Connection Over Perfection, with Matt Abrahams (Communication, Speaking, Behavior, Business)
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Many of us, when we're put on the spot, we want to give the best answer. We want to be the most interesting person in small talk. And that puts a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves and makes it actually less likely we will achieve those goals. So we have to switch from perfection to connection. It's about structure, it's about focus, and it's about accessibility.
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Are you interested in advertising with The Action Catalyst? Our listeners could be hearing about your brand right here, right now. For details, shoot us an email at info at theactioncatalyst.com. Today's guest is Matt Abrahams, the host of the Think Fast, Talk Smart business podcast from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. as well as an acclaimed strategic communication lecturer and author of the new book, Think Faster, Talk Smarter, which focuses on actionable skills to help even the most anxious speaker under the most frantic circumstances communicate successfully.
Well, thank you for being here. We're super excited to have you. Yes. There is a lot that I want to talk about, but let me just start kind of a bigger picture and then we'll come down a little bit. So in reading a little bit about your background, I want to start with something about your name being later in the alphabet that has led to your life's work.
Yeah, not later in the alphabet, earlier in the alphabet. Earlier, okay. With the last name Abrahams, A-B, I always went first in school. I always knew where I would sit. I always knew who was going first. I was a high school teacher for a couple years, and I understand that for high school and elementary school teachers, it's really easy just to organize your life alphabetically. But what that meant is I was always dealing with spontaneous speaking. And my latest work is really all about how to be a better spontaneous speaker. And it's something that I've been developing, some because of my last name and some because of circumstances I found myself in, really did initiate this interest in this notion of how do we speak better in the moment.
And if you think about it, most of our communication... is spontaneous. It's not planned. Somebody asks a question, ask for feedback, you're making small talk. And so we need to learn how to do this better so we can be more effective in these circumstances.
So you remember being called on, Matt, you get to go first.
Oh, even even more than that. It's like, OK, we just read the Scarlet Letter. Your turn to tell me what you think about whoever the main character was. Yeah, I was often called on first to answer questions, much to the relief of my fellow students. They were actually grateful because by the time it got to them, they had time to think and plan.
So what do you say? I would imagine, but please educate us. When you're in spontaneous conversation, there is the internal dialogue that you have to deal with at the exact same time as getting prepared to speak and attempting to not sound like an idiot. which I do enough for everybody. So tell me about that. How do you deal with that?
Well, I'm certainly happy to share. I mean, my whole goal is just to help people do better in any communication circumstance. It boils down to two things. It So we have to get our mindset and approach aligned with our goals of speaking in the moment. So first, we have to manage anxiety. Anxiety looms large in all communication, but especially in spontaneous speaking. And then we have to reframe how we see this. First and foremost, the goal we have. Many of us, when we're put on the spot, we want to do our best. job right. We want to give the best answer. We want to give great feedback. We want to be the most interesting person in small talk. And that puts a tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves and makes it actually less likely we will achieve those goals. So we have to switch from perfection to connection. Just have the goal be connecting and conveying the information you need rather than doing it right. And by the way, there is no right way to communicate. There are better ways and worse ways.
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