The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Harvard’s Behaviour Expert: The Psychology Of Why People Don't Like You!
15 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
people really care about what's making them disliked and they really want to know how to be liked okay so first this is an exercise that i do in my class at harvard called 10 questions to fall in like so if i ask someone those questions they're going to like me it's a great starting point but let's talk about this because they're going to be little clues about how to be better liked and it's the most teachable practical scientifically rigorous framework in the world for communication do you want to hear about it steven
Of course I want to hear about it. I want to be the most persuasive, influential, likable talker in the world. So I shall follow your lead.
Oh my gosh.
It's a lot of power.
I love it. I love it so much.
Harvard professor Alison Woodbrooks is a behavioral scientist.
Who has spent two decades studying conversational science.
And she's revealing the communication mistakes we all make. The art of negotiation. And how to get anyone to like you.
We all get to adulthood and we feel like conversation should be easy. But as a scientist, when you look under the hood, you realize this is why we have so many awkward moments, why we say things that we shouldn't, why we are boring, why we get angry and hostile. And there's very clear strategies to help us with all of that.
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Chapter 2: How can I reframe anxiety into excitement?
And so we're always curating. We're always choosing some subset of stuff to share with other people through conversation. And no one is doing that perfectly. And I fear that many people are really struggling with it.
if you had to pinpoint just a few things that people want when they think about becoming a great conversationalist, like what is it that we actually are aiming at? Is it to be, you know, what is that?
Yeah. Usually people want to be liked, even loved. Usually we want to enjoy our conversations to not have them be miserable and We want to feel safe and protected and not have it be dreadful and time-consuming. And we want to achieve professional goals, so advancing and achieving and making great decisions.
So already the very basic drives of what people are trying to achieve in conversation are actually a little bit more complicated than just like, oh, we're looking for connection. And then when you really dig into it, within all of the goals that people want in those categories, it's like a vast constellation of motives.
I would like you to teach me how to talk really, really well.
I don't know if you need my help that much, Stephen, but I'd love to. Even the best communicators have room for improvement.
No, I think I do. I think I do. Because, you know, I was thinking about this last week and all the conversations I've had, the different types of conversations. I had one conversation where I met someone's family for the first time who works with me.
And it was, you know, it was a little bit nerve wracking because that contact, you know, people have these moments where they meet the in-laws or whatever, or they meet... For me, it's often meeting someone who works for me as family. I find quite nerve wracking. I think they're probably judging me. I've also had difficult business conversations.
Because they are judging you.
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Chapter 3: What is the importance of asking questions in conversations?
Usually when I interview people, I lead the way. Today, I'm going to follow. Because you know the outcome me and the audience want to get to. So I have all this stuff here.
I love it.
Props. All these props.
Fabulous.
I have these blocks that for anyone that can't see the conversation, say T-A-L-K on them. Talk.
Fabulous.
And you tell me the best place to start. You know the outcome. You know where I want to get to. I want to be the best conversationalist, the best talker, the most persuasive. influential, likable talker in the world. So I shall follow your lead.
Oh my gosh.
It's a lot of power.
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Chapter 4: What are the findings from the police citizen interaction study?
studied conversations between police officers and citizens in Oakland, actually close to here, in normal traffic stops. So when police pulled over citizens and walked up to the car and said, you were speeding, you know, and they used body cam footage and got all the transcripts from these interactions and then measured the respectfulness of the language that the police officers were using.
There are some really, you know, not surprising but terrible findings that police officers were using less respectful language towards black citizens compared to white citizens. But sort of more broadly speaking, the interactions where they were using more respectful language went better. There were less conflicts. They drive away without further infractions.
So the tiny choices we make in our language –
Chapter 5: How does respectful language influence communication outcomes?
The language of respect varies along like hundreds of features of language and it's a very gradient concept, but they have a real impact on how these interactions go. When we think about sort of like things like systemic racial bias, it comes from that kind of stuff. That's where it leaks out is in the language we use with each other. So we can all learn to use more respectful language.
Do you think much about... how our emotional state is impacting our ability to accomplish any of these things. Because I think the days where I'm least likely to be kind are the days where I haven't slept. Yeah. I should probably be avoiding all conversations that day.
It's really, I think one of the biggest things I've learned from all of this work is that conversation is remarkably effortful. And it requires quite a bit of energy. Even if you know how to be a good conversationalist, often we don't have the energy to actually do it. Oh, I don't have the energy to brainstorm topics. I don't have the energy to continue asking follow-up questions.
I'm going to let my egocentrism take over and boomerask until the sun goes down. Like boomers. Not boomers. I have a difference of opinion here. I'm going to accidentally use disrespectful language and not repair that, not correct it. That's kind of what keeps me up at night is that human beings do have limitations.
Chapter 6: What are the key strategies for better conversations?
We are limited in time. We're limited in energy. Our brains are not supercomputers. And so in practice, people who are great communicators will often fall short of their own hopes because they don't have the energy to do it.
I think Brene Brown said to me that when she comes home and she's out of energy, she'll just say to her partner, listen, I'm on 10% today, so I can't deal with this now.
And talk about self-awareness. Boy, if you can do that, if you can say, and you have sturdy enough relationships at work and at home that you could say, dude, I'm like a two out of 10. You got to cut me a break today. It would be tremendously helpful.
It requires quite a bit of self-awareness to recognize that you're at a 2 out of 10 and a lot of grace from the people around you, which means that you're going to have to give them grace in response at some point. That's what good relationships are. L, shall we put them in the correct order? Yeah. P-A-L-K. L is for levity.
So we've talked a bit about difficult conversations and how they can so easily get overheated. When you think about chats that go off the rails, it's quite easy to think of hostile conflict, difficult conversations, because they're very salient. They're very memorable.
Yeah.
There might be shouting, there's going to be hurt feelings, defensiveness. The more common enemy of conversation is actually boredom and disengagement. So yes, do we get annoyed with each other? Absolutely. But almost every conversation has stints of disengagement where people aren't interested. And so levity is humor and warmth to help us avoid disinterest and boredom.
And levity is important for sort of happiness and engagement's sake itself. You know, it matters that we're enjoying our time together. But maybe even more profoundly— If we are not leaning towards each other and interested in what the other person is saying, we can't achieve any of our other goals. Good conversation requires mutual engagement.
So if I'm bored and my mind is wandering, which happens a lot because I have attentional issues. It happens to a lot of people a lot. The human mind wanders 25% of the time during conversation. So it's quite common. If your mind is wandering and you're not engaged with each other, then you can't do anything else either. Persuasion, making decisions together, brainstorming, connecting, none of it.
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Chapter 7: How can we teach children effective communication skills?
You're using flattery. I've seen that on your compass.
I'm not. I'm giving, I'm giving very direct feedback.
I've got your compass here. It says flattery. Flattery right here. High relational. I'm on to you.
So there's, levity is two parts. It's humor and warmth. And I always start this part of my class at Harvard by saying to my students, if you're not funny and you think you never will be, it's okay. I don't think I'm going to be the one to make you funny within the span of two months if you are a deeply serious, unfunny person. Other people believe that you can get funnier over time.
We can talk about that in a moment. What I do deeply believe is that anyone can be more warm. So warmth moves include anything. Expressing gratitude. I'm so grateful for your time today. I'm so grateful for you engaging with the content of my work. Flattery. Giving compliments. Just shifting topics.
So if you can get better at sensing when people are getting bored with a topic and getting more courageous and assertive about switching more frequently can be very, very helpful for keeping the conversation sort of bubbling along. Callbacks. Callbacks are any reference back to something that you've talked about previously. They're total magic.
It shows that you were listening to someone earlier in the conversation, maybe even earlier in your relationship, like a month ago. If I can call back to something we talked about. It shows I heard you, I was thinking about what you said, I was able to retain it in my mind, and I'm clever enough to reference back to it now.
And often it has this really amazing quality where if I bring it up again, it's funny because you're like, oh, shit, that's super clever. Often a lot of people ask me how do we end conversations well. And I have two pieces of advice there. I'm going to bring this back to callbacks. One is nobody knows when to end conversations. It's the final topic switch. It's the final coordination choice.
There's no way to know. There is no right answer. So it's better to just end it. Like be assertive, walk away, rather than hemming and hawing and feeling bad and embarrassed about it. The second piece of advice is that it's a great time to try a callback. The very last beat of the conversation, you can say, and I hope you have a great time with your girlfriend this weekend, right?
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