196. Ditch the Dictionary: Communicate Confidently Through Connection

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Culture and context have a huge influence over our communication, regardless of if you're a native speaker or someone new to the language. My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. Today I really look forward to speaking with Lindsay McMahon. Lindsay is a friend and mentor. Her All Ears English Podcast is wildly successful and incredibly helpful to anyone wishing to improve their English as a non-native speaker or someone who is well versed in English. Some of you might remember, Lindsay and I collaborated on an episode where we interviewed Whitney Johnson as we discussed the power of personal disruption. Welcome Lindsay. 

[00:00:49] Lindsay McMahon: Thank you for having me on, Matt. I appreciate it. 

[00:00:51] Matt Abrahams: You have been laser focused for years on helping people around the world communicate better in English. You have your podcast, you offer courses and, and even more. Can you share what you see as some of the biggest challenges for those who are newer to English?

[00:01:06] Lindsay McMahon: You know what we do at All Ears English, we focus on helping English language learners around the world, especially those who are interested in having a global career. We end up interacting with a lot of students of English who are at the intermediate to advanced level, and I think their challenge is unique. What they end up doing is kind of, it ends up being a confidence issue and a lack of the opportunities to practice. You feel that you need to practice to gain confidence, but you don't have confidence because you are not practicing. So it's a bit of a catch 22, and that's why what we do on our show and just broadly, I think is a really good idea, is to shift the focus to something a little bit deeper rather than just ourselves and our confidence levels.

[00:01:48] Matt Abrahams: How do you actually help people do that? Because that loop also is very similar to the loop I deal with a lot when I work with my students and the people I coach around anxiety and speaking. We're nervous about speaking in front of others, and one of the best ways to feel more confident is to actually speak in front of others but that anxiety prevents you from doing it. So what are some things that you encourage people to do in those circumstances? 

[00:02:11] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah, it kind of comes down to a broad philosophy, which is finding what you really stand for when it comes to communication, what is communication to you. And for us in All Ears English as, as the co-host of the show, um, as the founder of the show, we believe it's about connection. It's about human connection. It's more important than our own self-esteem, our own self-confidence, how our voice sounds. What really matters is are we connecting to number one, is it our audience if we're giving a presentation, is it the human being in front of us who maybe needs help, needs advice? Kind of seeing past, I don't feel confident, I feel nervous, and thinking, I'm here to connect. That is the way to get past that problem. 

[00:02:55] Matt Abrahams: And you have a lovely saying, connection over perfection, and I have borrowed that and find such value in it. Many people in their communication, be they native speakers or non-native speakers, want to get it right as if there is some amazingly right way to say it. And I think you and I both agree that there is no right way and that pressure we put on ourselves to do it right, really gets in the way. 

[00:03:19] Lindsay McMahon: I think it comes back to education. You know, growing up, we're in school, we're memorizing facts for a test, right? We're taught to think that way in terms of learning anything new. And that presents a problem because I think that learning a language is, and learning communication broadly, is so different from memorizing historical facts or even learning math equations. 

[00:03:39] Matt Abrahams: You know, you have covered a lot of topics on your show and in the work you do. Can you highlight for us one or two of the biggest, perhaps most important communication lessons you've uncovered that help people effectively communicate?

[00:03:52] Lindsay McMahon: So recently we are building our professional English course where I interview CEOs and people who are in middle management to upper management, project managers, product managers, and I asked them about interviews specifically. And almost all of them, the first response in terms of their tips for a successful interview was know the company, research the company, understand what is on their mind as a company. And I think the same thing applies to communication. Know your audience, know who you're talking to, and being willing to tailor what you're saying to who you're talking to. 

[00:04:27] Matt Abrahams: Yes, absolutely. And across all of our podcast episodes and all the work I do, understanding your audience is by far the most prevalent bit of advice. You help people speak in a different language, in this case, English? 

[00:04:42] Lindsay McMahon: Yes. 

[00:04:42] Matt Abrahams: Do you help people listen as well? 

[00:04:44] Lindsay McMahon: We've done twenty-three hundred episodes on All Ears English at this point, so we've covered a lot of topics.

[00:04:49] Matt Abrahams: We're coming up to 200. I'm in awe of what you've done, but yes. 

[00:04:53] Lindsay McMahon: We have done episodes on showing that you're listening verbally. It is incredibly important to listen. But it's also important to show that you're listening, right? Because that's the cue, that's the signal that I'm here for you. I wanna hear what you have to say. So we've done episodes on how do we show that, and what are the utterances, what are the expressions that would support the speaker.

[00:05:15] Matt Abrahams: Give us some examples of what you've learned. I can imagine saying uh-huh and nodding your head. What else do we do? 

[00:05:22] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah. I really like expressions like, what I'm hearing you say is, what I'm hearing is, I hear you. There are a lot of ways to do it, but it really is important to say something versus nothing.

[00:05:34] Matt Abrahams: That's right. The examples you gave are good ones and they proceed typically some kind of paraphrase or acknowledgement of what is said. So it's not enough just to say, oh, I hear you. It's, I really hear you when you say this was difficult, so, so you name the thing that somebody has said. 

[00:05:50] Lindsay McMahon: Yes, exactly. Especially if they're conveying some kind of emotion and maybe they're feeling vulnerable in that moment, that really matters that you take it in, that you reflect back what you've heard. 

[00:06:01] Matt Abrahams: That's right. And another way to demonstrate what you've heard is to ask a question that clearly takes into account what the person said. Is that a valuable skill as well? 

[00:06:11] Lindsay McMahon: Absolutely. Yeah. You're giving me lots of new episode ideas here, Matt. 

[00:06:14] Matt Abrahams: Oh, well there we go. I'd like to ask a little bit about idioms and nuance, and I wanna share a story with you and have you, perhaps, augment this. So many years ago I taught at a, a community college. We had many non-native speakers as students, and I remember very distinctly having to burst a student's bubble. He bounced into class, just big smile on his face and said, the young lady that I like told me she wants to just be friends and I'm so elated. And I had to share with him that at least here in this context, that let's just be friends is actually a very polite way of saying, this is not going to advance any farther. And, and I felt it was important for me to share with him, turn it into a lesson, because I did not want him to embarrass himself or to do things that were predicated on what he thought it meant. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you help people understand idioms? 

[00:07:06] Lindsay McMahon: The, the role that culture plays in language is super important? I actually got my master's in intercultural relations, so I've thought about this a lot. The importance of being aware of our own cultural assumptions. There's so much that's going on in our assumptions that we just learned growing up. It's not shared necessarily around the world. And so yeah, idioms are important to teach in context and that's why we use role plays when we teach those.

[00:07:32] Matt Abrahams: I wanna share two other circumstances that I think I'd love your insight and opinion on. It's not just the phrases that might have hidden meaning, but it's how we say the phrases and the context in which we say the phrases. So for example, if I'm in a doctor's office and the doctor asks me, how are you doing? That's about my general health and wellbeing. If I am at a party or a restaurant or bar and somebody comes up and says, hey, how you doing? It means something very different. Context influence is meaning in communication as well. Tell me a little bit about that and what your thoughts are on that.

[00:08:07] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah, that is really important. On the show what we try to do is set up the vibe of the episode and the context right from the start by, you know, asking each other just a question related to the topic so it gets our listeners into that mode of, oh, this is the kind of scenario we're talking about today. We have to learn it situationally and then we have to practice it situationally. It's good to think about it and learn the theory, but what really matters is getting out there and actually practicing it. 

[00:08:34] Matt Abrahams: Yeah. I really like this idea of one, thinking about the context and situation and how that might influence the words used and what the meaning is. We do a lot in English through analogies. We use lots of analogies, and one of the big problems is these analogies don't always translate to people's lived experience. Here in the US we use a tremendous number of sports analogies, hit it out of the park, push it across the goal line, it's a slam dunk, which is wonderful if you know those sports. But if you don't, you're left behind. I had a student once in the middle of his presentation, he used the analogy to the game of cricket and nobody knew what the heck he was saying, and he stopped, to his credit, and looked at all of us and said, that's how I feel when you use American football analogies.

[00:09:19] Lindsay McMahon: Oh, interesting. 

[00:09:19] Matt Abrahams: What a powerful moment that was for all of us. Do you talk about analogies and comparisons and how we have to be careful about those things? 

[00:09:29] Lindsay McMahon: For sure. I mean, this comes down to the culture we grew up in. If you think about the values and the assumptions that you learned as a kid, this idea of independence in American culture, baseball is huge, but also independence is big, right? Our mother said to us, oh, you tied your shoes all by yourself. If you think about that phrase, that's the message that we have gotten from our parents when we were young, and that told us it's good if you can do this on your own. So that inevitably translates to the words we choose as professionals, as adults, and so I think it's super important to understand that and maybe be a little bit flexible. Again, it comes back to who's your audience. And I mean, we certainly teach the baseball idioms as well, right? Because learning them, recognize them, maybe using one if you're feeling bold, does make sense too. We need a little bit of both. The awareness, self-awareness, and also just learning for the target culture we're gonna be working in.

[00:10:25] Matt Abrahams: Yeah. Because if you don't know some of those idioms, something might seem like a curve ball and you wouldn't understand what's going on. See what I did there. You know, taking a step back based on what we've talked about so far, when you start a new job or you get promoted to a new role, in many ways, you are in a similar position. You have to understand the jargon that's used. You have to understand the culture and the context. So this isn't just about a speaker of a new language. This is about anytime you're in a situation where you're new to a particular context and culture, these things also apply. Would you agree there?

[00:11:01] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah, I completely agree. And I think a good mode, a good strategy in those moments, whether you're new in a department or you've been promoted, or whether you're learning a language, is in the beginning, spend more time listening. Certainly for language learning, listening in our world, comprehensible input from a language applied linguistics, you need that input coming in. And even if it's just vocabulary, which also applies for someone who's a native speaker of English, maybe there's special vocabulary for your workplace or your department or your position now. We need to take it in. So speaking a little bit less to be prepared because we know that we live in a culture or at least an American business culture that praises articulation speaking, verbal expression, right? But in the beginning, we wanna listen a bit more. 

[00:11:47] Matt Abrahams: And I'll add to what you just said, because of that expectation and pressure that people will be contributing to the conversation. If you are newer to a role or newer to the language, an easy way to make a contribution, that's based on your listening, is just to summarize or paraphrase what has been said. So you don't actually have to add something new, which can be very risky and nerve wracking. You can just say, what I'm really hearing us talk about is this, and that could be incredibly valuable, especially in a meeting where there's a lot of discussion and tangential points coming in. By sharing what you've heard with the group, be an incredibly important contribution that is much lower stakes, I believe, than having to add something new.

[00:12:30] Lindsay McMahon: I love that idea. That is so important to be able to do. And you're right, it is lower stakes. It's not always about throwing in your idea in that meeting, right? Maybe there are enough ideas, but it's distilling down what's been said. I love it. 

[00:12:44] Matt Abrahams: Uh, I wanna talk about specific best practices you have found help people to actually hone and develop these communication skills we've talked about. You've talked about role plays, talked about doing drills and increasing vocabulary. What are some other things? When my students have a presentation, be they native speakers or not, I'll say, go to an AI tool. I don't care which one, generate three questions for me that I might get. So that the students can actually get some practice. Here's what a question might sound like. How can I think about answering. Do you have other advice and guidance for how we can actually hone and develop these skills? 

[00:13:20] Lindsay McMahon: I love that idea. Using AI in a modern way, you know, the tools that we already have. I would say taking that to the next level and trying to interact with someone in person, asking those same question, having that same conversation with, if you do have someone around, you know, this is what I'm gonna be talking about. What would you ask me? So, interacting with a native speaker of English as much as you can. Before the pandemic, we had a program called Urban Immersion Adventures, where we had our students come to New York and Boston and we put together a, a weekend of immersion in English using the city. 

[00:13:55] We sent them on scavenger hunts, uh, around the city to collect certain pieces of information and then come back and present it. For example, we'd prepare them, what are we gonna find on this scavenger hunt? Okay, how much time do we have now? We're going out in the city. We're asking native speakers who are getting the tool of asking, and then we're coming back and we're using the skill of reported speech, and then maybe we're debating something with our partner in the class. So for our listeners, if they can use information in a multitude of ways, rather than just do one task and you're moving on. That's a really cool way to gain fluency. 

[00:14:30] Matt Abrahams: I love this idea of urban immersion. I'm thinking about how could that translate to a student in a class or a worker in a workplace. And I think you can do that.

[00:14:38] You can explore certain things. Go check out a part of the campus you've never been to. Go eat your lunch at a different cafe. And then think about how would you share that experience? How would you answer questions about it? I love that. 

[00:14:50] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah. And maybe interview the barista. Think about from one context, what are the many different angles you can take on that situation to use different ways of communicating. 

[00:14:59] Matt Abrahams: And I'm gonna add to that. I had the good fortune to interview a United Nations interpreter and his job is to translate across languages. And one of the things he told me that he does to help just keep him agile and up for it, is he'll try to think of some idea or concept and then challenge himself to come up with five or ten different ways of saying the same thing in different languages or in different ways. So it's not just explaining it one way. And it's much like the way an athlete would train for different situations. I really like that idea of challenging yourself to see it from all different angles, from turning it from information to discussion, to questioning, uh, I'll use an idiom. That's really how you kick the tires on your ability to do it. 

[00:15:42] Lindsay McMahon: It's kind of similar to the analogy of they say when you work out, you shouldn't just do this same workout. You shouldn't just run, run on the treadmill for half an hour a day. You should try different things. Dancing, skiing, cross training. You should be using different muscles and this is what we need to truly reach that level of fluency. 

[00:15:59] Matt Abrahams: Lindsay, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate you taking the time to share the insights about learning a different language, but also broadening that to just any time we're in a new culture or context. Before we end I always like to ask three questions of my guest. One I create specifically for you and two that are similar across everybody. Are you, are you ready for that? 

[00:16:19] Lindsay McMahon: Yes. Let's do it. 

[00:16:20] Matt Abrahams: So you have over twenty-three hundred podcast episodes. What, across all those episodes, can you highlight one thing that you learned or that happened that just really stands out? I'm not asking you to pick your favorite one, 'cause I think that's really impossible to do. But is there something that stands out that actually fundamentally affected you and your communication that you learned? 

[00:16:40] Lindsay McMahon: The importance of being concise. So over twenty-three hundred episodes, the skill that we've honed is how do we explain something, not really through explaining. It's through showing how it's done, essentially, displaying the skill. It's better to say less especially if you're teaching, let listeners and students fill in the gaps so that they can take on that active role in learning and kind of take that ownership and gain that confidence. When you take part in your learning, you gain confidence. Especially as a podcaster, we need to keep our listeners engaged, and so I think it's important to be concise when you speak in any context.

[00:17:19] Matt Abrahams: Concision is definitely important. 

[00:17:22] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah. 

[00:17:23] Matt Abrahams: I'm just pausing there to show that I was concise, but you're absolutely right, and again, I'm very curious about who you will say for this question number two. Who is a communicator that you admire and why? 

[00:17:34] Lindsay McMahon: I have always admired Barack Obama's presentation style. Coming back to the importance of having a deeper meaning to your work, I think he's just genuine, right? I think he genuinely wants to help people, and I think that is the foundation of a good speaker. Being present, being genuine and having, like we said, that higher value. What is it that you're here for? What matters to you about what you're saying and to your audience? He's also just, he has the tactics. He drives his point home. And in terms of his tone, he has a really nice blend of kind of academic and professional, intelligent, accomplished, combined with kind of an everyday person sort of tone. And he strikes the balance incredibly well.

[00:18:17] Matt Abrahams: Many people have said that he is their speaker they admire the most. The insight that you brought to this that I have not heard before, which I totally agree with, is that blended tone that you referred to. The ability to sound learned and at the same time to be connected. Final question. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

[00:18:40] Lindsay McMahon: So I think self-awareness is the first thing. Self-awareness and also self-examination. Being willing to sit down and reflect on the conversation event that you just had or what you're going to have. Understanding your tendencies. And this also encapsulates culture too, right? What are my cultural defaults? What are my default assumptions on how I should act in this situation? They may be very different. So it's very important to be aware of what are the messages that you've gotten your whole life, and do those fly in this moment. So self-awareness is number one. I think being open to feedback. So honesty. Being open to receiving, hearing feedback from someone else and giving feedback. And number three is just experience. As we said at the top of the show, the thing that a lot of our listeners are kind of wanting to work on is confidence. Confidence doesn't come from repeating a mantra to ourselves in our rooms, in our offices. Staying inside. It comes from actual raw experience. It comes from failing, being willing to go out and just be a kind of a go-getter and just do the thing. So being an action taker. 

[00:19:47] Matt Abrahams: I like that idea of action taking and, and it doesn't surprise me at all as a listener of your podcast. It's very action oriented. Lindsay, I knew this would be very insightful. I know that all of our listeners can benefit regardless of their language skills, to really think through what it means to be effective and how to focus, as you say, on connection, not perfection, and really allow yourself the opportunity to practice in lots of different ways. I appreciate your time and keep up the good work.

[00:20:14] Lindsay McMahon: Yeah. Thanks for having me on, Matt. 

[00:20:18] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. For more tips on how to communicate better as a non-native speaker, please listen to episode 8 with Ken Romeo. This episode was produced by Michael Reilly and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With special thanks to Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram and check out FasterSmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content and our newsletter. Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, Ask Matt Anything and much more at FasterSmarter.io/premium.