have. Sometimes it has to be a collective sense because the reality you’re trying to intervene on is just too daunting for a person individually to have effect. You have to join forces with others to do something. Andrea: But that is where. Tiziana: Confidence and the sense of yes can has to come from. Andrea: Got it. So before we get to the five rapid fire questions, I just want to finish up with two specific questions related to communication. One is about words or phrases maybe that we can use that will communicate how or maybe help us diagnose power in others. And then the other is with body language. So. So let’s start with words or phrases. Are there things that people say verbally that communicate power? Andrea: Um, you know, this. Tiziana: Is really complex territory because, again, much depends on the context. I’ll give you an example. I’ll give an example. When it comes to words and even body language, one of the things that we hear is that. A deeper pitch in voice. Andrea: Um. Voluble, voluble, projected speech so. Tiziana: That you are clear, you’re you’re loud enough that people can hear you. You take the initiative to speak up, to convey that you have a point of view, that you have the confidence and the ability to express it. All of that feeds the perception that you’re powerful. And then you have contextual features that change that. And always think about the great Meryl Streep. When she was playing Miranda Priestly, I think was the name of the character in The Devil Wears Prada. Yeah. She had noticed. Andrea: The people with power. Tiziana: Tend to speak softly. Andrea: But it is your job. Andrea: Listen to me. Not mine. Andrea: Maybe you. So and so. Tiziana: She plays. She plays Miranda that way through the movie. Yeah. So what are we to take away from the laws to convey power? Well, it depends on the circumstances and what you do. So, yeah, if am middle of the road trying to to to to show that I’ve got it, I may need to speak loudly enough. Confidently enough, slowly enough to show that I have it. But it much depends on how you perceive. So, for example. And this whole notion of. Conveying disappointment and anger. Does it make you look powerful or not? Andrea: It depends. Tiziana: Right. And in this particular case, gender is a huge determinant of the effects of conveying anger. On the perception that you’re powerful if you’re a man. A conveying that you are very disappointed. And really irritated and angry about the situation may convey that you have the standing. Andrea: So basically yell at us. Tiziana: And put us in our place. If you’re a woman in most circumstances. What happens is that you’re seen as hysterical if you convey anger. That you’re too emotional, that you can’t control those those reactions, and you have to calm down. And there are spectacular examples. I’m gonna send you a picture that you can put in the episode notes of the difference in the way the men and women have in expressing anger as a way to convey a powerful position. So you have to be very careful about interpreting those signals. You know about those better than I do. So I’ll leave it to you and your podcast to educate readers and listeners. What I want to underscore is that the context again matters a lot and it’s the interaction of the person that characteristics and that environment that makes a signal more or less effective. That’s why it’s not straightforward to say, Oh, speak more loudly or deepen your voice. It depends. If you are in Japan and you’re a woman and you deepen your voice like that, you look weird. Yeah. So you have you have to be very careful about how the signal is interpreted in that locale. Andrea: Got it. So it depends. I was going to say it depends on the context. But you’re saying it also depends on the person, him or herself, right? Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. Okay. Last question. Last question before the five rapid fire questions, I’m really curious what you think about power posing. Andrea: Oh, okay. Um. Tiziana: You remind me of some great conversation with Amy Cuddy, a young assistant professors way back in the day. Um, so. This is research that again, needs to be interpreted in the nuances. You cannot you cannot make a sweeping thing. And so there are two components of it that I think have different implications for what we make of our poses. One is how I feel when I do a power pose. The other one is how I’m perceived by others after I’ve done the PowerPoints. And those is where I think that there’s some confusion. And my understanding of the research is that when I do the power pose, I do enhance my sense of possibility. Confidence. If I take up space and go like, Yeah, well, what, what? Andrea: Huh? Tiziana: Uh, I am enlarging my presence, I’m using space and I’m feeling that I’ve got it. Will you, as my interviewer, perceive me as more powerful? That is less clear. In fact, the results are wobbly enough. That wouldn’t necessarily count on it. But when it comes to enhancing my sense of power, which by the way, has enormous consequences for my behavior, I could be stupid and powerless, but if I think I’m powerful, I will behave differently. That could be helpful to me, at least in the short term. So it matters to feel powerful. Otherwise I’m not going to do anything because I don’t think I’m entitled to. I don’t think I can. It’s very important. Andrea: So let’s listen to. Tiziana: That side of the research without, you know, discarding the whole idea, because I think it’s it really does a disservice to how you can help yourself by enhancing your confidence in that moment. Andrea: Yeah. So usually when I’m coaching people and specifically these are folks that have, you know, issues with confidence and maybe imposter syndrome. So we do talk about power posing and in the context of self-awareness, right, where there’s internal self-awareness and external self-awareness. So internally you want to be aware of what your what your body is doing because you’re sending signals up to your brain. If you’re acting confident, you’ll think you’re confident in a good way, as you said, but also external self-awareness. How are other people perceiving you? So maybe you want to do the power pose, as you said, in the bathroom before you go into the room, as opposed to in the room when you’re, you know, having an interview or an important meeting or a presentation, right? Tiziana: That’s right. And all of those kind of, um, ways of presence. Tiziana: Um. Andrea: You know, have shown some impact. Tiziana: The what we where they it does, it does change,Attire makes you more confident. Andrea: Yes. Tiziana: That’s why, you know, when we have these big presentations, we, we wear certain things because it gave us a bit of an armor, a bit, a bit of a uniform of of status. It’s a signal that does have repercussions for our actions, how we speak, the impact we have on on others. So we should not discount those presence things that Amy and others talk about. Yeah, although we have to be careful, of course, about the nature of the scientific results because we don’t want to sway people based on evidence that is just too weak or too wobbly to be counted on. But the body of work has a lot of stuff that we can draw from. Andrea: Yeah, yeah, I agree. Okay, Ready for the five rapid fire questions? Andrea: Guess so. Tiziana: I don’t remember what they are, so you’re gonna have to remind me. Andrea: Okay. Question number one, What are your pet peeves? Tiziana: Oh, God. Lateness. Lateness is a bit of a problem for me. Um, so when I am late, I hate myself. I find it not very thoughtful of others, but my biggest pet peeve. Andrea: Biggest of them all. Tiziana: Is the changes of behavior upward and downward that some people have. That is a signal of weak character and mean intention in my book. So if I observe somebody, behave very, very pleasantly upward and very unpleasantly downward, those people are not in favor. Andrea: Oh, wow. Yeah. Tiziana: So very quickly, when when see that. Andrea: There’s a saying about having your hand up but then kicking down. Oh, yeah, it’s. Yes, ma’am. Absolutely disgusting. Disgusting. This isn’t very rapid anymore. But with regards to your your, um, dislike for tardiness or lack of punctuality, I read this on LinkedIn a couple of years ago, and I thought it was brilliant. It was, you know, a quote box, and it said, No, you’re not sorry, you’re late, you’re disrespectful and you’re rude. Andrea: This. This is when saying, oh, sorry. Tiziana: Rubs people the wrong way. Because if you had been really sorry sometimes there are, of course, reasons. Yeah. Compelling reasons. But yeah, it’s a sign that you’re paying attention to the other. Andrea: That Exactly. Tiziana: It’s and in a sense of power as this mutually enhancing proposition that we could get so much out of. Contract is just one sign that you didn’t pay attention enough. Andrea: Absolutely. Well put. Okay. Question number two, what type of learner are you? Andrea: Uh. Okay. Tiziana: Um. Oh, Not kinesthetic. Oh, don’t think so. Um, visual and auditory, probably. Yes. Are the two. Remember the things I see and hear? Okay. Andrea: Introvert or extrovert? Tiziana: Off the Charts. Extrovert. Andrea: I thought so. Andrea: You? Me too. You and. You figured. Andrea: Question number four Communication preference for personal conversation. So what? What media platform or type of type of communication do you use? Tiziana: Yeah, I’m an email addict. Um, do much, much worse with the calls. Unless they’re video calls. Okay. The video call makes it feel like it’s a social. Like is it like it’s a party? Because see, all of you, I see you smiling, and that puts me in the right state of mind. The phone call is just. Just too, too dry to be appealing. Andrea: Uh, okay. Last question. Is there a podcast that you recommend the most lately? Andrea: Oh, man. Okay. Um. Tiziana: Oh, Can I mention three? Sure. Andrea: Three. Make it quick. Tiziana: Power three. Exactly. I mentioned the ones that currently I’m listening to the most, but they shifts over time. Yeah. One is maybe a little obvious is the Ezra Klein New York Times podcast only because the range of. Andrea: Insights. Tiziana: We go from politics to science to poetry, and that that variety appeals and it typically handled in interesting ways. Yeah. And listen to science versus. Which is a science podcast that debunks or explores different phenomena. It could be medical, scientific, whatever, and and draws on the science on the subject to make a determination. Science versus hearsay versus, uh, all kinds of misconceptions. And they clear them for you and they do a very beautiful and humorously, and I appreciate that. Andrea: That’s a new one for me. Tiziana: Yeah, no, I highly recommend it. It’s wonderful. You always learn something, and it’s based on actual scientific exploration and research papers. And, you know, as a PhD, you you appreciate that kind of evidence particularly. Yeah. And the third one is, uh, Sound Up Governance, which is a podcast by my friend and former colleague Matt Fulbrook, who is became an expert in governance. Um, you know, is a is a eclectic man with all kinds of interests, including a very good bass player. Tiziana: Learned a ton about how to govern a business enterprise. Finally corporate, you name it. And it has this podcast that even though I’m not a governance person, that’s not my field, it’s not what I do. But anytime you are leading anything. Automatically. You have to learn how to govern the interests of multiple stakeholders. And I’m finding this podcast. Always offering some insight that I hadn’t thought about. And and he’s also entertaining because, you know, he throws in a little bit of music in it. Uh, being a musician and it makes it a topic that could be very dry and profoundly boring. Uh, much more appealing and revealing of how we run our organizations. Andrea: Okay, awesome. I’m going to put links to all three of those podcasts in the show notes. Please. Is there anything else you want to add about power or about power for all before we know? Tiziana: No. The book itself and will only say that it’s a book meant for two very different kinds of people. The people that have struggled with their relationship with power found it frustrating or a bit unnerving and want to to relate to it in more kind of constructive ways. And it is a book for people who do have power. Who may need a reminder. Or what it means to do to do good work with it, to use it well, and to become happy with how you have deployed it in your life to a constructive goals. So it really speaks to these very different kinds of people that that have both embraced it almost too much. For those who have studied too much and they need to really relate to it. So hope everybody finds a bit of insight in it. Andrea: I. I definitely did. And I’m sure that the listeners will as well. Thank you so much for well, for writing the book and also for spending your time here with us. Thank you so much. Tiziana: Tiziana Thank you, Andrea, for having me. It was such a pleasure to chat with you again.   ANDREA’S CONCLUSION Isn’t Tiziana great?  I hope you’ll read the book and enjoy it as much as I did. But in the meantime, if there are three things that I hope you can take from this book. It’s the three fallacies. I think if you understand these three fallacies and start to recognize them in your conversations, in interactions. Both personally and professionally. You’ll have a leg up in terms of understanding interpersonal dynamics with regards to power.  The first fallacy is Power is permanent. No, it’s not. Power is not a permanent possession or trait. Rather, true power is always relative to the context or the person in front of you. We tend to attribute power to people.  In fact, we should attribute power to context. Have you ever noticed how Forbes most powerful list changes every year?  EXACTLY. The 2nd is that Power is a function of authority or rank in a hierarchy. No it’s not. There are many many exceptions to this. Consider the manufacturing plant where maintenance wkrs have the power. Or think about the opinion leaders in your organization who don’t have formal authority, they don’t have formal rank.  But they have tons of influence. And the last fallacy is that Power is dirty. Wielding power is a dirty endeavor, involving coercion or manipulation.   No it’s not. Simply put, power is not intrinsically good or bad. Rather it’s what we do with it that can be good or bad.  Kind of like networking, and some other charged terms. Networking itself is not bad.  Power is not bad.  It’s what we do with power that can be good or bad.  And ye,s power can certainly be used for good. This is one of my favorite points in this book. It’s an optimistic and inspiring way to think about power. And a reminder that Power is everyone’s business. There’s certainly a lot more to this book than the three fallacies that I just summarized here. I really hope you’ll read this book or listen to it. You can find links to. The audio and print versions of this book in the show notes. Thanks again to Professor Tiziana Casciaro for sharing her insight with all of us. It was so nice to reconnect. That’s it for this episode! If you ever have any questions or suggestions for me, I LOVE hearing from you!  There are multiple ways you can connect with me. Everythings on the talkabouttalk.com website so that’s probably the best place to start.  From there you can send me a message, connect with me on LinkedIn, and even leave me an audio recording.  Like I said, I’d love to hear from you – bring it on. And if you enjoyed this podcast episode, I hope you’ll share it with your friends and leave me a review on whatever podcast app you’re using. It really makes a difference and I appreciate it. Thanks for listening.  And talk soon! The post #129 Power for All with Professor Tiziana Casciaro appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Andrea shares what the research says about interruptions, how to respond to being interrupted, and advice for how you can effectively interrupt. (REPOSTED DUE TO UPLOADING ISSUE)   Resources Sally Farley “Nonverbal Reactions to Conversational Interruptions” (2010)   Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Weekly Communication Skills Newsletter: https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup YouTube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube   TRANSCRIPT Wow. Do you remember that?  The year was 2020 and Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was debating with, or should I say being interrupted by – her opponent, Mike Pence. Based on some of the research you’re going to hear in a minute, this scenario is not uncommon.  AND, based on the research, I’m guessing Pence was encouraged by his communications staff to interrupt her. Similarly, Harris was likely coached to not stand for it. All with good reason. Are you ready to talk interruptions? Welcome to TAT episode #128, INTERRUPTIONS.  In this episode, you’re going to learn about the various types of interruptions, what the research says about interruptions, how you can respond to being interrupted, and yes even some advice for how you can effectively interrupt.  First, let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki and I’m YOUR executive communication coach. Please call me Andrea!  I’m the founder of Talk About Talk, where I coach communication skills to ambitious executives to help them elevate their communication, their confidence and their clarity, so they’ll get noticed for the right reasons and ultimately get promoted!   If you go to the Talk About Talk.com website, you’ll find many resources to help you out. There’s information there about one-on-one coaching, online courses, corporate workshops, group coaching bootcamps, the archive of this bi-weekly podcast, AND, I really hope you’ll sign up for the Talk About Talk newsletter. That newsletter is your chance to get communication coaching from me every week. OK, Interruptions. Yes, By the way, I fully recognize the irony here of me speaking into a microphone for this podcast.  You can’t interrupt me! LOL Just so you know where we’re headed, we’re going to cover 4 things: 1. Types of interruptions 2. What the research says – this is where it gets good 3. What to do when you are interrupted 4. Last: How to interrupt when you feel you must Types of interruptions  Given that you’re taking the time to listen to or watch this podcast, I’m guessing you have a certain premonition about what interrupting is. But I just want to remind all of us that there are MANY different types of interruptions. An easy way to think about the types of interruptions is to categorize them – categorize them in terms of the source of the interruption. So there’re interruptions from PEOPLE – others and even ourselves.  And then ther’re “NON-PEOPLE” interruptions, for example from our technology or from the environment. It could be an alarm or a reminder set on your or someone else’s phone. Or it could be a fire truck driving by with a loud siren. Or the crash of thunder. Or some other noise.  These things all distract and interrupt us.  They interrupt our thoughts and our conversations. Some of these things we can control. Of course, like turning off notifications on your phone or your laptop.  And other interruptions we can’t control. Then of course there are interruptions from PEOPLE. Sometimes we’re distracted and we interrupt our own thoughts and words. This is a lack of focus. More often, our thoughts and words are interrupted by others. It could be physical, like when someone taps you on the shoulder or walks into your office unannounced, or it might be verbal, someone interjecting or talking over you.  And when it’s verbal, it can be intentional or it can also be unintentional.  That’s something to keep in mind – some people aren’t even aware that they’re interrupting! These verbal interruptions from other people are what we’re going to focus on in this episode. Let’s first get into what the research says, then I’m going to share some ideas for what you can do about it when someone interrupts you.  What the Research says  Generally, the research tells us that interruptions have a negative effect on collaboration and productivity.  That’s no surprise. When people interrupt. Typically they disrupt conversation flow, resulting in MISSED opportunities and MISUNDERSTANDINGS. And of course, MISgivings! Interruptions can be perceived as rude and disrespectful, which can lead to negative feelings and strained relationships.  This might sound tautological, but interruptions are very disruptive. Interruptions can result in missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and misgivings. I like this…. OK – So who’s doing all this interrupting? Well, it varies by culture, by gender and by status, or power. At a cultural level, research shows that individuals from more collectivist cultures. Such as in Asia, tend to interrupt each other less frequently than individuals from more individualistic cultures such as in the US. When it comes to gender and interruptions, research shows that in mixed gender conversations, men tend to interrupt more frequently than women. Research also shows that women are more likely to BE interrupted by men than by other women. And this dynamic holds in both professional and social or personal contexts. Comes to power or status and interruptions. The results of the research probably won’t surprise you. Sally Farley, a psychologist and faculty member at the University of Baltimore has studied these dynamics in depth.  Her research focuses on what happens, in terms of interrupting, and then also how we perceive it.  This stuff is fascinating to me. I’ll leave a link to some of Sally Farley’s research in the shownotes. In one of her experiments, Farley demonstrated that interrupters GAINED in status and TARGETS of interruption LOST status. And furthermore, people who were interrupted rated themselves as less powerful than those who were not interrupted. Also, interrupters, especially female interrupters, were liked less than those who did not interrupt. Now that I’ve read this research, I have even more respect for the quagmire that Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in onstage in 2020.  I thought she handled it beautifully. Farley’s research also shows that when someone more senior, higher up in the hierarchy interrupts, we perceive it as a sign of strength and assertiveness. But if a more junior person, lower in the hierarchy, interrupts someone who’s more senior, we perceive it as confrontational and rude.  I’m thinking a lot about power and status here – and I’m really excited to tell you I have another episode coming soon, focused on POWER. Anyway, let’s move on to what you should do when you’re interrupted. What to do when you are interrupted Being interrupted feels awful. It’s like the epitome of disrespect, isn’t it? Most of us, when we’re interrupted, our response is disdain. We stop and you can see the shock on our face. Then we might raise our voice. Or increase our volume so the other person isn’t even heard. Or to talk over them. Or even to lash out.  Sometimes these responses may be warranted, but I suggest a more strategic, thoughtful approach to responding to interruptions. First, I encourage you to Track the Ratio. What does this mean? If you’ve been listening to the Talk About Talk podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me encouraging people to track the ratio. Tracking the ratio means mentally tracking the ratio of you talking versus other people talking. If you’re taking up more than your fair share, the best response to being interrupted MIGHT be for you to simply stop talking.  However, if you’ve been speaking less than your fair share, There’s an important question to ask yourself. Who is that person who’s interrupting you? Specifically, what’s your relative status? If they’re your boss, your manager, or your superior. Then the research shows that this type of interruption may be expected and does little to affect your status. In other words. In some cases, when you’re interrupted, the best thing to do is nothing.  On the other hand, if the person who interrupted you is a peer at work, they may be seeking status – or influence-  or power over you. They might even be trying to make you look bad so that they look good. Yes, the scarcity mindset. If they try it once, fine.  But if they’re a repeat offender, you absolutely need to address the Interrupter. Depending on the context, You could do so with humour “Hey, wait your turn, bud.”  But humor only gets us so far. How exactly do you respond to incessant interruptions? My suggestion is that you FIRST smile and take a moment. Pause and take a breath.  Then you establish direct eye contact with the interrupter and say their name.  Then calmly tell them you’re going to finish your point, after which you’d be happy to hear from them. Starting off your response by putting a smile on your dial and Pausing for a moment will Calm your nerves and provide you with a moment to consider your response. Establishing direct eye contact and stating the person’s name will get their attention and also direct other people’s attention to the rude interruption.  The exact words you use, of course, will depend on the context. If you’re brainstorming and someone interrupts you, then smile, pause, establish direct eye contact. And calmly say. Steve, I’d love to hear what you have to add. But first, I’m going to finish my point. If the Interrupter is trying to change the subject, Again, smile. Pause. Establish direct eye contact. And calmly say. Karen, I’d like to finish my point. Then we can move on.  If they’re overtly criticizing you and your ideas, you may have to be more emphatic. AGAIN – smile. Pause. Establish direct eye contact. And calmly say, George, before we move on to hear your perspective, please let me finish my point.  So that’s my advice on how to Respond to being interrupted. First, track the ratio and ask yourself honestly, what proportion of the conversation have I been talking. If you’re taking up more than your fair share, then, FRANKLY, the interruption may be warranted, and the best advice might be to stop talking and listen. If you’ve spoken less than your fair share, then the second step is to consider the person that interrupted you. If they’re higher status, you might want to let it go. If they’re the same or lower status than you, or if they’re competing for status, my suggestion is that you follow this formula. Smile. Pause. Make direct eye contact. State their name. Then tell them that you’re going to finish your point first, and THEN you would love to hear theirs. Got it?  One more thing here. If you’re a leader, watch for others interrupting, and give EVERYONE space to make their point.  Provide a forum, be it going one-by-one around the table – or even calling individual people out – to encourage everyone to speak their fair share. Moving on.  The last thing I want to cover here is How to Interrupt when you feel you must. Last: How to interrupt when you feel you must My first suggestion here shouldn’t surprise you. If you feel compelled to interrupt, first TRACK THE RATIO of how much you’re talking versus how much other people are talking. There’s all sorts of research out there that highlights that the less you talk, the less of the proportion of the total airtime in a conversation or a meeting when you take up. The Better. There’s research out there that highlights how when. Job applicants. Encourage their interviewers to speak more during a job interview. They’re more likely to get the job. Ditto for salespeople. The less talking they do, the more likely they are to make the sale. And even socially. Have you ever been at a party where someone just wouldn’t stop talking, they wouldn’t shut up? DO you remember how you felt about that person?  EXACTLY.  SO track the ratio.  But less assume you’ve spoken way less than your fair share and you have what you think is an important point to make.  Or perhaps you’re leading the meeting and you need to interrupt someone so others can be heard. My number one piece of advice is to be gracious and recognize or acknowledge the person you’re interrupting. Just like my previous advice, using their name is a great place to start. “Xavian, I agree this is an important point. Your point made me think of something else we should consider.”  Or  “Yvonne, this point is fantastic. Let’s make sure it gets recorded.  Who else has something to say?” DO you see what I did there? I respectfully and explicitly acknowledged the other person’s point. Then I opened it up for my point or others points. What I discourage is apologizing or seeking permission, unless of course you’re interrupting someone who has higher status. Which, as I said, is already very risky. But otherwise avoid saying things like “I’m sorry, but can I add something?” or “May I interject?” It just sounds weak.  You can be respectful without being apologetic. Be calm and respectful and recognize the other person’s point.  Alright that’s it!  Did you get all that? Let me summarize with 3 things I hope you’ll take away from this episode: 1. Not all interruptions are equal. The prevalence and our perceptions of interruption varies by culture, by gender, and by the relative status of the 2 people: the interrupter and the interrupted. 2. Two factors to consider when it comes to interruptions, whether you’re being interrupted or whether you’re considering interrupting someone else, Two things to consider are 1. What proportion of the conversation have you versus the other person been speaking?  In other words track the ratio.  And 2. Consider the relative STATUS of you vs. the other person. Remember: people expect the higher-status person to talk more. 3. My formula to help you respond to being rudely interrupted.  It’s this: (1) Smile. (2) Pause and take a breath. (3) Make direct eye contact, then (4) state their name and tell them you’re going to finish your point. If you got all that then you’re in great shape when it comes to interrupting. I want to conclude by sharing a quote from Adam Grant that I read recently on LinkedIn.  It’s this: “The most valuable person in the room is not the person who talks the most. It’s the person who says the most with the fewest words. The best way to contribute more is not to take up more airtime. It’s to increase your ratio of insight to airtime.”  WOW.  I like that. Increase your ratio of insight to airtime.  Brilliant.  Something for us all to aspire to! Like I said, I found this Adam Grant quote on LinkedIn. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. You can also subscribe there to my biweekly LinkedIn newsletter. Where you’ll. Get free communication skills coaching from me every second week. It’s a short newsletter, I respect your time. It’s also fresh and different content from the podcast and from the e-mail newsletter. I encourage you to subscribe. You can direct Message me on LinkedIn, If you ever have any questions or suggestions for me. Perhaps you have a suggestion for a future podcast topic? You could also go to the talkabouttalk.com website and leave me a recorded message there. You might even hear your voice on a future episode!  And I promise I won’t interrupt you. Alright, that’s it, Thanks for listening.  And talk soon! The post #128 Interruptions (REPOST) appeared first on Talk About Talk.

Andrea shares what the research says about interruptions, how to respond to being interrupted, and advice for how you can effectively interrupt. Resources Sally Farley “Nonverbal Reactions to Conversational Interruptions” (2010) Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Weekly Communication Skills Newsletter: https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup YouTube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube TRANSCRIPT Wow. Do you remember that?  The year was 2020 and Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris was debating with, or should I say being interrupted by – her opponent, Mike Pence. Based on some of the research you’re going to hear in a minute, this scenario is not uncommon.  AND, based on the research, I’m guessing Pence was encouraged by his communications staff to interrupt her. Similarly, Harris was likely coached to not stand for it. All with good reason. Are you ready to talk interruptions? Welcome to TAT episode #128, INTERRUPTIONS.  In this episode, you’re going to learn about the various types of interruptions, what the research says about interruptions, how you can respond to being interrupted, and yes even some advice for how you can effectively interrupt.  First, let me introduce myself. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki and I’m YOUR executive communication coach. Please call me Andrea!  I’m the founder of Talk About Talk, where I coach communication skills to ambitious executives to help them elevate their communication, their confidence and their clarity, so they’ll get noticed for the right reasons and ultimately get promoted!   If you go to the Talk About Talk.com website, you’ll find many resources to help you out. There’s information there about one-on-one coaching, online courses, corporate workshops, group coaching bootcamps, the archive of this bi-weekly podcast, AND, I really hope you’ll sign up for the Talk About Talk newsletter. That newsletter is your chance to get communication coaching from me every week. OK, Interruptions. Yes, By the way, I fully recognize the irony here of me speaking into a microphone for this podcast.  You can’t interrupt me! LOL Just so you know where we’re headed, we’re going to cover 4 things: 1. Types of interruptions 2. What the research says – this is where it gets good 3. What to do when you are interrupted 4. Last: How to interrupt when you feel you must Types of interruptions  Given that you’re taking the time to listen to or watch this podcast, I’m guessing you have a certain premonition about what interrupting is. But I just want to remind all of us that there are MANY different types of interruptions. An easy way to think about the types of interruptions is to categorize them – categorize them in terms of the source of the interruption. So there’re interruptions from PEOPLE – others and even ourselves.  And then ther’re “NON-PEOPLE” interruptions, for example from our technology or from the environment. It could be an alarm or a reminder set on your or someone else’s phone. Or it could be a fire truck driving by with a loud siren. Or the crash of thunder. Or some other noise.  These things all distract and interrupt us.  They interrupt our thoughts and our conversations. Some of these things we can control. Of course, like turning off notifications on your phone or your laptop.  And other interruptions we can’t control. Then of course there are interruptions from PEOPLE. Sometimes we’re distracted and we interrupt our own thoughts and words. This is a lack of focus. More often, our thoughts and words are interrupted by others. It could be physical, like when someone taps you on the shoulder or walks into your office unannounced, or it might be verbal, someone interjecting or talking over you.  And when it’s verbal, it can be intentional or it can also be unintentional.  That’s something to keep in mind – some people aren’t even aware that they’re interrupting! These verbal interruptions from other people are what we’re going to focus on in this episode. Let’s first get into what the research says, then I’m going to share some ideas for what you can do about it when someone interrupts you.  What the Research says  Generally, the research tells us that interruptions have a negative effect on collaboration and productivity.  That’s no surprise. When people interrupt. Typically they disrupt conversation flow, resulting in MISSED opportunities and MISUNDERSTANDINGS. And of course, MISgivings! Interruptions can be perceived as rude and disrespectful, which can lead to negative feelings and strained relationships.  This might sound tautological, but interruptions are very disruptive. Interruptions can result in missed opportunities, misunderstandings, and misgivings. I like this…. OK – So who’s doing all this interrupting? Well, it varies by culture, by gender and by status, or power. At a cultural level, research shows that individuals from more collectivist cultures. Such as in Asia, tend to interrupt each other less frequently than individuals from more individualistic cultures such as in the US. When it comes to gender and interruptions, research shows that in mixed gender conversations, men tend to interrupt more frequently than women. Research also shows that women are more likely to BE interrupted by men than by other women. And this dynamic holds in both professional and social or personal contexts. Comes to power or status and interruptions. The results of the research probably won’t surprise you. Sally Farley, a psychologist and faculty member at the University of Baltimore has studied these dynamics in depth.  Her research focuses on what happens, in terms of interrupting, and then also how we perceive it.  This stuff is fascinating to me. I’ll leave a link to some of Sally Farley’s research in the shownotes. In one of her experiments, Farley demonstrated that interrupters GAINED in status and TARGETS of interruption LOST status. And furthermore, people who were interrupted rated themselves as less powerful than those who were not interrupted. Also, interrupters, especially female interrupters, were liked less than those who did not interrupt. Now that I’ve read this research, I have even more respect for the quagmire that Vice President Kamala Harris found herself in onstage in 2020.  I thought she handled it beautifully. Farley’s research also shows that when someone more senior, higher up in the hierarchy interrupts, we perceive it as a sign of strength and assertiveness. But if a more junior person, lower in the hierarchy, interrupts someone who’s more senior, we perceive it as confrontational and rude.  I’m thinking a lot about power and status here – and I’m really excited to tell you I have another episode coming soon, focused on POWER. Anyway, let’s move on to what you should do when you’re interrupted. What to do when you are interrupted Being interrupted feels awful. It’s like the epitome of disrespect, isn’t it? Most of us, when we’re interrupted, our response is disdain. We stop and you can see the shock on our face. Then we might raise our voice. Or increase our volume so the other person isn’t even heard. Or to talk over them. Or even to lash out.  Sometimes these responses may be warranted, but I suggest a more strategic, thoughtful approach to responding to interruptions. First, I encourage you to Track the Ratio. What does this mean? If you’ve been listening to the Talk About Talk podcast for a while, you’ve probably heard me encouraging people to track the ratio. Tracking the ratio means mentally tracking the ratio of you talking versus other people talking. If you’re taking up more than your fair share, the best response to being interrupted MIGHT be for you to simply stop talking.  However, if you’ve been speaking less than your fair share, There’s an important question to ask yourself. Who is that person who’s interrupting you? Specifically, what’s your relative status? If they’re your boss, your manager, or your superior. Then the research shows that this type of interruption may be expected and does little to affect your status. In other words. In some cases, when you’re interrupted, the best thing to do is nothing.  On the other hand, if the person who interrupted you is a peer at work, they may be seeking status – or influence-  or power over you. They might even be trying to make you look bad so that they look good. Yes, the scarcity mindset. If they try it once, fine.  But if they’re a repeat offender, you absolutely need to address the Interrupter. Depending on the context, You could do so with humour “Hey, wait your turn, bud.”  But humor only gets us so far. How exactly do you respond to incessant interruptions? My suggestion is that you FIRST smile and take a moment. Pause and take a breath.  Then you establish direct eye contact with the interrupter and say their name.  Then calmly tell them you’re going to finish your point, after which you’d be happy to hear from them. Starting off your response by putting a smile on your dial and Pausing for a moment will Calm your nerves and provide you with a moment to consider your response. Establishing direct eye contact and stating the person’s name will get their attention and also direct other people’s attention to the rude interruption.  The exact words you use, of course, will depend on the context. If you’re brainstorming and someone interrupts you, then smile, pause, establish direct eye contact. And calmly say. Steve, I’d love to hear what you have to add. But first, I’m going to finish my point. If the Interrupter is trying to change the subject, Again, smile. Pause. Establish direct eye contact. And calmly say. Karen, I’d like to finish my point. Then we can move on.  If they’re overtly criticizing you and your ideas, you may have to be more emphatic. AGAIN – smile. Pause. Establish direct eye contact. And calmly say, George, before we move on to hear your perspective, please let me finish my point.  So that’s my advice on how to Respond to being interrupted. First, track the ratio and ask yourself honestly, what proportion of the conversation have I been talking. If you’re taking up more than your fair share, then, FRANKLY, the interruption may be warranted, and the best advice might be to stop talking and listen. If you’ve spoken less than your fair share, then the second step is to consider the person that interrupted you. If they’re higher status, you might want to let it go. If they’re the same or lower status than you, or if they’re competing for status, my suggestion is that you follow this formula. Smile. Pause. Make direct eye contact. State their name. Then tell them that you’re going to finish your point first, and THEN you would love to hear theirs. Got it?  One more thing here. If you’re a leader, watch for others interrupting, and give EVERYONE space to make their point.  Provide a forum, be it going one-by-one around the table – or even calling individual people out – to encourage everyone to speak their fair share. Moving on.  The last thing I want to cover here is How to Interrupt when you feel you must. Last: How to interrupt when you feel you must My first suggestion here shouldn’t surprise you. If you feel compelled to interrupt, first TRACK THE RATIO of how much you’re talking versus how much other people are talking. There’s all sorts of research out there that highlights that the less you talk, the less of the proportion of the total airtime in a conversation or a meeting when you take up. The Better. There’s research out there that highlights how when. Job applicants. Encourage their interviewers to speak more during a job interview. They’re more likely to get the job. Ditto for salespeople. The less talking they do, the more likely they are to make the sale. And even socially. Have you ever been at a party where someone just wouldn’t stop talking, they wouldn’t shut up? DO you remember how you felt about that person?  EXACTLY.  SO track the ratio.  But less assume you’ve spoken way less than your fair share and you have what you think is an important point to make.  Or perhaps you’re leading the meeting and you need to interrupt someone so others can be heard. My number one piece of advice is to be gracious and recognize or acknowledge the person you’re interrupting. Just like my previous advice, using their name is a great place to start. “Xavian, I agree this is an important point. Your point made me think of something else we should consider.”  Or  “Yvonne, this point is fantastic. Let’s make sure it gets recorded.  Who else has something to say?” DO you see what I did there? I respectfully and explicitly acknowledged the other person’s point. Then I opened it up for my point or others points. What I discourage is apologizing or seeking permission, unless of course you’re interrupting someone who has higher status. Which, as I said, is already very risky. But otherwise avoid saying things like “I’m sorry, but can I add something?” or “May I interject?” It just sounds weak.  You can be respectful without being apologetic. Be calm and respectful and recognize the other person’s point.  Alright that’s it!  Did you get all that? Let me summarize with 3 things I hope you’ll take away from this episode: 1. Not all interruptions are equal. The prevalence and our perceptions of interruption varies by culture, by gender, and by the relative status of the 2 people: the interrupter and the interrupted. 2. Two factors to consider when it comes to interruptions, whether you’re being interrupted or whether you’re considering interrupting someone else, Two things to consider are 1. What proportion of the conversation have you versus the other person been speaking?  In other words track the ratio.  And 2. Consider the relative STATUS of you vs. the other person. Remember: people expect the higher-status person to talk more. 3. My formula to help you respond to being rudely interrupted.  It’s this: (1) Smile. (2) Pause and take a breath. (3) Make direct eye contact, then (4) state their name and tell them you’re going to finish your point. If you got all that then you’re in great shape when it comes to interrupting. I want to conclude by sharing a quote from Adam Grant that I read recently on LinkedIn.  It’s this: “The most valuable person in the room is not the person who talks the most. It’s the person who says the most with the fewest words. The best way to contribute more is not to take up more airtime. It’s to increase your ratio of insight to airtime.”  WOW.  I like that. Increase your ratio of insight to airtime.  Brilliant.  Something for us all to aspire to! Like I said, I found this Adam Grant quote on LinkedIn. Please connect with me on LinkedIn. You can also subscribe there to my biweekly LinkedIn newsletter. Where you’ll. Get free communication skills coaching from me every second week. It’s a short newsletter, I respect your time. It’s also fresh and different content from the podcast and from the e-mail newsletter. I encourage you to subscribe. You can direct Message me on LinkedIn, If you ever have any questions or suggestions for me. Perhaps you have a suggestion for a future podcast topic? You could also go to the talkabouttalk.com website and leave me a recorded message there. You might even hear your voice on a future episode!  And I promise I won’t interrupt you. Alright, that’s it, Thanks for listening.  And talk soon! The post #128 Interruptions appeared first on Talk About Talk.

3 books recommended by Andrea: INFLUENCE, CHATTER and GETTING TO YES. Andrea & guest Adam Ashton, host of the popular “What You Will Learn” podcast, review these 3 books. You will feel a lot smarter after listening to this episode, and you might have some new books to read!   RESOURCES Books: INFLUENCE New & Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini CHATTER: The Voice in Our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross GETTING TO YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE by Chris Voss THE SH*T THEY NEVER TAUGHT YOU by Adam Jones & Adam Ashton ATTITUDE by Adam Jones & Adam Ashton SMART BREVITY by Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen & Roy Schwartz Andrea’s Top Ten book recommendations (scroll down to “Top 10 Books”) Adam Ashton: Podcast website – https://www.whatyouwilllearn.com/ First Book – http://theshittheynevertaughtyou.com/ New Book – ATTITUDE Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/whatyouwilllearn/ Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/1oQ6gWZqHHBgsrpIISZiAr Apple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/what-you-will-learn/id1125635053 Connect with Andrea & Talk About Talk: Website: TalkAboutTalk.com LinkedIn: Andrea and TalkAboutTalk Weekly Communication Skills Newsletter: https://talkabouttalk.com/blog/#newsletter-signup Youtube Channel: @talkabouttalkyoutube   TRANSCRIPT That was the wise Adam Ashton, our guest expert for this very unique TAT ep#127.  I was inspired to create this episode based on requests I’ve had from clients in 1:1 coaching or in workshops when my clients ask me, Andrea, what communication skills books do you recommend?  I read a lot and I’m ALWAYS happy to give book suggestions. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be great to do a book review – or 2 – or 3 – in an episode? And here we are.  You’re in for a treat. You’re going to hear a helpful summary of 3 highly relevant books that I recommend for ambitious executives who’re focused on improving their communication skills. The 3 books are INFLUENCE by Robert Cialdini, CHATTER by Ethan Cross, and GETTING TO YES by Fisher, Ury & Patton. This last one, getting to yes, I just want to mention right out of the gates. I pulled this one in particular because every single client that I talk to has read Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It’s like the modern negotiation bible. I thought it might be helpful, therefore, to supplement that book with this older book: GETTING TO YES, which really serves as a foundation for negotiation skills. Yes, you’re going to feel SUPER SMART after listening to this episode! If you’ve been listening to the Talk About Talk podcast for a while now, you’ve probably come to expect a fairly regular structure to these episodes. I introduced the topic and then either I coach you and share insights and advice OR sometimes I interview a guest. Then I always summarize the main points for you at the end.  So this episode’s different – because instead of focusing on a specific communication skills topic, You’re going to hear a discussion about 3 different books that’re related to communication – as in persuasion for the book INFLUENCE, as in self-talk for the book CHATTER, and as in negotiation skills for the book GETTING TO YES.  You can think of this as 3 book reviews via podcast.  This is going to be VERY EFFICIENT LEARNING for you! And BTW, this podcast is also available with video as a vidcast on YouTube. So if you want to tune in there, you can see me, you can see my guest Adam, and you can even see the books. Oh my goodness, I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I? In case we haven’t met. I’m Dr. Andrea Wojnicki., and I’m your executive communication coach. Please – just call me Andrea.  I’m the founder of TAT, where I coach communication skills to ambitious executives. My goal here is to help you establish executive presence and accelerate your career trajectory. Sound good? If you go to the TAT.com website, you’ll find many resources to help you out. There’s information there about 1:1 coaching, online courses, corporate workshops, the archive of this podcast, AND, I really hope you’ll sign up for the email newsletter. That newsletter is your chance to get communication coaching from me every week.  I mentioned this a few weeks ago – I’m slowly upgrading the TAT website. There’s a new section under the ABOUT tab where you can find my recommendations for you, including my top ten books that I recommend to clients. Because you’re listening to this podcast, I’m gonna guess YOU have a growth mindset and you might also read a lot of books! OK, let’s get into this.  Here’s how this episode’s going to unfold. First, I’m going to introduce Adam. Then we’re going to get right into the interview. There won’t be a summary at the end, because… these are book reviews! You don’t need a summary of a summary.  But as I said, I encourage you to check the shownotes under this episode or on the tat.com website. There are links there to each of the 3 books, plus some other books we mention. In preparation for this interview, Adam and I both had some homework to do.  We both arrived with 3 points we want to share with you about each of the 3 books. (Yes, the power of 3!) These 3 points could be anything from – a key INSIGHT that we want to highlight, to-  a suggestion for how we can apply the learnings to our communication, to – whether or not we liked the book! And in case you’re wondering, I’m only reviewing books that I personally recommend. These are the books that I end up recommending to my coaching clients. So my opinion of each of these three books is very high, but as you’re about to hear, Adam’s opinion can be different. Alright let me tell you about Adam. Adam and I met 5 years ago when we were both participants in Seth Godin’s inaugural Podcasting fellowship. This podcasting fellowship brought together a group of hundreds of podcasters and wanna-be podcasters from all over the world, including Adam in Australia, and myself in Toronto, Canada.  As we were all going through this journey to build our podcasting skills, a few of the people in the fellowship stood out for me as exceptional. Adam was one of those people. So I wasn’t surprised that he created an incredibly successful podcast. Focused on, guess what? Books! He’s also a genuinely good guy, and as you’ll hear in a minute – he has an infectious laugh. He’s STILL laughing, despite being a sleep-deprived parent of a newborn! Adam’s podcast is called WHAT YOU WILL LEARN, where he and his co-host read a book each week and share what he calls “the best bits and the biggest lessons.”  After almost 7 million downloads (yes, 7M!), they compiled the best bits of their podcast into their first book, THE SH*T THEY NEVER TAUGHT YOU.  That was in 2021. Then just recently they published a new book ATTITUDE, where they compiled insights about attitude from some of the books they read and distilled them into five simple lessons: Vision, Change, Learning, Fear, and Boldness. Sounds good, doesn’t it?  I can’t wait to read it. NOW you see why Adam is the perfect guest for this episode?  Here we go! Andrea: Adam, thank you so much for joining us here on the Talk about Talk podcast for the first time for a book review of three books. Adam: Fantastic. I’m nervously excited to be here. I’ve definitely remember listening to your podcast in the early days, so I’m glad to finally be a part of it. Andrea: Oh, I am honored to have you here, Adam. I know your podcast is very successful and to be honest, I’m a little bit nervous too. But as I shared with you a minute just a minute ago, I’m really, really excited. So let’s get right into it. Adam and I have decided on three books that would be of interest to talk about talk listeners. They are influence, chatter and getting to yes. So we’re going to attack them in that order. And I’m going to start by sharing a little bit about the author. A really, really brief summary. Just so if you haven’t read of or maybe even heard of the book, you’ll have the general gist of what it’s about. And then we’re going to jump in. And Adam and I separately have prepared independently three points. If we were just talking about the book ourselves, three points that we want to make and share with the listeners and we talked about this offline. We both have notes. We are prepared for this. So if you see us looking down at our notes, that’s why we’re looking down. Um, so I guess we’re ready to get started. Are you ready, Adam. Adam: I am ready. Andrea: Okay, so the first book is by Robert Cialdini. I’ve got it right here. It’s called Influence New and Expanded the Psychology of Persuasion. And this book is written by Robert Cialdini. He’s a psychology prof at Arizona State Arizona State University, and he’s known as the godfather of Persuasion, due in most part to this book, which he first published in 1984. And I was telling Adam that I definitely read it in the 80s. And then I also bought it again in 2001 for this is the book that I bought over 20 years ago. Um, this is the third edition, which is much thinner. We’ll talk about that in a minute. Um, but that original book and the subsequent version of it, the new and expanded version, are based on mostly research that Cialdini did in his role as a psychology academic, where he worked as a car salesperson, a fundraiser, and in telemarketing to really understand the dynamics of persuasion, which to me is fascinating. And so he came up with at the time, uh, six ways to garner influence. And I am going to look at the camera and see if I can remember what they are. It’s consistency. Likability authority. Scarcity, social proof and reciprocity. And then in this most recent version, he added unity. And I’m going to tell you how I remembered what those were in a minute. But with that background, Adam, what do you think of this book? Adam: I think this is phenomenal. I read this probably not quite as early as you did in the 80 seconds, but I read it probably 2017, and it went straight to my sort of top ten best books I’ve read of all time. And I’d say it’s pretty close to staying there ever since. It hasn’t been knocked off the perch yet, I’d say, uh, I guess my, my first takeaway is kind of like this is like the go to book, I reckon, in terms of what do you put into the content to make it more persuasive, You know, those, those six or you know, now seven things that you listed. He originally calls them weapons of influence I think in his first book. And then he calls them levers. Now in the newest version, just to feel like they are weapon like depending how you use them. But I suppose levers is a is a more gentler way of putting putting it I think those 6 or 7 levers. Andrea: Sorry to interrupt. I think that’s why he calls them levers now. Right. Because many people that were a little nefarious with their objectives were weaponizing these. Yeah. Adam: Yeah. You certainly can weaponize the levers. But yeah, if you can if you can work those into like if you if you’ve previously used zero of those and then you read this book and you can use 1 or 2 or more of these levers in your content, I think you become like, you know, it’s not just like 10% more effective at communicating. It’s like ten x more effective, I reckon. Andrea: Agree. Agree. Anything else you want to add? Adam: There’s the two. I guess my when you ask for three things, the two that always stand out for me as my number two and my number three is always remember the foot in the door and the door in the face. I don’t know why they always they always stick out to me as as good ways of sort of remembering these. So the foot in the door is linked to that sort of commitment and consistency lever that you mentioned where it’s you know, you start with something small, you know, it could be a, you know, a very small favor or, you know, you could be giving away something for free or even a loss leader that you sell. And that foot in the door is saying that if somebody does something small once, they’re much more likely to do something bigger later. If you ask for the small favor now and they do it, all of a sudden they become the type of person that does favors for you. You’re someone worthy of doing a favor for. And then the next time you ask a bigger favor, I’ve kind of already done something, so they’ll probably do something more later so you can kind of build it up from there. So always remember the foot in the door. That’s a great one. And then and then I always I always remember the door in the face as well. Adam: I probably remember it because I didn’t get it the first time, but now I get it. Like because the door in the face is like it opens with a big whack. It’s not you’re not just sneaking the foot in there, you’re slamming that door open, whacking them in the face, and then you’re sort of going backwards from there, which is linked to the reciprocity one. So I’d say the big the big offer, you know, I want this right now and you’re going to you’re going to reject it because it’s too much of a big ask. But then by then, by them stepping way back and dialing it way back to something much smaller, then all of a sudden it’s like, okay, well, the other side, they’ve been, you know, they’ve been nice. They’ve they’ve, you know, they’ve dialed back their offer. They’ve been very generous in, you know, instead of charging, you know, 100 bucks and not charging 20 bucks for something, it’s like, okay, well, fine, I’ll do it. I’ll reciprocate as well. I’ll sort of come to the table and and play ball. So I kind of remember those two, the foot in the door and the door in the face for for different scenarios of achieving a similar thing. Andrea: Sounds a little bit like foreshadowing for getting to. Yes, which is the third book we’re going to talk about. Right. Like negotiating. You get your foot in the door and then you get the door. That’s it. Yeah, I love that, too. I love that, too. So my three points were just number one, that this is the classic influence Bible like it really did position. Cialdini As the as the Godfather, as I said, of persuasion that said when I just I guess reread, you know, the expanded version and when I went through it, there are a lot of old examples. It comes across as a little bit dated in some parts of it. He gives examples, for example, of shopping, but they’re all in store like people chasing each other for the Tickle Me Elmo dolls and so on, as opposed to things that would be on examples online. And I feel like it would have been nice to have more modern examples because I think sometimes the examples that you include, of course, if you could show over time, that is ideal. But there were so many old examples. The other thing that really struck me and I’ve noticed some podcasts or some older podcasters do this too, they talk about the radio days. So he gave a lot of examples, several examples of radio advertising, and I was like, Oof, how about podcasting? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think this this book is fantastic and it has stood the test of time, but it does seem a little bit dated. And so now if some of some of our listeners are are picking up the book, they might notice that when they’re flipping through it. The second thing I want to say is my hack for memorizing the Seven Levers was I just listed them all and then I was like, What’s an acronym? And the word CLASS and then RU. So I was thinking in my head, I was like, “R U classy?” I like. Adam: I like it. Andrea: Yeah, that’s what I and that’s what I, you know, always did when I was trying to memorize stuff at school. So, so off the top of your head because. Adam: Normally I normally get like 3 or 4 and then forget the others and have to look it up. So now I can’t forget. Andrea: Now, are you classy? Just remember, Andrea said, are you classy? There you go. Oh, perfect. Yeah. And then the last thing I want to say about the book was. When I first heard, I actually attended a webinar about a year and a half a year ago, this this came out in 2021. So I guess it was probably a year ago or so where Cialdini was being interviewed and obviously he was selling his book and so he was talking about unity. And in my head I was like, Unity. Isn’t that the same as social proof? Um, and that said, I think in today’s world it really does deserve to be its own lever. And I read that thinking about social proof as peer pressure and unity as herd behavior is a really good way of distinguishing them. So that’s kind of my last point. Adam: Interesting. Yeah. Nice on that. On that first point about the datedness of it, I feel like I’m kind of resistant to the new version as well because of that. Like the, the old version when you know, it’s old, you know, 30, 40 years old and the examples are 30 for 30, 40 years old, that’s fine. That’s good. But when it’s meant to be new and then you’re still talking about the old stuff as well, I feel like I don’t know. I don’t know if it was a it was a cash grab or if he had more to say or, or what the the reasoning for it. Obviously, it’s a super popular book, so why not? Speaking of more updated edition, but. Andrea: This is how thick this is, You know, how thick the first version was. And this is it’s twice as thick. Um. Adam: Honestly, I’d recommend people read the older version. I don’t know if really if you think the same. Yeah. Andrea: So again, I think you know as a marketer also that. The world of commercial transactions and and interpersonal communication and broadcast media has changed so much because of the Internet that I think in order to stay relevant, you know, you really do need to put some new examples in there. So. Yeah, Yeah. Interesting. Adam: Interesting. Have you read his other book? Pre-suasion. Andrea: I feel like I might have, but I. Adam: I think it must have come out somewhere around like 2017. 2018 maybe? Yeah. Andrea: No, actually, no I didn’t. I remember seeing the, seeing the cover of it and I. Yeah. Did you read it. Yeah. Adam: Yeah I’d, I’d, I’d definitely recommend that as it’s it’s a, you know influences like a ten out of ten persuasions. Like a nine out of ten. Okay. Which is still very, very still very very high. It’s just not quite as at influence levels but the influence is obviously all about the content, you know, the things that you put into the message. And then Pre-suasion is about the context. So it’s sort of more about the delivery and a bit of priming and stuff like that. Um oh, that sounds. Andrea: Like something that I absolutely have to read as a communication coach, right? Adam: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Adam: The drawback is as well, some of the examples are a little dated in the sense of like talking about some early website. It’s obviously the research she did was probably from the early 2000. And like when you when you see the websites, you’re like, that looks like a website from the early 2000, even though the book was from like 2018. But so that’s probably the only, the only drawback. But I think like they work very well hand in hand. Oh, okay. The two, the two books. Andrea: Okay. So now our listener, now they have supplementary listening. I love it. And you have such three. Adam: You’re going to end up with like 10 or 12 by the end of this episode. Andrea: You have a fantastic laugh. I love it. Okay. Thank you. We’re going to move on now to the second book in our list, which is chatter, whoops, chatter, the voice in our head, why it matters and How to harness it. Andrea: So this book is written by Professor Ethan Kross, who who is a psychology professor at the University of Michigan. And he studies introspection, which I think about a lot. And this book was published a couple of years ago also in 2021. And it’s really a book about our self-talk, the voice in our head, which often sounds more like a critic, right? He uses the word rumination a lot, which I love because I think it’s just rumination sounds like so negative. And it just it’s it describes how I feel when I’m ruminating. Do you know what I mean? Um, and he shares all sorts of research. So much of it is primary his, his personal research that he’s done right and also from other sources. And then he shares strategies to help us overcome negative self-talk, as he calls it. So, um, so this is one of my favorite books on the planet. I’m just going to start by saying, um. Andrea: I was thinking before we logged into this conversation, Adam, if I had to choose three books that were my favorite of all time, this is definitely one of the top three. Wow. I believe that people who read this book, uh, will be affected. So. And and there’s a quote just inside the book by Adam Grant, who I’m also a fan of, and he says, quote, I’m reading this, quote, This book is going to fundamentally change some of the most important conversations you have in your life, the ones you have with yourself. So and and so. Not only is the topic helpful, though, and and, you know, important in our lives because the context of our self-talk like we’re constantly talking to ourselves. Right. But I think the way he wrote it is also just. Simply put, like it’s helpful in every way. So it’s a common issue. He provides academic research to provide guidance for us. It’s written a way that’s accessible and there’s a beautiful summary chapter at the end with literally a list of I think it’s like 13 things for you to consider. And so I listened to the book and I read the book and he says at the end, like, no one’s going to do all 13 of these or however many there are. Andrea: But if you can choose 2 or 3 that resonate with you, you know it’ll make a difference. And I can tell you that as a fact, because that’s what the research says. And I was just like, Oh my God, he’s really trying to be helpful. So that’s my first point. My second point is that. I recommend this book quite often to my clients who are suffering from confidence issues, and nowhere does he say this explicitly, but this book is really helpful for talking yourself out of. Imposter syndrome. So if you can apply the learnings from this book, you can, I believe and I can share some specific examples of of how it how things that he recommends could do that. But this book is if you’re suffering from imposter syndrome or if you could use a confidence boost, this is a fantastic resource for you. And. Being faced with confidence issues is one of the most common questions that I get as a communication coach right there. Like I just I feel, you know, like they’ll they’ll use the word I feel like an imposter or they’ll say like, I feel really nervous and I don’t have the guts to speak up or however they’re saying it. Andrea: And the contents of this book will help with that. And I prescribe it and people do love it. And then okay, so that’s my second point. And my third point is my favorite hack in this book. Is one of the main themes that he talks about a lot, which is socially distanced self-talk. So when you catch yourself ruminating or talking negatively in your head or calling yourself an imposter, he says, use second, say your name and talk to yourself in second person. So. Andrea You know you’ve got what it takes, Andrea. You know you’re prepared. Andrea, You got this. So talking to yourself like that. His research shows because they experimented like using first person, second person, third person or using a mantra or using this or using that, talking to yourself in second person. So say your name and then you and then da da da da is for many of my clients, honestly life changing. They’re they’re talking to themselves as if they’re they’re they are their own best friend and it’s working. So that’s my point. Number three, use socially distanced self-talk. Talk to yourself in second person. Adam: Fantastic. Adam: That’s good. One of my points was, well, we went from influence, which I said was like, you know, started top ten, probably still top ten for you. This book, Chatter is top three, which is awesome for me. This is at the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. Um, in the sense of the first time I didn’t finish it, I got about 3040 pages in and gave up. Um, which is a, which is, I suppose a bit of a rarity for me. But I feel like you’ve sold me. I feel like you’ve sold me. I need to give it another crack. I need to give it another shot. Um, my, uh, my main thing, my, my three things were number one only read 30 or 40 pages, then gave up. Number two, I’m keen to hear your top three. And then number three, you might convince me to revisit it. And I think you have. It’s not it’s not a it’s not a long book. It’s like 130, 180 pages. So yeah, Um, the one thing I want to add, aside from my own sort of negativity is I actually see this one pop up a lot, um, of friends talking about this or posting about this who aren’t, uh, you know, necessarily book readers or like I don’t know them through being book people. Uh, but I see them. It’s like the only book that they’ve ever posted about. So it must be something, isn’t it? If someone who’s not posting about books all the time decides that this is the one book that makes them want to post about, Hey, everyone should read this book, it changed my life. I think that’s a pretty good sell. Andrea: That is that is a very interesting observation and I would love to be inside your head. Adam, when you were deciding to put the book aside after 40 pages. Yeah, I know. I know from my own experience and talking to others, you just have to be in the right mindset sometimes. And I’ve reread books that, you know, at one point were my favorite book, and then I tried reading again and I was like, Oh, I don’t see what I saw the first time. And vice versa. I’ve because of recommendations, gone back to a book and then realized it was better than I thought. So I think it depends on. Adam: I think I think my guess is I think because it was it was kind of new. It was pretty popular. Saw people talking about it was like, oh, well, I have to read this book. And because I felt like I had to read it, I was like, Oh, this isn’t what I was expecting and then put it down. Whereas I feel like if like at some random point in the next six months, see it on the shelf, I’m like, Oh, I kind of want to read that book now. I feel like if I want to read it versus have to read it, then I feel like maybe I’ll be more open to it. And then and you might be. It might be we might come in talking another time, I’d be like, Hey, that was a that was a top three book for me. I don’t know what the hell I missed the first time. Andrea: That’s funny. Well, if you do read it again, no matter which way it goes, you got to tell me. Okay? Adam: So I’ll let you know. Andrea: Okay? Okay. Moving on to the third and last book. Oh, I have it here. Getting what? Getting to. Yes. Negotiating agreement without giving in. So this book was originally written by Roger Fisher and William Ury, who co-founded the Harvard Program on Negotiation, and it was originally published. Many years ago. Many decades ago. Over 40 years ago in 1981. And the new newest edition adds a third author who’s also at the Harvard program on negotiation with Bruce Patton, and thought it was really interesting, actually in the preface, how they talk about how he’s not just like an add on, he actually did significantly contribute to this latest edition. Um, so that said, before he joined the crew, Fisher and Ury are known as the godfathers of negotiation. Just like I actually read this online, they are the godfathers of negotiation, just like Cialdini is the godfather of persuasion, right? So here we are reading the Godfathers. Uh, I just realized none of our authors here are women. I just noticed that right now, that’s not good. Adam: Remember, we had a short list. We definitely had some women on the short list. They were? Andrea: Yeah, there were even some books about feminism in that list. So maybe we’ll do this again. But the one thing that I remember when I was at Harvard Business School, hearing all the students in the negotiations class talking about BATNA the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, and that is a big contribution of Fisher and Ury in this book. Um, it’s kind of like the thing that you take in day one of negotiations class, but just a summary of the book. There are four principles that they advocate for any negotiation, including including the BATNA also separating the people from the problem. So it’s not personal. It’s the problem or the challenge is what you’re focusing on. Number two is you focus on interests, not positions. And that’s when you may find more overlap. And I think that one is gold. I literally use that one yesterday when I was negotiating with someone and I realized I’m thinking this, she’s thinking that. And then hang on a second, there is overlap. If we just redefine this a little bit. And so that’s gold. And the third one is work together to invent options that will satisfy both parties. Kind of flows nicely from that second one. And the fourth one is insist on objective criteria. So when things start getting subjective or you’re not really focusing on criteria and tracking them to those. So those are the principles. Um, do you want to go first? Adam: Adam Yeah, yeah, I’m happy to go first. Um, the first thing was that I took was that the idea? They call it positional bargaining and they say that’s the worst way to get a deal. Um, which is kind of the standard if anyone thinks about a negotiation, it’s positional bargaining, I guess, is where the first thing that comes to mind, where person A wants this person B wants this, and then you kind of fight to meet somewhere in the middle. And of course that’s the worst way to go about it, they say, because, uh, firstly, even if you’re not super strongly tied to your position, like if it was just a rough idea of what you wanted, the more you fight for it, the more you dig in your heels and want that thing, even though you might might not have wanted it in the first place. Right? So guess the act of trying to fight for it makes you think you want it even if you didn’t want it. Yeah. Um, also, it means that by meeting in the middle, uh, both of you lose. Really? Like you both. You’re both not getting what you want. Which is why they’re saying that, you know, just fighting over positions is a worse way to do it. You need to follow those four steps to kind of step away from the positions. Yeah. To both try to get close closer to all of what you wanted. Andrea: Yeah. You know what? As you’re describing it that way, Adam, you just described that. Describe that very eloquently. I it made me think that yesterday when I was in this negotiation, I was advocating for something on behalf of my daughter and with with her school. But it this situation had escalated. Right. And I and I was talking to them and I, I actually brought it back to first principles. I was like, here’s why this is important to me and here’s what I really want. Not you have to do this right? And they’re like, No, we can’t. I’m like, Yes, you can. It was it was very like, here’s why, Here’s what we’re thinking. And then they said, Well, here’s why we don’t think we can, but actually. And then bam, Yeah, it works. Adam: And that’s perfect because you kind of did all those steps in one, almost like you were stepping away from the people versus the positions. Like you’re not just because you think this and they think this. They’re evil, you’re good, you’re fighting. Everybody’s against each other. As soon as you kind of step away from that and realize, hey, we’re not we shouldn’t be fighting over this. This is actually what I want, even though there might be some other way to achieve it, even if you don’t think we can do it exactly this way, and then you kind of sitting on the same side of the table working together rather than, you know, head to head, trying to battle to get what you want. So, yeah, I think that’s I think that’s perfect. I think the, um. The second thing, remember, is a story that kind of illustrates this, a pretty cheesy story, but it always sticks in my brain about two kids fighting over an orange, you know, and they say, no, I want the orange, No, I want the orange. So they cut it in half and take half each. Adam: And then one kid bites into the orange, he eats the fruit and throws away the skin and the other kid peels off the skin, uses it to bake a cake and throws away the fruit. So if they had to step back and said, you know, not just I want the orange, if one person says, hey, I’m using this skin to bake a cake and one says, I want to eat that orange for a tasty snack, they could have both got 100% of what they wanted, but in the end they only got 50% and the other got chucked away. So that’s always like the the cheesy little story that sticks in my head about this, this book to remember to kind of do all those things, you know, step, you know, separate people from possessions, focus on the actual interests. Like what do you actually want? Not just I want the orange, but what I want the orange because I want a snack or I want the orange because I’m baking a cake. Yeah, I think. Andrea: That’s a beautiful.Metaphor, actually. Before you enter into negotiation, ask yourself what is what is the orange and what is the orange peel? And. Right. Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then the third thing is, is I guess just, you know, we’ve been talking about negotiation and you’re probably typically think, you know, buying a house or buying a car or negotiating for a pay rise. But really, negotiation is a lot broader than that as well. It could be as as, you know, mundane as, you know, discussing with your partner, what are you going to eat for dinner or what restaurant are you going to go to? You know, what movie are you going to see? It could be talking, discussing with your kids, who’s doing what chores this week. All these things, I think, are negotiations that we can apply these principles to. Andrea: So, Adam, that was my number one. And they say this in the beginning and at the end, we’re all negotiating all the time. You don’t need to be a union leader. You’re negotiating with whatever your kids school, with your kids, with your partner, with your boss, with your friends, with your husband, you know, and negotiating is a life skill, whether you consciously think about it or not. So reading this book can help you with life. How, how, how convincing is that? That was my first point. I started really, General. My second point was. I really respected how the authors said again and again that one of the the tenets or principles of their framework is not hiding anything from the other. Right. Like you’re not you’re not deceiving or hiding anything and it it the way that they recommend. Negotiating has nothing to do with being sneaky or having a poker face. Right? Like sometimes when you think about negotiating, it’s like, well, just pretend that this is all we have or just put your poker face on. It’s not like that at all. It’s actually, in fact the complete opposite as far as they’re concerned. It’s about here are the principles that we’re going to use to negotiate and can you agree with these? And in fact, they say that if you can’t get the other parties, the other party or parties, to agree that you shouldn’t negotiate, you shouldn’t participate in the negotiation at all if it’s a formal negotiation. Right. So I thought that was. Andrea: Interesting. And. Maybe. Maybe inspiring. Guess if I’m thinking about entering into negotiation and I’m feeling really, um, you know, I’m thinking about the car salesman, right? Who’s. Who’s lying about going to ask his boss if it’s okay? Right. That’s. That would be violating this principle here. And then the third the third thing I’m surprised you didn’t bring this up was and I’m really curious to hear I’m reaching over to grab another book is comparing getting to Yes with the book that I hear so many people talking about. My clients say to me, Do you have any books to recommend, Andrea, in terms of communication skills? I mean, other than never split the difference, Everybody’s read that, right? They always say that he must have sold millions and millions and millions of books. Yeah. Um, so, well, I’m going to start this off and then I want to punt it back to you. But my read of Never Split the Difference is really more about scripts and questions to ask exactly what to say when the other one offers something. How to get to a yes, how to get to a no and and framing a no and all that stuff. Right? Versus getting to yes is more about the principles of negotiating. That was my take on the main difference. I think they compliment each other quite beautifully actually. Um, yeah, there is some redundancy of course, but it’s they’re mostly quite different from each other, but they complement each other. What do you think? Adam: Yeah, I think the getting to Yes is you can tell one’s written by Harvard professors and one’s written by a hostage negotiator that the that getting to yes is you know we’re talking about the formal four step process and here’s the here’s the things that you need to follow to do it very structured and rigid and you know negotiating before the negotiation about how you’re going to negotiate all that stuff is perfect for the classroom and for, you know, most standard negotiations, whereas they’re never split. The difference kind of takes a little bit more real world where he’s talking about his, you know, someone’s robbed a bank and they’ve got 15 hostages inside. How do you you’re not going to think, okay, let’s negotiate about how we’re going to negotiate this negotiation. You kind of it’s a it’s a lot more about the I think I think it’s also a lot more about sort of the interpersonal side of things as well. Yeah, The never never split the difference. So a lot more of the sort of real, real world tangible stuff about how you almost how you talk as well or how you talk or how you, you know, even a little bit of nonverbal communication stuff as well. Yeah. So I think think they work very well together. And then if we’re talking about supplementary reading, just to add another one to the list as well, the follow up to getting to yes is getting past no. So it obviously the first one you’re talking about getting to. Yes. The second one is okay, Well, you didn’t get to. Yes. It ended up as a no. How do you how do you keep going to get past. No. To get back to that. Yes. Um, which you mentioned you mentioned about how it started with two authors. It went to three. Getting past No is only one of the three. So I don’t know if they split up or, or what. And one went their own way and just did a did a solo book. But I think it’s a great follow up. Andrea: One of them passed away. Oh yeah, one of them’s deceased. I think it better not say. But one of the original authors is is now a professor emeritus. He’s basically a retired professor and the other one is deceased. So that’s probably why. Adam: That’s probably why there’s only one author. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, but yeah, I think that, I think sort of all three of those if you’re, if you really looking to go from a one out of ten negotiator to a 6 or 7 out of ten negotiator, I think definitely read those three books. And then if you want to get to a nine or a ten out of ten, obviously the only way is then to actually practice in the real world. But getting all those those three books inside your brain and then practicing with it, you can really improve your negotiation skills. And if we’re thinking about like return on investment, you know, three books might cost you 70 to 100 bucks, might cost you 20 to 30 hours of reading. Um, if you can then negotiate a better deal on your car, negotiate a pay rise, negotiate. You can eat more of the dinners that you want to eat because you’re negotiating with your partner every night. Maybe that improves your life a hell of a lot. Um, I think. Andrea: I love this point. Adam Oh, my goodness. Okay, I’ve got. I’ve got something to add to what if you took the seven levers that Cialdini introduces and use them in the negotiation using the scripts provided in Never split the difference and the principles provided in getting to Yes. I think the world is one. Adam: Out of ten. Yeah. Don’t even get me started. On Pre-suasion about how you how you set the context of it then. Andrea: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Oh, my goodness. And then. And then if anything does go wrong and you’re ruminating about it, then you just read chapter. Adam: Oh, perfect. Andrea: And suddenly you are the happiest and most successful self that you could be. I think that’s a. Fantastic place to stop. Adam: I think so too. Andrea: Are you ready for me to fire the five rapid fire questions at you? Adam: Oh, yeah. Okay. Andrea: We’re going to make this rapid. Number one, what are your pet peeves? Adam: Poorly structured documents. It doesn’t have to be well-written. It just needs to be clear. Andrea: Nice. Oh, I have a book for you on that. Have you read? Smart brevity. Adam: No, but it sounds right up my alley.  Andrea: Yes. They actually have formula in there for structuring everything from emails to, you know, documents. So everything. Yep. You’re going to you’re going to love it. It’s very easy. Very easy read written by the three founders of Axios. So question number two. What kind of learner are you? Adam: Visual, hence the annoyance at poor structure. Think. Think. Obviously being a being a book reader. Think. Definitely visual. Andrea: Okay. Excellent. Me too. Question number three. Introvert or extrovert? Adam: I think I’m sort of an extroverted introvert. I think I’m probably like 7030 towards introvert. Andrea: Okay. You’re an you’re an ambivert, which is most people. I ask it that way to be provocative, but most of us are in the middle. And that’s an ambivert. Okay. Adam: Yeah. Andrea: Question number four. Your. Communication preference for personal conversations. What’s the media that you like or the app or the platform that you like to use to communicate with your friends? Adam: I think, text. Text for short stuff and then call for longer stuff. I think text is good because you don’t have the phone call anxiety. Especially if it’s something short. You can reply to it on your own time. But then obviously if it’s I don’t want to also do 6 or 7 back and forth texts as well. So if it gets longer, let’s just get it done on a on a quick phone call. Andrea: Very pragmatic. Okay. The last the last question that I have for you I’m really curious about this one is what podcast do you find yourself recommending the most lately? Adam: It’s a tough. That was the hardest question. Um. Because I want to say what you will learn our own podcast, but don’t really recommend it. I think there’s some, uh, I don’t think I’ve ever recommended someone listen to it. Actually, I. Andrea: Was going to say not including my podcast in your podcast, I should have said. Adam: Exactly. I also listen to a lot of weird stuff, like, I’m obsessed with Survivor and Seinfeld, so I listen to a lot of Survivor podcasts and Seinfeld podcasts. Um, but probably, um. Probably three books by Neil Pasricha to do it. Very, very prescient, prescient for this topic as well that we did three books. He interviews people about what are their three most formative books. Andrea: Yeah, okay. That’s very appropriate. Okay. Is there anything else you want to share with listeners? Maybe it could be anything about one of the books that we just talked about or another book that you might want to recommend. So knowing that the talk about Talk listeners, I know because I talk to them all the time, they have a growth mindset and they are very ambitious about their careers. So what book in your in your library behind you and all the books that you’ve read, do you think might help them the most? Adam: I think the thing that will help the most just to go a little bit better is not any one specific book, but to commit to reading more books. Guess that you say people have already got the growth mindset, which is kind of the key to it. But I think if you’re always curious, always wanting to learn more and if you can, you know, if you’re if you’re reading a book a month, try and up that to two a month or if you’re if you’re reading three a year, try to get to five, five a year. Um, I think the the more that you read and then as you said as well like putting it into practice as well, that’s going to help you a hell of a lot. Um, I don’t there’s, I could, I could recommend hundreds of specific books. Um, but I think the, the recommendation is just to start reading things that you want to read. Yeah. Yeah. Andrea: So, so I am going to add one other question. Just because I know my readers want to know this, and I also really want to know this. Do you have any tips for devouring books more at a faster pace without compromising kind of what we’re internalizing? Do you listen to them? Do you read them all? Do you buy hard copies? What time of day do you read? Do you have rules about when you read or don’t read? Like, how can we become more productive readers? Adam: Yeah, well, I’m probably I probably also need to work this out. The last three months, I’ve read the least I’ve ever read since I started reading, I guess because I just had it. A new daughter, a three month old who’s taking up a lot more time. So all that reading time is very quickly disappeared. Yeah. Andrea: You’re going to be reading different books, Adam. You’re going to be reading these? Adam: Yeah, exactly. Andrea: Congratulations, by the way. I didn’t know that. Congratulations.  Adam: Thank you. So I need to work out. How do I. How do I read as well? I think the the main one for me was to previously used to see reading as like a specific, um, extra activity, I guess, where you’re like, okay, you know, at the end of the day, I’m in bed and I’ve got to read for 30 minutes or like something that you specifically, um, set time apart, for which for some people that’s important. Like you have to like, structure it that way. If you’re going to do it, like you have to, you know, put it, um, prioritize it in that way. But for me, it was, it was more about the incidental stuff. It was more about the you’re on the train and so you’re squeezing 15 minutes or you’re waiting in the, in the dentist’s office and so you can squeeze in eight minutes or, you know, you’ve just you’ve just finished, you know, whatever report you’re going to do and you need to have a quick break and then you can squeeze 12 minutes of reading in there. So for me, it was just kind of fitting in the the incidental stuff. And also probably if you get 30 or 40 pages into a book you don’t like, then put it aside and pick up something else that might keep you going a bit. A bit quicker. Andrea: Yeah, life is too short to finish a book that you’re not into. I agree. I agree. Unless… Adam: I used to be…As soon as I read page one, I was reading all the way to the end, so it took a long time for me to be like, okay, no, I don’t have to. I can put this one down. Yeah. Andrea: Okay. Well, Adam, I have to say, this honestly was even more fun than I thought it was going to be. I learned some. Like I said, I love your laugh and I appreciate your insights that you shared with the listeners and with me. And I just want to say thank you so much. Adam: Thank you. It was great fun. A nice new format put me on the spot, revisiting a few old books that I hadn’t read for a long time and then also inspiring me to revisit a book that I half read or maybe one eighth read. And maybe now I can go and pick it up again and finish it off. Andrea: Yeah, great. Thanks. And I hope we can do this again. Adam, thank you so much. Adam: Amazing. Thank you. Bye. The post #127 Influence, Chatter & Getting to Yes: 3 book summaries with Adam Ashton appeared first on Talk About Talk.