169. Don't Be a ZQ: Make Your Conversations Count

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Many of us dread small talk, yet big things happen in chit chat and our starter conversations. Today in this episode, derived from a LinkedIn Live event, you'll learn essential tools to make your small talk a success. I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. 

[00:00:24] I am super excited today to speak again with Alison Wood Brooks. Alison joined me a while back for Episode 73. Alison is the O'Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School. Alison's research focuses on the science of conversation and interaction, and she teaches an award winning course called Talk. Without further ado, let's jump into our new LinkedIn Live. 

[00:00:52] Alison, as we start our conversation, I'm curious, what makes for a good conversation? 

[00:00:57] Alison Wood Brooks: Oh, Matt, what a huge question. At a core people want to feel connected, loved, alive, productive. But how to get there varies from one moment to the next. It's a surprisingly tricky task for something that we start doing as toddlers, talking to each other.

[00:01:14] Matt Abrahams: Yeah, how have you found it works best to actually start conversations? I know a lot of us, myself included, can feel very uncomfortable and awkward in those situations. 

[00:01:25] Alison Wood Brooks: There's a great quote from Veep, Selina Meyer goes, every conversation starts with a sentence. So, you know, you start with hello, but the question is, what do you do after hello?

[00:01:35] And I didn't really realize how deeply people dread small talk, like starting conversations, until I started teaching this course at Harvard called Talk. And I realized quite quickly that dread of small talk is just incredibly widespread. Almost everybody feels either some anxiety or some sort of, ugh, I don't want to do small talk, which means that it's a sort of problem to be solved. The reason I didn't really realize how much people dread small talk is because I sort of love it. Which is, I don't know if that's like a weird flex. I think not. I think it's embarrassing. 

[00:02:12] Matt Abrahams: And you're so good at it. 

[00:02:13] Alison Wood Brooks: Well, the reason I love it is because I think it's like a treasure hunt. I think it's this trodden ground that can be very mundane, but you have to do it. So dreading it is a little bit counterproductive. It's a place you have to start when you're talking to strangers. It's a place you have to start, even with people who you haven't seen in a while. And when you're there, the purpose it's serving is as a search, a place where you're looking for golden nuggets. So like opportunities to find something that's going to make you move in the direction of productivity, connection, fun, and something deeper. 

[00:02:47] Matt Abrahams: I think the dread of small talk is something many of us are familiar with. I think though, as you've alluded to, small talk affords us great opportunities. I think there are big things that happen during small talk and maybe you and I together can help rebrand small talk, so people actually get excited about it. 

[00:03:03] Alison Wood Brooks: It's unavoidable and very important. The trick actually isn't avoiding small talk. It's about making sure you don't get stuck there too long. 

[00:03:11] Matt Abrahams: Ah, so how you initiate it and then move on. Speaking of small talk and conversation with people, I want to recognize that we have people joining us from all over the world and very soon we want to hear from you. So you'll be able to ask us questions and enter those questions into the chat, and Alison and I will answer those questions. Share with me your best approach to initiating small talk. What I do is, I like to just ask questions or make observations about things I've seen. How do you get these conversations started?

[00:03:41] Alison Wood Brooks: So in my course, we talk about a framework that can help, and then we'll get into sort of specific strategies of what to say. It can be helpful to think about a topic pyramid. And at the bottom of this pyramid is where small talk lives. It's topics that you could talk about with anyone. Which is why we all revert to talking about the weather, or how are you, how was your weekend?

[00:04:01] It's stuff that you can connect with anybody about. In the next tier of the pyramid is as medium talk, so slightly tailored to the person you're talking to. And tailoring it can mean that you're asking questions about them, things that they're excited to talk about. Or just topics that they have some expertise or interest in, so just getting more and more personalized. At the top of the pyramid is this sort of conversational Nirvana when you feel uniquely connected to someone, you're talking about something that only maybe the two of you can possibly talk about in a way that only the two of you can talk about it. It's where we have this magical shared reality together. 

[00:04:38] So with my students, we talk about fostering just a little bit more awareness of where you are on this topic pyramid. It's not like small talk is bad, but it's helpful to know when you're there and how long you've been there. The idea is also not always to get to the peak. It would be weird to try and aim to have this like wonderful, deep, meaningful conversation with a barista at Starbucks in a thirty second interaction or with your neighbor who's just like taking out the trash. 

[00:05:05] So the goal is not always to get to the peak of the pyramid, but to foster an awareness of where you are. And then, of course, don't get stuck at the base of the pyramid for too long. And just like you're saying, Matt, the best way to get out of it is by asking questions. So that you're constantly looking for these golden nuggets in the treasure hunt of a way to launch away from the base of the pyramid.

[00:05:27] Another way that you can get out of the base of the pyramid, if your partner's not really giving you a lot, you can be asking lots of questions and they're not giving you a lot. So just start to volunteer stuff of your own, right? Like, okay, I know this guy's from Ohio, so I'm going to talk about, I went to German Village once with my husband. I thought it was such a charming area in Columbus. So you just start volunteering things that they might latch onto, and hopefully that will pull you up from the base of the pyramid as well. 

[00:05:52] Matt Abrahams: I really like this idea of thinking about where you're at in terms of the conversation you're having and how you start at one place, but the idea is to move upward. And starting with observation, starting with question, and if that doesn't get you moving, then you can reveal some information about yourself.

[00:06:08] I find that taking just a few moments in advance of entering a circumstance where there is small talk, where I expect there to be, to just think about some things that are of the moment or going on, can help prepare me and help me feel maybe even excited to enter in the interaction. 

[00:06:26] Alison Wood Brooks: So now you're leaning into this idea of topic prep, which is, we've done research on topic prep, Matt. It comes in the form of thinking ahead just for even like thirty seconds about questions that you can ask. So if you're seeing somebody that you know, thinking for like ten seconds, okay, what were they doing between the last time that we talked and now? Were they taking guitar lessons? Was their dad sick? What's their kid up to? So that when you are together, it's right on the tip of your tongue to say like, oh, how's your dad doing these days? Or how are those guitar lessons going? Or, oh yeah, your kid was playing hockey. Did he make the team? So you're ready with those questions and they're right there for you. 

[00:07:02] Matt Abrahams: I just did this with a friend of mine who last time I saw them, I knew that they were buying new running shoes. So the first thing I asked about is how's the running going? And it was a great way to get started. 

[00:07:11] Alison Wood Brooks: It's an example of what we call long term listening, which means, you were actually listening to what they were saying last time you were together. Listening is very hard, you've now proven to them that not only did you hear them, and think about the fact that they were going to go and get these new running shoes. But you were smart enough and caring enough to remember to bring it up the next time.

[00:07:31] Matt Abrahams: I appreciate this notion of long time listening. I think that's a really interesting concept. I want to dig deeper into listening, but before we do, curious if you've had an interaction recently, Alison, where you feel particularly proud of how you started the conversation. 

[00:07:45] Alison Wood Brooks: What a great question. It reminds me of a question that my friend recommended when I'm, you know, fifteen years ago at the beginning of my career, he often recommended asking, starting conversations with, what are you excited about lately? Everybody has an answer to that question and whatever their answer is, has this built in level of enthusiasm in it. Like whatever they say, it's going to be interesting to talk about. 

[00:08:08] Matt Abrahams: I like that a lot. And before we end, I want to make sure I ask you that question. Speaking of questions, Kelly has written a question that I think is really important related to the listening question that you said, the long term listening question.

[00:08:18] What do you do if your memory is not that good and you can't remember things? I mean, as I get older, I struggle with this. Any suggestions for how to initiate conversation when you know there was something there, but you just can't remember it. 

[00:08:31] Alison Wood Brooks: Kelly, you're not alone. We all struggle with memory. Human memory is remarkably flawed and filled with holes. And in fact, when we study people, we make them try and remember their conversations and almost no one can remember the details of a conversation they had. We're pretty good at remembering loosely what topics we covered, but details are quite hard. So you're not alone, uh, we're here with you. 

[00:08:52] I'm also working with AARP, and the elderly, because this is one of the things that they think a lot about as our memory starts to fade as we get older, what can we do conversationally to stay engaged and remain good listeners? And how can we exercise this memory muscle in the context of conversation? Really easy hack, which we steal from all sort of sales people who use customer relation by the CRM model, right?

[00:09:16] Which is just write things down. If something struck you from a conversation and you're going to forget it, make a little voice note in your phone or put it in your calendar for the next time that you're going to see that person. Just make a note to yourself like, hey Kelly, self, remember, ask about their running shoes, or they said that they were thinking about maybe starting this book club and remember to ask, follow up about the book club. Follow up and memory are so important and we have to anticipate that our memories are flawed and to do that, it really helps to write things down. 

[00:09:46] Matt Abrahams: Yeah, and I'll just double down on that. I am somebody who journals at the end of every day. It's a way of reflection on my communication and things that I'm thinking about. And if I have a really good conversation, I'll write down what made it so good. And then if I meet the person again, I can always go back and remind myself. So not only does it have the benefit of reflection, but it also helps you when you have to meet folks. So I find that very useful as well. A question came in from Ivy. Can you ask too many questions in conversation? 

[00:10:17] Alison Wood Brooks: The short answer is yes, but the risk of asking too many questions is so much further out on the question asking spectrum than you think. So when we studied people on going on thousands of first dates, we never found the tipping point. Like no one asked enough questions, that the relationship with linear, there was no tipping point for asking too many questions.

[00:10:39] Now, when you look in a more conflictual environment like negotiations or sales, you sometimes do see a tipping point where a salesperson can ask too many questions or in an intense negotiation, a counterparty can ask too many questions. But that tipping point is way further out than you would think. So far out that it's actually hard to get there.

[00:11:00] It would be as if you're asking three questions per minute during the entire interaction. So, when our instincts are saying, oh gosh, I don't want to ask too many. It's better to think like, that's really hard. And what is much more common and a bigger risk is not asking enough. You never want to leave a conversation asking zero questions. We call these in my book, we call these ZQ. Don't be a ZQ. That's never good in any interaction. It means that you're not actually having dialogue. And the risk of asking too few questions is much higher than asking too many. 

[00:11:36] Matt Abrahams: ZQ for zero questions, yes? 

[00:11:38] Alison Wood Brooks: Right. Yeah. 

[00:11:39] Matt Abrahams: Yes. I love that you study different environments and how conversation takes place in those different environments or interactions that have different purposes. A date is very different than a sales call, different from a negotiation, at least in many ways, they're different. 

[00:11:54] In looking at the different contexts, can you extrapolate some key ideas or best practices? So if you're in a situation where you're trying to influence somebody versus if you're just trying to get along and get to know somebody. Are there differences in how we should approach this and the types of conversation starters we use or the ways we move up the pyramid? 

[00:12:14] Alison Wood Brooks: Yeah. So in any conversation, whenever you're together with another person, your behavior should adjust, right, to fit the context and our goals shift constantly. They shift from one conversation to the next. They also shift from one topic to the next. So imagine that you are having a meeting at work and you know that for part of it, you're going to be negotiating for a higher salary. But probably for another part of it, you're going to be like asking about their kids, or asking about a project that they've been working on, or brainstorming about a new thing, a new collaboration.

[00:12:49] So I think, and this is what we get into in my book, we've a little bit made the mistake of thinking of conversations at the conversation level. And how things change from one conversation to the next. But it can help a lot to actually start thinking at the topic level. How do our goals change from one topic to the next? As soon as we're done negotiating about my salary, everybody's goals shift as we move to talk about this collaborative project we're going to work on. And so being a little bit more aware of how your own goals are shifting and how your partner's goals are shifting should influence how you behave. And in my course, we talk about this sort of two by two framework to figure out what your goals even are.

[00:13:28] One axis is relational, where we have some goals that are meant to help the relationship and the other person and some goals that are very selfish, which that's a very human thing to do. It's not bad. And then the other axis is information. So many of our goals are about exchanging information. That's sort of the point of communication. But many of our goals are not about information exchange at all. In fact, we want to keep a secret or we want to avoid talking about something, or we just want to fill time. And I think a lot of people forget that those low informational goals matter tremendously, especially enjoyment. Something has to be fun in order for the conversation to go well. 

[00:14:07] Matt Abrahams: I really appreciate this discussion of thinking about your goals. As you know, Alison, I strongly believe that all communication needs to be goal driven. And thinking about your goal and thinking about how the goal changes makes a lot of sense. And thinking about the relational and informational components as well. And then there's a third component sometimes to think about, which is the action. What's the desired action? So it's information in motion and action that really help us guide our communication. And even in spontaneous situations, answering a question, making small talk, giving feedback, you can think about what your goal is and then tailor your communication to focus on that goal. 

[00:14:43] Alison Wood Brooks: Can I ask you, Matt, when you are in small talk at the bottom of the topic pyramid in small talk world. Um, what are your goals? What are you thinking about? 

[00:14:52] Matt Abrahams: I often want to just make the other person feel comfortable. I want to start from a place of comfort. I think that allows for connection. That's not to say that conversation can't be uncomfortable. In many cases I think there are benefits to people feeling a little pushed. But at the beginning, I just want to connect and feel comfortable, and that's why I'll often ask a question of somebody or make an observation to invite people to join me. I see small talk is really an invitation to engage. 

[00:15:19] Alison Wood Brooks: Yeah, and even if you know that you're going to get to harder topics later, you have to connect first, right? Like you have to feel safe and comfortable together before you can go on to do hard things. You have to start from a place of comfort and safety and closeness.

[00:15:33] Matt Abrahams: And speaking of how that can be difficult, Tashone writes, are there different ways to initiate conversations and maintain them virtually versus when we're in person? 

[00:15:43] Alison Wood Brooks: This is a very appropriate question. Thank you Tashone. I, right now, in my class that I teach called Talk, I'm having my students do what I call a communication audit. And I want you to think about this too. Think about twenty minutes in your life where you found one of those really busy manic communicative times. So you've got text messages coming in, you've got emails coming in, you may be on the phone with somebody, and also there's somebody trying to talk to you face to face.

[00:16:10] So this is quite common for people these days. We're constantly toggling between communicative modalities. You're getting DMs all the time. And so the question becomes, not only how do we do small talk better in digital modalities, but how do we toggle from looking down at a screen or looking at a computer screen and then turning our eyes and meeting the gaze of real human beings. So how are we doing these things quick in quick succession with many people? We're in a world where our attention is so fractured and so fragmented and so pulled in so many different directions. Do our brains actually have the capacity to do this really surprisingly tricky conversation task when so many different messages are coming our way from so many different places?

[00:16:56] The fundamental principles of small talk are always the same, or just like Matt was just saying, start with connection and treat it like a treasure hunt. You're looking for golden nuggets that can make things more interesting and more meaningful. But the trick is, how do we do this when we're in information poor environments where you can't use your body language as much, or maybe they can't even see you if you're on the phone. But those same basic principles of connection apply everywhere. 

[00:17:22] Matt Abrahams: So there's some foundational principles and then you have to think about the modalities. I think actually that virtual tools can afford us some interesting ways of connecting and making small talk. So I think of a conversation I'm having, where in the midst of it, somebody gives me a thumbs up reaction or a party horn.

[00:17:41] That gives me some interesting information. One, about how we're connecting, but two, it gives me something that I can use to escalate the conversation or move to a different topic. So there's stuff going on there that we can actually leverage. I want to spend just a minute coming back to this notion of listening, because I know you have had some recent research about listening and not just active listening, but actually saying what you've heard. Can you share a bit more about listening? Because I know it plays a critical role in conversations. 

[00:18:13] Alison Wood Brooks: It's so funny. My course is called Talk, my book is called Talk. And really at the core of all of it isn't about talking. It's about listening. 

[00:18:22] Matt Abrahams: Right. 

[00:18:22] Alison Wood Brooks: In our research on listening, what we found is that number one, it's incredibly hard. It is very effortful. And so if you put in the effort to actually listen to people, you should capitalize on that effort and show it to them. So there's decades and decades of research and work on this idea of active listening, which is mostly using nonverbal cues like nodding and smiling and leaning forward and making people feel like you're hearing them in that moment.

[00:18:53] This is great. So making people like you're listening to them is a great first step. Here's the tricky thing. Number one, it can be faked. Number two, there's a better way to convey you're listening and that is with your words. So even though listening happens while the other person is talking, you have this unique opportunity in conversation to immediately respond to it with your words.

[00:19:16] And so in research together with Hanne Collins, who's a professor at UCLA, what we found is speaking back to someone what you've heard is just incredibly powerful. When we think of people who are charismatic, often this is what they're doing. So they're asking follow up questions that follow up on what someone has just said. They're paraphrasing maybe something that a few different people have said and summarizing it in a nice way. They're using callbacks, which are when you reference back to anything that was said at the beginning of a conversation or even earlier in a relationship. So this was your example earlier, Matt, when you followed up with your friend about their running shoes and you said, hey, like how's running going?

[00:19:55] Not only is that a nice follow up question, it's a callback, it's a distant callback. And it's so magical because it shows that you were listening all those many days ago when they were sharing with you that they were going to get new running shoes. It makes them feel validated, like you heard them, like you care, and that you want to know more. And as we said at the beginning of this conversation, feeling connected and heard and understood is really like the core goal of all of this, is why we interact with each other. 

[00:20:22] Matt Abrahams: So Alison, I'm going to do a call back here. What's something that you're excited about? 

[00:20:27] Alison Wood Brooks: I am so excited about my new book. It's called Talk: The Science of Conversation and The Art of Being Ourselves. It is based on fifteen years worth of research on conversation. It follows the trajectory of the course that I developed at the Harvard Business School, also called Talk. So I'm just really excited to share this book with the world. It comes out January 21st and you can pre-order the book now. 

[00:20:51] Matt Abrahams: Pre-order it now, right. And I am privileged to have received an early copy. And those who listen to me and have read the stuff I do, know that I like very practical, tactical stuff that can really immediately impact our communication. And Alison, your book does that well and it grounds it in science. And as everybody listening hears, uh, your tone and your approach, your energy for what you do comes out. So I am very excited for your book to launch. Thank you for that. 

[00:21:16] Alison Wood Brooks: Absolutely. Now, I'm reading a comment from John who's saying we've got Think Fast Talk Smart, the book, we've got the podcast, when are we getting the musical? You are also excited about a new offering that's coming out of Think Fast Talk Smart. 

[00:21:29] Matt Abrahams: Thank you, John. You never want to hear me sing. Alison is actually part of a band, and she does sing. Somebody, that you would benefit from hearing sing, not me. Yes, I am very excited. At Think Fast Talk Smart we're coming up on our fifth year. Our five year anniversary is in January. And in advance of that, we're actually launching a premium offering. So for those of you who find value in our cost free offering, we're going to actually add a premium offering that gives deeper dives into our content, gives access to more material, more content and more opportunities to build a community, please do consider the premium. And all of this is based on what Alison is all about, what I'm all about, which is ultimately helping people to hone and develop those communication skills. Because at the end of the day, communication is how we relate. It's how we connect and it's how we grow. Alison, any parting thoughts? I really appreciate you spending time with me in this live environment, and I certainly wish you well, any parting thoughts? 

[00:22:25] Alison Wood Brooks: Just thank you so much, Matt, and everybody listening in. Get out there and don't be afraid of small talk. Lean into it. Find the golden nuggets. Ask lots of questions.

[00:22:34] Matt Abrahams: And with that, I simply say thank you to all of you for joining. Thank you for your support of Think Fast Talk Smart. Stay tuned for Alison's book and our premium offering, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. 

[00:22:45] Thank you for listening to this LinkedIn Live Think Fast Talk Smart episode. This episode was produced by Shelby Merryweather and me, Matt Abrahams. The full Deep Thinks video version of this LinkedIn live is available at Think Fast Talk Smart Premium, which you can join at fastersmarter.io/premium. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about small talk and conversation, please check out episode 73 with Alison Wood Brooks and episode 89 with Rachel Greenwald. Find more of our episodes on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter.