24. Feelings First: How emotion shapes our communication, decisions, and experiences
22:23 Share

Hi, Matt here. I invite you to look into Stanford Continuing Studies. For over 20 years, I have taught in the program. Discover a diverse range of courses available both online and in person to anyone, anywhere in the world. Classes cover everything from fundamental business skills to the fascinating world of AI. This fall, join me for Communication Essentials for Work and Life, a new course designed to enhance and hone your communication skills in various situations.

Each week, guest speakers will join me for interactive lectures and Q&A sessions on topics like persuasion, storytelling, nonverbal presence, and reputation management. The course starts September 24th, and registration is now open. Learn more at continuingstudies.stanford.edu. I don't know about you, but in my mind, I am amazingly eloquent. But when I open my mouth, I'm not always so lucky.

Today, we are all lucky because we will explore communication best practices that come from neuroscience. I'm Matt Abrahams, and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

I am so excited to be joined by Baba Shiv, who is a professor of marketing at the GSB. Baba has done extensive work on emotion and motivation in shaping decisions and experiences. Welcome, Baba. Yeah, thanks, Matt. Thanks. My pleasure to be here with you.

One thing I and others love about working with and learning from you, Baba, is your amazing energy and passion for what you do. I look forward to an energetic and educational conversation. Shall we get started? Absolutely. Excellent. So you're a neuroscientist by training. Can you help us understand how you approach studying the topics you explore, especially when it comes to communication? Sure.

Yeah, the fundamental premise, this is based in all the evidence out there that most of human decisions and human behaviors are shaped by emotion and not by reason, right? I mean, if you ask me to put a number to this based on all the evidence out there, I would conjecture something like 90 to 95% of our decisions, our behaviors are constantly being shaped non-consciously by emotional brain system. Wow.

So if you think about from that lens and for communication, the first thing to do is to play into the emotional brain rather than the rational brain, right? That's the fundamental premise when it comes to neuroscience.

and communication. - So when we think about what it is we want to say and who we wanna say it to and how we wanna say it, you're saying lead with thoughts about emotion and really plan from the emotional perspective. Is that what I'm hearing? - That's right. I mean, the basic idea is that if you look at most people, what they do when they're trying to persuade others and they're trying to influence others, communicate to others,

They present rational arguments. And you can see this happening time and time again. There'll be a 30 slide deck packed with numbers and charts and so on. And we fail to recognize that the rational brain accounts for only about 5 to 10 percent of human decisions. I'm not saying you can ignore the rational side. You have to provide enough fodder for the rational brain to rationalize.

But first and foremost, you need to play into what the emotional brain is looking for. And that will actually depend upon the mindset of the individual. Is that person in a risk-averse type 1 mindset or a risk-tolerant type 2 mindset? I mean, these are terms that are borrowed from statistics. We all know about the type 1 error and the type 2 error, right? The type 1 error is a fear of making a mistake. Type 2 error is a fear of missing out on opportunities. Actually, it's not a fear. It's actually a desire for new opportunities.

So to figure out what kind of state their brain is in, what mindset it is, because the brain has two separate circuitries, one for risk-averse behaviors and one for risk-tolerant behaviors. And to really understand where that person is in these mindsets, is a type one or a type two, and then play into that.

Ah, that's really fascinating. So we have spent a lot of time across the various episodes of this podcast in different ways talking about getting to know your audience. But I like how you're distinguishing this between a type one and type two. What are some of the things you look for or could ask to ascertain where your audience is in terms of the way they approach your communication?

So many different things, right? One is, for example, the time of day really matters, right? When we wake up in the morning, our serotonin levels are at their peak. And I'd be happy to talk more about that as we go along. And so if it is in the morning, you know that that person's brain is much more open to new ideas, right?

because the brain is more likely to be in a type 2 mindset, assuming, of course, that the person has a good night's rest, right? I mean, you're going with a function. Right, right. Later on during the day, serotonin levels are going to decline, which means that that person is going to shift more to the type 1 side.

Which means that, I mean, if it's going to be in the afternoon, I want to kind of weave into the communication things that will bring about comfort, right? I mean, the way to switch the brain into a more open, risk-dolored mindset is to first and foremost bring in a state of comfort to the brain. So how do you do that? You weave in the familiar. Familiarity brings a lot of comfort to the brain, right? It could be trust, tried and trusted.

That brings a lot of comfort to the brain. It could be validation, testimonials. I'm not the only one saying this. There are other people saying this. And of course, the other techniques that we can use, and we can talk about this as we go along, is to induce laughter. Laughter is one of the fastest ways to alleviate stress and get the person's brain into a more risk-tolerant type of mindset.

So it sounds to me like, based on what you've just shared, is early in the morning, that's a great time to do brainstorming and position new ideas. And later in the afternoon is when you tell your jokes and you try to build trust and comfort. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, we actually recently, in a recent episode, dove into the value of humor and communication. And you're exactly right. It really accelerates people's openness and willingness to listen.

That's great. I love that you're talking about how the context influences communication and addresses or influences immediately somebody's receptivity to your messages.

So in researching this episode, and it was a lot of fun, you do lots of interesting work in varied domains. I came across an old GSB Insights article, and it was entitled The Art of the Imperfect Pitch. Can you share with us best practices you've learned in your research that can help us persuade others beyond what we've already talked about?

Oh, happy to share that. So this is called the IKEA effect. IKEA effect says... Like IKEA, where I go to get my furniture and they get frustrated putting it together? Yeah, yeah, the IKEA store. It is IKEA within quotes, by the way, because it's actually like assembling the furniture. Sometimes it's frustrating. Yes. IKEA effect says is that whenever the brain perceives that it is making an investment in something...

It could be mental, it could be physical, it could be monetary, the brain gets invested in it. So this along with another observation that comes from my teaching at the design school at Stanford. The design school has a mechanical engineering section where the prototypes coming out will all be polished because they have 3D printers etc. And the other section is the what we call the art section which would be aluminum foil foam etc. So the prototypes are going to be rough

And what is fascinating is that time and time again, and backed up by the research I'm doing right now, is that if you present a polished prototype, others will only find flaws. If you present a rough prototype, others will see potential.

So the way to think about this is in the very early stages of an idea, if you want to influence a stakeholder, just go to the person with a rough prototype, back up the napkin on a whiteboard, whatever it is, and seek advice. When the person starts providing advice, the IK effect will kick in. Then your idea will become that person's baby as well.

the most effective way of persuading people is for the person you want to persuade persuades himself or herself. That's the most effective way, right? Because if the person believes that it is her own idea or his own idea, then the person is a

You know, the person is going to trust is going to be familiar because who does the person trust the most? Yeah. Right. So that's that's also consistent with the saying that Matt, you might be familiar with in Silicon Valley. This is famous saying that if you're a startup and you go to an investor for money, you're only going to get advice. If you go for advice, you're going to get money. Yes, absolutely.

Many of our students, many of the people I coach and I'm sure you come across want to get the pitch just right. They want it to be perfect. And what I'm hearing from you, especially early on, is it's less about perfection and more about being open and direct and seeking feedback and advice. That's what's really going to help you.

That's right. And there's a related phenomenon here. Now, of course, it cannot be used in all contexts. And I want the listeners to be very, very careful about this is that if you're only going to be reporting out, then an imperfect pitch can actually backfire.

Right. But again, it depends on the goal of the communication. If you want to persuade others, there's a related phenomenon called the hairy arm phenomenon. I don't know, Matt, if you're familiar with this. Hairy arms, like hair on your arms. OK. Hair on your arm. It's an apocryphal story where an advertising executive makes the picture perfect pitch to a client. And at the end of the pitch, the client goes, let me think about it.

So the executive goes to the boss and says, boss, what happened? I mean, this was the picture perfect pitch. And the boss says, you made it too perfect. Right. So you're making the pitch out that a person goes and wants to contribute, wants to come in, but is not able to kind of contribute. And therefore is left with this feeling that there must be something wrong, but I'm not able to put my finger on it. So let me kind of delay. Let me think about it.

So what the boss says is, that's why it's called the hairy arm, is the boss says that, hey, you know that the pitch that you made showcasing the ad campaign, at the end you have this person holding the product, make that person's arm hairy. So the client is going to say, ah, I like this, I see the hairy arm, get rid of that and we're fine. Ah.

I see. Perfect. So you give them something to look at. I love that story. But the important thing to remember is that you don't want to start with a hairy arm at the beginning of the pitch, right? You want the first impressions matter a whole lot, right? And so you don't want to start off coming across as being incompetent in the beginning. But if you want to leave a small amount of an imperfection out there,

That is, you'll do much better at selling. I see. So I'm wondering, to me, it strikes me that this approach would not only help with persuasion, but even in giving feedback, for example. Many of us, when we give feedback, we fixate on saying it just right so the person is likely to change the behavior, the approach that they have.

And it might make sense to seek their input or their guidance or invite them to participate so that they become more invested in it. Correct.

Correct. And the other thing also, and Matt, you're the expert at this one, is that to be a good communicator, you have to be a good listener. And you've got to be, what I mean by listening is that it's not just the auditory part of it, but you've got to pay careful attention to the audience that you're talking to, right? Right. And allow the person to talk, allow the person to talk, because then the person has ownership over the idea.

Right. Yeah, there's a lot of research, as you might be aware, that talk time matters and fostering trust and feeling a sense of involvement and engagement comes from the other person talking more than you do, if that's your goal, to get them more engaged and feeling trusting. So listening is important for sure.

Listening is important and also having prompts out there like, you know, so what is kind of top of mind for you? What is giving sleepless nights to you? Let me kind of get a sense of where you're coming from and how I can be of help.

I cannot guarantee that I will be able to come up with suggestions that are the best suggestions out there. But at least I can serve as a sounding board for you and then figure out if I can help you out. Right. So it's making invitations and offers to help and also learning what's important for the other to get them talking. So you actually have something to listen to. So I like that a lot.

And this is a nice bridge to my next question, which on this podcast, we've talked a lot about changing our behavior to better hone our communication. What are some other useful techniques that we can use to attain the goals we have, especially when it comes to communication change?

First and foremost, in my opinion, the tactic is go for any practice that will kind of de-stress you. And this can range from, in some cases, just taking some deep breaths.

It could be visualizing the audience and visualizing the other person being very receptive. It could be laughter. It need not be real laughter. Even fake laughter will kind of distress you. The reason that is important is because if we don't do that, if you're not in the right state, and what I mean by right state, if you're stressed, then your brain tends to adopt frames that are much more risk averse.

And it doesn't allow you to experiment you because you're coming out of fear. So the main tactic I say is just feel comfortable in your own skin. Are you comfortable out there or are you still stressed? Now sometimes you don't know that. So that's why practices like meditation is so very crucial, not just for health reasons but

But also for communication reason, to be a good communicator, your brain needs to be a lot more resilient to stress. Right. I mean, Matt, you have done this talking to an audience. And what will happen is that when you want to crack a joke and this has been part of what you're what you plan to do and you get into the stressful situation, the joke will fall flat. Oh, yeah.

Right? Right. Some of the things that I'll do is I'll do the following. Oh, I got to tell you a joke. I laugh myself before I tell the joke. And then people will start giggling. Right. Because that's a natural human tendency, right? If someone else, if someone is laughing, you tend to laugh yourself. Right. And it's

infectious and then I'll crack the joke. So there are these kind of techniques but the most important thing I believe is that of course you need to know your audience. That is the first thing you've got to know and you probably have been mentioning this time and time again. We have. I'm a big believer that the most critical factor here is you are in a state of comfort. Right.

And we've talked about this. Interestingly, we've had a couple guests, Christian being one of them who you teach with and Dan Klein, who I know you know, when it comes to this improvisational mindset. And really, the logic is the same. We get in our own way through our anxiety and the pressure we put on ourselves. And if we can actually learn to relax,

that allows us to achieve our goal much more readily and be much more present oriented too. Right. And you've got to understand that the way the brain is working is all these instinctual brain systems are shaping it. If you're stressed,

Then what happens is that it'll completely shape the frame that you're adopting about the audience, about your content, etc. And your body language is also going to tell a lot of our ability to persuade as we all know, that's not just depend upon what we are saying, but how we are saying it, right? And so if you're not in that state, I mean, it is going to show.

Right. The tells that we reveal for sure. I have enjoyed so much getting some of your tips. I'm wondering, do you have any other tips that we haven't discussed that you think might help us be more effective communicators?

Absolutely. So if it is going to be a very important piece of thing, you're giving a talk to an audience, a large audience out there, I would just say go to bed early as you often do. Get a good night's rest. Don't sacrifice on sleep. I know people doing this that they will keep on practicing the talk and through the night and they get about three hours of sleep before they deliver the talk.

If you're not had a good night's rest, guess what? Your brain chemicals are going to be such that you are going to be risk averse. You'll then adopt a frame of mind where your brain is already thinking about failure.

And that's the wrong state to be in. If you didn't get good night's rest, it could happen, right? And then you're traveling like, Matt, you do this and I have done this. You travel across time zones and get into jet lag and stuff like that. So one of the things I very quickly do, I'll order food that is comfort food.

for me. Okay. Right? So for me, it is growing up in India and you talk to most Indians, it is yogurt rice. So I will just go order some plain rice, get some yogurt, plain yogurt, mix it up and have it because you need to have that comfort and food brings a lot of comfort. So,

And then if I'm not able to sleep that night, I will go for a run in the morning because running also within about 15 minutes of a run, serotonin levels, some of the chemicals in the brain will actually be will increase. And then you get into the right kind of a state when you're giving the talk.

Great. I love that. Any excuse to eat my comfort foods, I'll take. So I'm now going to tell everybody Baba told me to. Even if it is unhealthy, a little bit of it. Right. And I know you're in fantastic shape. I don't know if you remember one of the first times you and I met, we went for a walking meeting and I thought we were walking, but your walking pace is a lot faster than mine. I call it a talk on a walk. Yes.

And pre-COVID time, COVID, of course, affected everything. Right. It's more like a twog because you're jogging, or at least I was behind you. Baba, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joins me. Are you up for that? Oh, yeah, of course. Excellent. So if you were to capture the best communication advice you have ever received as a five to seven word presentation slide title, what would it be?

The advice I got from my boss when I first got into sales, technical selling, he said, just be yourself. Don't try to be someone else. It's much harder to be someone else for sure. I'm very curious about this. Who is a communicator that you admire and why?

So, I mean, it goes and can I mention two names? For you, yes. Thank you, Matt. And they come, they're very different in terms of styles and so on. So one is Warren Buffett, right? Of course. Very kind of friendly, open, honest guy.

But his words that come out of his mouth are things that you just want to write down and keep repeating all the time. Yeah, and they move markets. And they do move markets. And the second one is the person I admire a lot is Winston Churchill. I'm a history buff and historian.

when you go through his communication, the speeches that he gave, oh my God, I mean, you can see, and you can actually go to some of the libraries and see how he worked on his speeches. He would go redraft, redraft, redrafted. And when, and then even intonations to be made, where he'll actually have these, this is where I have to emphasize things. Yeah. Imagine he just moved a nation and actually moved the,

nations of the world to fight what was going to be a very dark period in our history, right? And just to think about how he inspired a nation to actually fight and not give up.

It's incredible if you think about it. Oh, absolutely. And I encourage anybody who wants to learn more. The history of his oration and learning to be a good communicator is an example of just pure tenacity and really working to be better because he did not start off where he ended up. Let me ask question number three. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe from your perspective? Hmm.

So if I have to use the cooking metaphor, I would first say, know who you are cooking for. Second is, do you have the right ingredients? And are you excited about it? So help me understand. So I love that. And I like that you related it to the question very specifically. When you say right ingredients, you're talking about make sure you're in the right frame, your audience is in the right frame, etc.

Correct. Excellent. Very good. Correct. And also in terms of the content and how when the content has to be delivered, has to be done. Because in terms of cooking, there is a recipe to be followed. Sure. And each person has their own recipe over a period of time of how to be effective as a communicator. We all develop our own. And if you're not, you've got to become self-aware of that.

you know, the recipe for your success. So go back to the times when you were very effective as a communicator, very proud of, and ask yourself, what did you do there and what did you not do to make that effective?

- Each person has his or her own recipe. Don't try to adopt someone else's recipe, right? Of course, learn from the experts because the experts have already done it. You don't have to relearn the whole thing. But then you adapt that recipe to your own style. - That is so important that taking time to reflect

I think is so critical in any skill you're trying to develop, but especially communication. Baba, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much. I knew we would learn a lot from you and we would have a lot of fun. And I am going to go make myself some macaroni and cheese now, and we really appreciate you sharing your perspective on communication and how neuroscience can help us be better, more effective communicators. Thanks again. Thank you, Matt. It was a delight. Thank you very much.

Thank you for listening to Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast, a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business. To learn more, go to gsb.stanford.edu. Hi, Matt here. Before we jump in, I wanted to let you know about three unique executive education programs offered to senior level business leaders by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. The Executive Program in Leadership, the Emerging CFO Program, and the Director's Consortium Program.

are all being hosted here on Stanford's beautiful campus in the next few months, crafted with proven strategies for success and filled with diverse leaders from around the globe, taught by many of the guests you've heard on Think Fast, Talk Smart. Apply today at grow.stanford.edu slash upcoming to join us.