296. AMA: Speaking Out, Staying Grounded, and Managing Up

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Getting your voice heard is hard. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Quick Thinks, Ask Matt Anything episode of Think Fast Talk Smart, the podcast. I recently held another AMA in our Think Fast Talk Smart Learning Community. As usual, it was lively and fun. Listen in as I answer questions about wedging comments into conversations, giving feedback to a superior, and much more.

[00:00:34] Well, hello everybody. Thank you for joining me for this month's Ask Matt Anything, AMA, and I love to see all the questions that are coming in, so let's jump right into it. I have a question here that's asking, "I have something to say in a meeting, but there's so much going on all at once. How do I get my point in? How do I insert my point of view?" And this can be very challenging. I totally understand. I call this, actually, wedging. We wanna make sure that we wedge our point of view into the conversation, but we wanna do so in a timely manner. I know I've been there thinking about, "How do I say what I wanna say?"

[00:01:11] And then the conversation has moved beyond my contribution. So we do really need to get in and get in quick, but how do we do it so we don't look overly assertive or rude? To my mind, there are really three ways to do this, and I hope one of these three ways will help you. First, you can ask a question. So as the conversation is going along and you wanna insert your point of view, lead with a question. "I'm curious, how would we..." or, "I'm curious, what does this mean?" So a question is a great way to initially wedge. A second way to wedge, and any of you who've listened to me know I'm a big fan of paraphrasing, take some key concept that somebody has mentioned, name it, and then give your contribution.

[00:01:53] So imagine you're in the midst of a meeting where people are talking about expenses and finances. You might say, "Cost is really important, and in fact, one element is." So by labeling cost, you are summarizing what you have just heard, and then you add your point to it. So in addition to leveraging questions, you can also use paraphrasing to get your point of view in. Finally, you can lead with an emotion. You can say something like, "I'm concerned about." Or, "That's very exciting." When people hear an emotion, they'll stop, and they'll, they wanna hear more. So you have questions, paraphrasing, and emotion as a way to lead.

[00:02:35] Now, you need to know what you wanna say before you wedge your comment in, and a great way to do that, or at least the way I do it, is I'll say to myself, the bottom line of what I wanna say is. So before I, I wedge my content into the conversation, I'm thinking about what is the specifics I wanna say, so I am ready to go. If I jump in and I'm wandering and meandering, one, it'll be disappointing to everybody and perhaps confusing, and it might set me up for the next time I want to do that in a position or way I don't want it to be. So take the time to use one of these wedging techniques. I hope that helps, and thank you for the question. That was a very useful question.

[00:03:14] Another question that came in is actually about listening and, and you know that, uh, listening is very important and very important to me and a skill that I am still actively working on. And the question is: What do you do when you get emotional about what's being said, either excited, concerned, upset, sad, and yet you need to listen? Well, first and foremost, acknowledge and allow those emotions to come. A lot of the times, if this is a really important topic, we can be trying to quell those emotions or put them aside and, and that's not good. The emotions are there and they're real, and you need to acknowledge them, but they can interfere.

[00:03:49] So a couple things. One, if you find yourself getting very emotional, either positively or negatively, and you believe it's going to impact the interaction, the communication, the session, whatever you're doing, I believe what's really important to do is call it and just say, "Hey, you know, this is bringing up a lot for me." You don't need to name your emotion because that might trigger or upset somebody else. Just say, "This is bringing up a lot for me. I want to take a moment or two of a break," or, "Let's reschedule the meeting," or, "Let me come back to you in a little bit."

[00:04:15] So give yourself a little bit of space by just calling it without naming it. Similarly, by the way, and I'm going to come back to more about handling emotion, if somebody else is displaying emotion, you don't want to label their emotion. You don't want to say, "Oh, you seem frustrated." And they might say, "Oh no, I'm not frustrated, I'm angry," and now they're even more angry. So instead of labeling the emotion, you can say, "I can see this is bringing up a lot for you," or, "I hear your passion," or, "This clearly is concerning to you." So I'm acknowledging that I'm seeing the emotion, feeling that emotion from them, but I am not labeling it.

[00:04:48] All right, so what do you do again when you get emotional? So one is give yourself a little bit of space. That is, call time out or, or take some distance. The other thing you can do is psychologically distance yourself, and this comes from the work in mindfulness. Many of you have heard of mindfulness. Several of you have probably studied mindfulness, but this notion of acknowledging the emotion you're feeling. So you might say, "This is me feeling frustrated," or, "This is me feeling excited." And in so doing, you give yourself a little bit of psychological distance where you can then act upon it.

[00:05:21] So rather than getting swept away with the emotion, when you say, "Hey, this is me feeling this way," that can help as well. And then finally, get into your body. So in that moment where you're starting to feel upset, excited, concerned, whatever it is, feel the ground with your feet. Touch an object. I'm touching the desk in front of me. That can bring us back into our bodies and out of maybe that emotional spinning that's happening, so it brings us back into the present. And certainly, deep breathing can help. So very common to have emotion play out in our communication. And when we're trying to listen and listen well, it can be an interference.

[00:05:58] It's a form of noise that can get in the way. That said, there are things we can do. We can acknowledge it, announce it, and give ourselves a little bit of a pause. We can give ourselves distance by recognizing to ourselves, "This is how I'm feeling." And we can ground ourselves. So those are ways to do it. Now, after the fact or even before the situation, I'm a big fan of journaling or speaking it out with a loved one or trusted other. So emotion does enlarge. It's part of being human. It serves a purpose, but you don't want it to interfere with the communication you're having.

[00:06:30] All right, I think this will be our last question. This question I think we've all been in this situation. This person has a superior, a boss, who is not taking the time to listen or to consider other people, putting a lot of pressure on and really trying to drive initiative. How do you give feedback to a superior when they are your superior and they're really driving, driving, pushing, pushing their agenda? What can you do? Well, first and foremost, this is challenging, but unfortunately for many of us, common. And a few things I'd suggest. One, when you are trying to give feedback to a superior, a great approach is to reward the positive.

[00:07:12] So if, in fact, at some point, they demonstrate the behaviors that you are hoping for, or at least not demonstrating the behaviors that you would prefer they not do, you can reward it. So after the fact, after the meeting, go up to the person, call the person, send them an email, whatever, and just say, "I was really appreciative of how we heard from everybody in the meeting this time," or, "I really liked how we decided to act on whoever's idea. That was really cool and I think really helpful." So you're not saying, "Hey, it was great that you shut up and let somebody else do the work," or, "Gee, it was really fantastic that finally you didn't do this."

[00:07:46] No, you're just rewarding the positive, and many of us will hear that as leaders. We want to be rewarded. It's nice to be rewarded. That kindergarten self of us likes the star for the day. So one way to deal with this situation is to look for the positive and reward it. Another way to do this is own it. Own it from your perspective. So instead of saying, "You're doing this wrong," or, "When you do this, it really causes this for me," say, "I am somebody who needs this. You know, it's really important for me when I do the work I do to consider as many options as possible.

[00:08:16] So I'm wondering if in our meetings we can hear other opinions or have lots of choices, 'cause that really helps me process and more deeply understand." A manager's job, a boss's job is to be in service of you, to help you in some way help them achieve their goals, the group's goals, et cetera. So if you come to them with something that will help you help them or help the group, it should open up the door to at least them considering what you're saying. And finally, if those two ways don't work, I think you just have an honest conversation, but I would start from saying, "Hey, it's been really helpful when you've given me some feedback on these things."

[00:08:53] Be very specific. "And I'm curious if you'd be open to me sharing something that I think could really help me and others." So it's an invitation for them to be open to your feedback. Don't just come in and say, "Gosh, it really frustrates me when..." You need to have these conversations. This kind of frustration can be really harmful for your own psyche. It can really ruin your motivation at work, put a lot of stress and pressure. A great thing to do is practice this. Find a trusted other, maybe even use an AI tool and just speak it out. You know, the Coach AI tool is great for this purpose.

[00:09:25] In fact, this is one of its major use cases, is to talk to it, say, "This is the situation, here's what I'm thinking of saying," and have it play back for you. Well, these have been really great questions in our Ask Matt Anything, AMA. Thank you to all of you who joined. There were many other questions. I, I certainly will be responding to them in some way. But thank you for taking the time. Thank you for being part of the Learning Community, and I really look forward to hearing how you do in these very challenging communication situations. So with that, have a great day. I look forward to seeing you in our upcoming author talk, as well as some of our upcoming quests. Thank you so much.

[00:10:07] Thank you for joining us for another Quick Thinks AMA episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more on a variety of communication topics, check out our extensive back catalog of episodes on your favorite player or at fastersmarter.io. This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder. With special thanks to the Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. To join us for our next AMA, please consider joining our Learning Community, where you will also get video lessons, learning quests, book talks, and my AI coach. Sign up at fastersmarter.io/learning