88. Best of: Leading From Home – How to Create the Right Environment for Communication
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As a kid, I loved telling knock-knock jokes. My friends and family will tell you my jokes were really not funny. However, I persisted. I distinctly remember being so excited every time my humor victims would respond to my knock-knock with a "Who's there?" This decision of an audience to engage with a speaker is critical for communication success. Today we'll explore our audience's decision-making and communication.

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 really excited to speak with Jonathan Lavov. Jonathan is the King Philanthropies Professor of Marketing at the GSB. He also directs the GSB's Behavioral Lab.

Jonathan's research is aimed at understanding consumers' judgments and choices by using tools from experimental psychology and behavioral economics. In particular, he studies the contextual factors that influence people's choices and judgments. Thanks for being here, Jonathan. Thanks for having me, Matt. I want to start by talking about the impact of context on our decisions, action, and communication.

A while back, you conducted research involving judges in their sentencing. Can you share what you found and what your results might mean for how people make decisions? When prisoners have completed two-thirds of their sentence, they're automatically eligible for parole. It doesn't mean they're automatically paroled. It means they're eligible for parole.

And basically, the way the setup was is the prisoners come in and they're dressed in this orange getup, just like you see in the movies, and they present in front of the judge. Sometimes they have a lawyer, sometimes they don't. And the judge makes a decision whether or not to release them on parole. And what we did is we took a look to see which prisoners were released.

And what we found was that if you plotted, imagine you have an xy plane, right? Imagine a graph. So on the x-axis, you have ordinal position. What does it mean, ordinal position? Are you first? Are you the second prisoner? Third, fourth, fifth, and so on and so forth? So we had that on one axis. And on the other axis, what we had is your probability of being released.

Okay, so for example, if you were first in the sequence, your chances of being released were 60%. And so when we plotted that, we observed a really interesting sort of EKG-looking pattern, where initially you were reasonably likely to be released around 60%, and that kind of decreased. You know, sometimes it went up, sometimes it went down a little bit, but overall the pattern was a decrease.

And then we observed a jump, and then we observed the same pattern, and then we observed another jump. And so we have an interpretation that we didn't test the interpretation, but it's consistent with it. And the idea is that as people make lots of decisions, the previous decisions have an effect on the subsequent decisions. And specifically, as you... And we've all experienced this when we make a lot of decisions. Like in a meeting, you have a lot of decisions. Your sort of energy that you have for the first one is very different than the energy that you have for the third one or the fifth one or the tenth one. And so as you become...

depleted, let's say, the way you solve that problem is you simplify the decision for yourself. And so what's the simplest decision? So Matt, you came up, you're like sixth or seventh on my list. I've seen five or six or seven other bad guys before you. You know what? Easiest thing to do is just to leave you in prison.

And so that's what we observed. And then when people took a break, there's some kind of mental replenishment that looks like it's happening. I'm curious to get your thoughts on what you think this might mean for people as they think about when they interact with others. It sounds to me like they have to think about the amount of decisions that they're asking people to make or that people might have made prior to the decisions we're asking people to make.

What are your thoughts on that? How do we take this research and maybe apply it to make our communication more likely to succeed? I think the first step is a realization, and the realization is as follows. Decisions and information is cumulative. And so that accumulation can change how we approach the information. And so as a result, that accumulation needs to be managed.

right suppose i'm communicating in a classroom and i'm saying a lot of stuff and it's a lot a lot of a lot of information if i really want to be an effective teacher i have moments during the course where i'll change pace i have people doing exercise i basically give them the opportunities for those kind of mental respites so that they can then kind of go back to then hearing me lecture and they're not basically fried as they're hearing me do it and similarly with decisions

When you're in a situation where you're planning multiple decisions, it's actually a process that you have to plan out. The problem is that, yes, things will change, but we don't always know in what way. What I can say with confidence is that something changes, and we also have some other research that shows that giving people a chance for a mental reset makes your

message and makes their sort of ability to approach information, it replenishes it and you'll be much more effective. So many things to take away from what you just said. We've talked often here about knowing your audience and really trying to understand what they need to hear from you. But you also have to think about just the psychological burden that is on your audience and address that. Yeah, it's not just what they need to hear from you, it's how they need to hear it. Right. And how they need to hear it is not a straight line. It's a dynamic process.

And they need to hear it one way for a while, and then they need to hear it a different way, and that different way needs to reinforce that one way, and then they have to go back to some other way. Otherwise, you're not accounting for your audience. You're not actually knowing your audience.

Right, and addressing to their needs in the moment. That's fascinating. That's fascinating. I'm going to apply that not only in my teaching, but in my other communication, especially with my kids. I definitely have to say things in a different way in different timings for sure. Especially if they're teenagers. They are. They are. Believe me. As someone who studies marketing and decision-making, what suggestions do you have for those of us who want our ideas to get noticed? I'll share with you two basic principles in decision-making. The first one is that assessments of value are comparative.

When I ask you, how much is your iPhone worth to you? You don't kind of go to the back of your mind and do like a calculation, you know, and you come out with a number. It's worth $1,700.25. No, you say, oh, well, compared to what? Okay, so really everything is compared. If I ask you, Matt, how happy are you with your net worth?

You're going to answer the question. It depends on who you think about. If you think about, you know, maybe you grew up poor, maybe, and now you're wealthier. And so maybe you'll feel great about it, but maybe you had an ambition for yourself that you would be kind of a trillionaire now and you're not there. So you feel poor. So the first thing is, is to realize that when people make a decision, when they evaluate you, that evaluation is inherently comparative and your homework is

to figure out what are people comparing you to. They're going to make that comparison whether you like it or not, whether you try to control it or not. So first of all, let's figure out what they're trying to compare us to. And the second thing is let's try to induce a comparison that favors us. We do that in marketing all the time with positioning. We position a product in a way that it's differentiated relative to the competition. So the advantage becomes apparent. So that's one thing. That's one basic principle. The other basic principle is simplicity.

Our minds are extremely capable, but also extremely cheap. What do you mean by that? By cheap, I mean we want to make a decision or a judgment investing the least amount of mental capacity possible. And as a result, when we look at a situation, the first thing we look for are what I call better than cues. In other words, I want to be able to see that an option is better than on some dimension than another option.

And so in your communication, in your offering of a product, a service, I don't know, a menu of whatever it is, you want to highlight those better than cues because that's what, that's, that's where we go to first. And the reason we go there first is because that makes it easy. Hey, this is better than that. Done. I'm going home.

Wow. I like both of those. I just had an assignment in a class where people do a panel presentation. So there are four people presenting next to each other. And we talked about how that comparison you have on a panel is very different than other types of communication because you literally see the person right next to you and your audience makes those comparisons. So how do you want to come off relative to the person sitting to your left or to your right? On a panel like that,

Unless you're clearly superior than everybody else along some dimension, the best thing to do is to come off as different as possible so you're not easy to compare. Oh, interesting. Right? Because otherwise, you're sort of vulnerable to downward comparisons. But if you're incomparable, I'm the incomparable Matt Abrahams. I can't compare you. Okay. So he's a different beast. I'll judge you along different dimensions. I have been accused of being very different in many ways. I'm not sure it's always been positive. But-

But this notion of better than I like a lot. As we differentiate our ideas, our messages, our products and services, we can really position it as better than. So it makes it easier for the audience to make that decision. Just one thing, careful and being overly overt.

It's like when you go to a restaurant and you ask the waiter, what's the best wine? And they say, this one, and it's the most expensive wine on the list. And you're like, oh, okay, they're just trying to sell me the most expensive wine. But people have what's called persuasion knowledge. So yeah, you want to have those better than cues, but you don't want to have those better than cues in such a way that will raise suspicion that you're trying to convince people. Right, yes. We talked about that a bit when Zach Tormelo was here about persuasion and how you want to be persuasive, but if it looks like you're being persuasive, it works against you.

You ran an online course here at Stanford for the School of Engineering entitled Leading from Home. I'd like to have you share some of the things you teach in two topic areas. First, can you tell us how do you lead when your office is just a 13-inch screen?

It's a great question. And to be honest with you, it's something that we're in the process of figuring out. Yes, working from home was growing. It was up to about 5% of the workforce in 2018. But now I think it's going to end up being 25%, 30%, or 40%. And we're trying to figure that out. What we teach in that course is we say, let's think about basic elements of the psychology of the workplace.

how they play out face-to-face and how they might be different when your world is basically reduced to a 13-inch screen. I'll give you an example, like norms. When I go to the office, in a face-to-face office, there's all kinds of implicit and explicit norms, right? So you have the explicit norms are communicated when you have employee onboarding or when your boss talks to you or when your colleagues talk to you. That's where you learn what you're supposed to do and how to do it. Exactly right. But then there's implicit norms, like what time do people get in here in the morning? Or like what's okay to wear?

Or what kind of language is it okay to use? Like, can you curse? You know, it's like, you know, throw an F word from time to time. Does that make you seem cooler or does that make you seem more like a, not a cooler? I was wondering what you were going to say there. Yeah, I have to be careful. I don't know the norms here. This is a G-rated podcast, Jonathan. That's right. I don't know the norms here, so I stopped myself. The hardest thing is to figure out

Now, when everybody's remote and are distributed teams and everything is through a 13-inch office, what are the norms? And so one of the things that we teach is the first thing you have to do is you have to catalog what are the norms that you have in the face-to-face world and what's the purpose of those norms. So let's say we have a norm that we shake hands. Okay, so that norm, what's the purpose of it? It's to be able to say, I have a connection, I'm here, and there's nothing that says connected more than physical contact. Okay, so now let's think about the 13-inch office. What are ways in this environment in which I can create connectedness?

So maybe, you know, I'll give you a very simple example. Maybe I use a handshake emoji, which is, I know it's kind of a lame example, but it's fulfilling the same obligation. Exactly. Fulfill the same obligation. So it's like, oh, or maybe it's not a handshake emoji. Maybe it's a different kind of emoji that like suggests contact, like a hand up as a, that's like a certain kind of wave or something like that.

And so what we do is we catalog those types of things. So for instance, so norms is one of them. Things like nonverbal cues. When you and I are sitting together in a room, there's a bunch of, like you just nodded. I did. Okay, so you nodded. So that suggests to me, hey, I hear you. When we're doing things through a screen or we're doing things, imagine, for example, just with voice, I don't see the nods. I don't have that nonverbal cue, which means that I, as a communicator, as a leader, have to find other ways to show that I'm engaged. So I'll say, uh-huh.

Right. Right. Maybe I don't naturally say, uh-huh. But now I've indicated to you through this other modality that the equivalent of a nod.

So we go through a catalog of that stuff and encourage people to join. I think it's one of the most interesting problems and it speaks to the future of work. Absolutely. Another topic from your course that piqued my curiosity was how do you maintain a company culture when some or all of the employees are remote? Short answer, it's tough. It's not just maintain a company culture. You have to establish a company culture. Right, right, yeah. First, you have to ask yourself, wait a second, what's the

culture we have, what's the culture we want to have. And then with a bunch of trial and error, actually say, okay, if I wanted to fulfill, suppose I want to have a culture that's innovative. Okay, I want to have an innovative culture. Now I'm far away. How do I create environments for people to have those serendipitous conversations where they come up with new ideas? So maybe you have, some people do things like before a meeting, the first five minutes are meant for just

silly, serendipitous conversation. Another thing you say, okay, there's research that suggests that when people go out and take a walk, they're more creative. So maybe you actually encourage employees to do voice conversations while walking, right? Because when you're moving around, you may be physically inspired by things around you, but it's a deliberate process. Yeah. When you do those walking talks, it's hard because sometimes people are really panting and sweating as they go, but it presumes being in shape. That's right. That's right.

This notion of norms, symbols, and rituals, cataloging them and then thinking very deliberately about what you want, I think is so important. I know you recently delivered a lecture on the top 12 lessons you've learned about communication from your many years in the classroom. I would love to have you share two or three of those lessons with us. Here's the ones that I tend to repeat a lot.

You have to earn the right to bullshit. I said it was a G-rated. All right, we'll believe that. All right. Yeah. What that means is that first a story has to have a core, and then it has to have the refinements. And that's true in any kind of presentation or in even any kind of writing. Mm-hmm.

A lot of times you see people, they try to use this fancy language, but they use fancy language on vapid ideas. First, let's get the sentences clearly put together, and then let's add the flair. Too many people think that we start with flair, and if you have flair, it's more attractive. It's not. It's style over substance versus substance over style. Exactly right. So first thing, you have to earn the right to bull poop.

And that's one thing that I quote a lot. The other thing that I quote a lot is actually something that was taught to me when I first became an academic. I was at Columbia Business School, and our dean of the MBA program said, talking about teaching, he said, remember they're hearing it for the first time, which I think is an absolutely brilliant nugget. I agree. And it's true.

In any kind of communication, whether it's we're talking, whether it's we're in a room talking to lots of people, whether you have a product, the product essentially is a form of communication between you and your potential customer. And you have to take the perspective, this is a person who's hearing it for the first time. And it's very hard to do because there's such an asymmetry between what we know. I know everything and you know nothing. And I have to

feel like someone who doesn't know anything. And that's so, so, so profoundly difficult. That was the second thing. And let me add a third thing that relates to the current zeitgeist.

You can't satisfy everybody, but you have to be mindful of everybody. You're not going to, especially if you have a style, you're not going to hit the mark with everybody. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be mindful of their needs. And, you know, needs nowadays are broadly defined around not just kind of knowledge, but also identity and stuff like that. And sure, you don't have to be perfect for them, but you have to be mindful of them. And that's critical, I think, to be able to generate, create the environment in which communication is effective.

It reminds me, the last point you brought up reminds me of a lesson I've shared with many people I've mentored when I was in the working world and I was running organizations. You're still in the working world at Stanford, Matt. That's true. Okay. When I was in the corporate world. One of the biggest lessons that was hard for me to learn that I've tried to pass on to others is there's a difference between being liked and being respected.

And a lot of people want to be liked and they'll do things that try to accommodate everybody when in fact that ends up working against you and it gets to that very same point you just made.

Before we end, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I ask everyone who joins me. You up for that? Go for it. All right. Question number one. If you were to capture the best communication advice you have ever received as a five- to seven-word presentation slide title, what would that title be? I shared it with you already. Remember they're hearing it for the first time. So, so important. I first came across that when I was an undergrad. I was studying Zen Buddhism and this notion of beginner's mind. And you really have to just put yourself in that perspective first.

not just for yourself to learn and appreciate, but to really help others. So it's about empathy and about really seeing it for the first time. Let me ask question number two. Who is a communicator that you admire and why? I've been around a lot of great communicators, but I think the best one I ever saw is a guy who was a colleague of mine at Columbia who's now at HBS whose name is Sunil Gupta. Sunil Gupta was...

All content, clarity, crystal clear, slick without looking slick. It was mesmerizing. And he could explain things in such a clear way. He didn't make a show. He didn't pace around. He didn't do all that. He didn't need it. And so in that sense, he was just absolutely brilliant. The guy would just stand in place and communicate.

Let me ask our final question. What are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe? So the first one is clarity. And it has to be clarity to the speaker before it's clarity to the listener. Oh, I like that clarification. And so, yeah, exactly. And so you have to be able to say it in the middle of the night when you're woken up suddenly when someone throws a glass of water on you.

Does that happen to you a lot? Of course, a lot of times. But I have teenagers. Right, right. But if you're not there, your listener will never get there. So I think that's the first tip.

The second tip that I think is critical is the best communicators are the best at transitioning from concept to concept. Oh, that is so cool. That is so important. It's just so... And so underserved. People don't think about it. They don't think about it. They think in this world of slides. And so they complete the slide and they go to the next slide and they say, so... Yes. And so... So we're next. Exactly. Next. So that's the second part is moving from idea to idea. I think that the third one is rapport. That connection. Yeah. Yeah.

This happened to me with my son once. We were in the airport and I went to an agent. And first thing I always do when I'm in a grocery, in a public place where you have people serving you is I look at their name tag. And I said like, you know, Matt, what time is this flight leaving? And I could have just said, what time is this flight leaving? But the service I got

When I said, Matt, what time is the flight leaving? It was different because Matt was addressed by name. And actually in that specific situation, we ended up getting an upgrade from New York to San Francisco. And I remember my son, we walk away and we're walking onto the plane and he says, do you know that person? And I said, no, I don't know that person, but they have a name. And name in communication is like sugar. You get more with sugar. You get more understanding. You get more connection. Yeah.

So you taught a lesson, a very important lesson to your son about individuating people and respecting people, and you got the reward for it. Yeah, exactly right. Well, thank you. And thank you for all that you've shared. My pleasure. As we close, I have a joke for you, Jonathan. I hope you decide to go along. So here we go. Knock, knock. Who's there? Tank.

Tank who? No, thank you. Matt. I told you my jokes were bad. You weren't kidding. In all seriousness, Jonathan, thank you so much. Not only was it super fun to talk to you, it's been very insightful. Your suggestions and teaching about what makes for effective decision-making and communication is really helpful. And I wish you well, and I hope everybody takes an opportunity to learn more about you and the stuff you do. Thank you so much. Thanks very much, Matt. Appreciate it.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast produced by Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. For more information and episodes, visit gsb.stanford.edu or subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts. Finally, find us on social media at stanford.gsb.

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