308. Ask Matt Anything: From Nerves to Know-How in High-Stakes Moments

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Managing emotions, yours and your audience's, is hard enough, but it's even harder when you're under pressure to respond. I'm Matt Abrahams. I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Quick Thinks episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Today's episode is a special one. We're taking you inside a recent live Learning Community Ask Matt Anything that I hosted. Take a listen as I answer real-world communication challenges. We discuss how to manage cognitive load when you're under stress, the power of breathwork for regulating your nervous system, and practical strategies for running meetings that stay on track and keep people engaged. Enjoy this Quick Thinks episode packed with engagement, education, and actionable advice you can start using today. 

[00:00:52] Well, hello everybody. I am thrilled to be here with you, and hopefully there are a few things I can share with you that might be of use. So I'm open to any questions you have about communication that you think I might have some insight on. Would anybody like to start? Natalie, please. 

[00:01:07] Learning Community Member 1: Yeah. So English is not my first language. I think by now I speak pretty decent English, but my original mother language is Portuguese, and I moved to US recently. And one thing I'm struggling with sometimes when I have high-stakes conversations, I feel the quality of my English decreases a lot. So I wonder if you have any advice on how to modulate that and make my English sound the same quality that it has, not worse. 

[00:01:34] Matt Abrahams: Thank you for the question. I think the experience is very common. And while I think it's accentuated for people who are speaking in a language that's not their native language, I think this is true of everybody, all people, that when we feel stress or emotion, like we're really passionate about something, that we might not articulate our thoughts as well. And this really has to do with cognitive load. Your brain is like a computer. You know, when you have your laptop or your phone and you have lots of windows or apps open, each one of those is performing less well because the others are open. And the same thing happens with our brains, that when I get nervous, when I get excited, highly emotional, when I'm worried that I might not be using the right words, that in and of itself, those emotions take some of our precious cognitive load bandwidth that we have, and it makes it harder for us to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish.

[00:02:29] So first and best way to handle this is to reduce the cognitive load that the emotion has. So if you are somebody who gets nervous when you're advocating in a high-stake situation, managing the anxiety will reduce the cognitive load. If you're somebody who's really passionate and excited about something, taking the opportunity to recognize that emotion and put it to the side perhaps so in the moment you can be focused, that can help. So it's really about emotional regulation to help. Now, that sounds easy, like, "Oh, okay, great. I'll just manage my emotions." It's very hard to do, right? Especially if it's based on anxiety or concern over grammar and vocabulary, et cetera. So it takes practice.

[00:03:16] It takes practice. And simulation is important. So one way to practice is to simulate these high-stake situations. If you can stress test yourself in situations that are similar, then you are better prepared. So managing the anxiety, and you know I do a lot of work on anxiety management, lots of podcast episodes on it, lots of writing about it. And then also finding situations where you put yourself in that stressful situation so you become more accustomed to it, that will free up more cognitive bandwidth. So I hope there's something there, Natalie, that sounds useful to you, but it's really about the cognitive load, and anything we can do to reduce the cognitive load of the circumstance will help you articulate your thoughts better. Thank you. Arun, I'm curious if you have a question. 

[00:04:01] Learning Community Member 2: I do have a question, Matt. We live in an uncertain economic times. We, a lot of companies are restructuring. So us leaders, we are in a very high-stake situation where we have to talk to our teams, our followers, and oftentimes what we see is that there's a lot of anxiety and nervousness in the audience. When you're talking to, let's say, ten people or fifty people or five hundred people, there is that general sense of anxiety, and it gets compounded, especially when you're on a Zoom or something. My question is: How do one approach something like this and put the anxiety and the level of angst that people have at rest and communicate what needs to be communicated in a thoughtful way? 

[00:04:49] Matt Abrahams: It is true that times are turbulent and things are changing, and that can be very unsettling for people. And often that brings anxiety and concern. And as leaders, as people in positions of power, it's important to recognize that. And it's important to recognize that the messages you have are important to get across. But if people are in a state of fear and concern, they might not hear it or hear it the way you want. So it's important for you to be empathetic and to recognize that. And the work you do in advance to expect it. So before I ever walk into that room, log into that Zoom, I'm thinking about my audience. You've heard me say that lots and lots before. And on the podcast, it's the number one bit of advice people share is know your audience. And part of that is understanding their likely emotional state.

[00:05:37] And you can figure that out by just your own empathy. How would I feel if I'm in that position? By asking people. There are lots of ways to determine that. So you shouldn't be surprised by it if you do your preparation right. Now, I know in spontaneous situations where things just happen, you might have to deal with it in the moment. I believe the best way to handle it is to recognize it and to start by naming it. You know, if people are sitting there in fear and concern, it's important to say, "There are a lot of things changing, and they're changing in ways that are unpredictable and ambiguous. And today I want to share how we're addressing it and some of the things that we're doing. And I want to fully appreciate and honor the fact that some of us, myself included, can be very concerned at this time."

[00:06:20] So naming it can be very helpful to recognize. And making yourself available to have conversations about it. So you might say, "And after I'm done speaking or in the next week or so, I very much would like to hear from all of you to better understand your concerns." So it's acknowledging it, and then it's providing an avenue to have a discussion about it. I think that's first and foremost most important. Doing the homework in advance to understand it. Maybe setting expectations. I am a huge fan of setting expectations in advance of communication, if possible. A meeting invite, a conversation with people before the presentation or meeting to help people understand what you're doing and the fact that you recognize that this is fraught with concern.

[00:07:03] And then at the end, check in with people. At the end, come back and say, "I hope the things that I've shared give some insight and input that is helpful as you experience the, these things, uh, as concerning." So making sure to really acknowledge that even though you've just said something that hopefully helps with some of that anxiety, that it still might exist and what you're doing to follow up with it. This is going to help you and your audience to connect and to really digest the information. It is hard for many people to live in ambiguity and anxiety, and to help them understand that it's normal and natural and that you appreciate it, I think gets you a long way towards your goal. Thank you for that question. Nasser, you have a question. 

[00:07:45] Learning Community Member 3: Good morning, Matt. So I'm sure like many, I'm in a position to lead a lot of meetings, sometimes fun meetings, sometimes introductory project meetings, sometimes project updates are not going so well. And for the most part, I think we all do a reasonably good job, but I've always struggled with repetitiveness of starting meetings. You know, you come in there with the basics of, "Thank you for joining. I'm glad to be here," et cetera, et cetera. But I'd love to hear from a communication sciences perspective, your view, and maybe even examples of what you use to engage audiences. If I lead a team meeting or even board meetings, what are some great icebreakers to really get people fully tuned in? And then as the meeting progresses, we have a tendency to deviate from what the core subject or the topic we were presenting, right? So what's your advice for getting that meeting back on track and staying focused without alienating people? 

[00:08:34] Matt Abrahams: So two really important questions there, and questions that I think a lot of us struggle with in meetings, and that is, how do we engage and get things moving forward in a way that's not repetitive or actually working against ourselves, and then how do we stay on track? I believe that there's a lot of work that can be done in advance of the meeting actually taking place. I think the most underutilized expectation setting tool is the calendar invite. And I think there's a lot you can do in the calendar invite to set people's expectations and to engage them before you start. Just thinking about how you title the meeting. What is it called? Many of us just do blah, blah, blah meeting.

[00:09:13] That's not very engaging or interesting. Is there a way I can name the meeting that encourages people to perhaps get excited or focused on it? So maybe thinking about the action or the main action that you'll be doing in the meeting. So can you put a verb, an action, in the title of your meeting? What I like to do is I like to pose a question or a challenge in all of my calendar invites, and I start our meetings with that challenge or with that question. So when people come to the meeting, they know that's how we're starting. Most people don't like coming to meetings, and so we're going to start this meeting by reviewing the previous meeting you didn't like. That makes no sense to me.

[00:09:54] So starting with some kind of action, some kind of question and engagement can be really helpful. Using icebreakers is a great way to start. There are lots of tools. You know, if it's a recurring meeting where people know each other, maybe a simple check-in just to see where people are emotionally or stress-wise. You know, people use a stoplight. Are you red, green, yellow? Sometimes people use a weather forecast. Are you cloudy? Are you sunny? There are other icebreakers if you don't know groups well or people well to get people to know each other, get them interacting with each other. One of my favorites that I use in all of my classes is an activity where I ask people to find things they have in common and then share those things.

[00:10:32] It gets people talking. It gets them discussing. It's low stakes. So how you set expectations up front and how you start really matters. I like starting with engagement before I get to repeating or recounting what happened before. Now, in terms of how to stay on track, part of what I include in my meeting invites is an agenda. Agendas are important. They are a structure for the meeting, and I make it very clear at the beginning of the meetings that we have an agenda. There's time allocated to different aspects. And if we need to deviate from that, we all have to agree. So if I find that as I'm facilitating the meeting, we have drift in some direction, maybe it's a great direction, maybe it's a tangential direction, I call it out.

[00:11:10] I say, "Just want to remind everybody, we've got these items on the agenda. Where are we going? Do we want to allocate time to this or not?" So the meta-awareness and calling that out as a leader I think is really important. Also, if you need to pull people back just because somebody's talking too much or they're starting to go on a tangent, this is where paraphrasing can be really helpful. Take something of value the person has said, name it, and then pull it back. So I might say, "Nassar, that point was really important about delivery date, and it actually ties to the next item of the agenda, which is our implementation plan." So I interrupt you, name something important that you've said, and then connect it to what's coming next. That's a really useful way for me to keep the meeting moving.

[00:11:53] And then at the end of the meeting, it's really important to come back and assess how the meeting went. So take thirty seconds, a minute at the end of the meeting, and just debrief the quality of the meeting, not rehashing the issues. But I might say, "It was really helpful when Kamel paraphrased that point, it got us back on track." Or, "When Natalie asked that question when we were sort of floundering, that really helped us." And what I'm doing there is I'm rewarding the positive behaviors that help the meeting run well, and it's sending a signal that I'm trying to make these meetings run really well, and I need your help, and I'm noticing what you're doing when you do help me. I'd like to take maybe one more question. Please, Ken.

[00:12:33] Learning Community Member 4: Yeah. So actually, what happened after Stanford is, after returning back to Oslo, the business situation was much more challenging than I was expecting, and it was probably the most challenging months in my professional career. So it was really, really tough situation until the end of last year, until I got a real good overview on, uh, where we are, what are the challenges, how to move forward, and communicated actually to a team and wrote a thank you for your commitment despite the difficult situation and so on. But I also wanted to convey a clear message actually, that the entire team needs to change.

[00:13:10] We need to adapt to the new circumstances. We need to accelerate, maybe also processes, the way of working, et cetera. It's not like only waiting for management to fix. It needs to be every single one who needs to somehow adapt and to do the change. So for me, the key point is I would like now to follow up on this and to try to communicate in a way that I can actually, how to say, catch everyone. Still, I, I feel that some people got it already, but I don't want to do it in a threatening way, you know, that people are afraid and this anxiety, et cetera, et cetera. So I want to catch the people, and this is kind of the challenge for the communication I have. 

[00:13:54] Matt Abrahams: Right. So thank you, Ken. I appreciate you giving us context. So essentially, how do I motivate change that is significant in a way that doesn't invoke anxiety and concern? And that's very hard. I have a few thoughts. First, I really think you should lean into the mission, vision, values that you have in the organization. In theory, everybody in your firm, in your company believes in and supports those mission, vision, values. So if you can lean into them and really share what you are advocating for, the changes you are encouraging people to take on, connect to and really relate to the mission, vision, values that you have.

[00:14:35] What we know from lots of research in social science is if you can tap into what currently motivates people, they are much more likely to be open to what it is you're saying because you're showing what you're asking for is consistent with what they've already done. So is there a way to make that message clear that the mission, vision, values have not changed, but the activities we need to do in support of them have to change? Second, you have to make the message salient and relevant to the different people. Different roles, different levels of the organization have different key areas that are important to them. So you have to morph the message.

[00:15:12] You have to target the message to be relevant to individuals. People only act on things that they see as relevant and important to them. So we don't create one broadcast message and send it to everybody. We have to tailor that message. And sometimes we can just ask people to help us do that. So you can give a broadcast message and then challenge everybody to think about the implications that has for them and how they can contribute. And you have to have clear lines of connection between what you're asking people to do and the goal that you're trying to achieve. People need to see that what they're being asked to do connects to the broader picture.

[00:15:47] So creating a communication infrastructure around these change messages becomes very important. That means you have to think about targeting the message differently to different people. You have to have different processes in place to get the feedback and repeat the message. We have to repeat messages over and over. And you might need to even look at different channels for delivering the message, depending on the people. You know, the class I teach is strategic communication. We have to be very strategic about the communication. It takes a lot of work. But I like that you're sensitive to how important communication is, so thank you there. And I thank all of you for joining me today and for the insightful questions. It was a true thrill to be with you.

[00:16:30] Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. To learn more about all of these various skills, take a listen to our back catalog. This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, 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 podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Also follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram. And check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter. Please consider joining our Think Fast, Talk Smart Learning Community at fastersmarter.io/learning. You'll find video lessons, learning quests, discussion boards, an AI coach, and book club opportunities. Again, that's fastersmarter.io/learning to become part of our Think Fast, Talk Smart Learning Community.