Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques
One of the most essential ingredients to success in business and life is effective communication. Join Matt Abrahams, best-selling author and Strategic Communication lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, as he interviews experts to provide actionable insights that help you communicate with clarity, confidence, and impact. From handling impromptu questions to crafting compelling messages, Matt explores practical strategies for real-world communication challenges. Whether you’re navigating a high-stakes presentation, perfecting your email tone, or speaking off the cuff, Think Fast, Talk Smart equips you with the tools, techniques, and best practices to express yourself effectively in any situation. Enhance yo...
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261. Meetings With a Point: How to Design For Better Decisions
<p>How to design meetings with purpose so they actually move work forward.</p><p><br>Meetings are a necessary part of work. But for many people, they’re also a major source of frustration. According to Rebecca Hinds, meetings don’t have to feel like a drain—better meetings start when we stop treating them as a default and start designing them with intention.</p><p>Hinds is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever: Seven Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done, and a future-of-work expert who founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Ins...
260. From Role To Soul: The Four Ingredients For Mastering Meaning
<p>Why your best life isn’t about having the right answers, but about asking the right questions.</p><p><br></p><p>Finding meaning and purpose in life isn’t about having all the answers. For Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, it’s about having the courage and curiosity to constantly engage with the questions.</p><p>As designers, Burnett and Evans have careers spanning everything from academia to companies like Apple, Electronic Arts, and Hasbro. But beyond fashioning better products and user experiences, they’ve also put their expertise toward the transcendent, writing several books about designing and living l...
259. Quick Thinks: Task-Focused to People-Focused—A Smarter Way to Communicate
<p>How “spaciousness” helps teams move beyond busywork — and build the conditions for honest conversation.</p><p>“We’re just so busy right now” is one of the most common reasons cultures don’t change — and it’s exactly what Megan Reitz set out to understand. In her research, she describes two modes of attention at work: doing mode, where focus narrows to tasks, control, and quick progress, and spacious mode, where attention expands, insight emerges, and real connection becomes possible.</p><p>Reitz is a leadership researcher whose work explores how people speak up, listen well, and create environments where others can b...
258. When Power Talks, People Walk: Why Leaders Don’t Hear What Matters Most
<p>Why it’s critical to say what needs to be said — and listen when others do the same.</p><p><br>Speak out, listen up — these are Megan Reitz’s core pillars of workplace communication. According to her, healthy organizations are only possible when everyone can say what they think, and they know they’ll be heard.</p><p>Reitz is an academic and author whose work focuses on creating workplaces where all voices are heard and valued. Her latest book, Speak Out, Listen Up, explores the power dynamics that shape our communication at work and beyond. “Conversational habits define organ...
257. Move Your Audience: Lessons From MLK You Should Use
<p>Why it’s not about being born a great communicator, but becoming one.</p><p><br></p><p>The greatest communicators aren’t always great from the start. As Lerone Martin knows, even the great Martin Luther King Jr. had to practice before he could persuade.</p><p>Martin is the Martin Luther King Jr. Centennial Professor at Stanford, and as director of the King Research and Education Institute, he has spent years studying how King developed his brilliant communication that continues to captivate audiences to this day. “This is a skill that Martin developed over years,” Martin says. “There are...
256. Be Kind: The Most Overlooked Driver of Success
<p>Why being kind is the best investment.</p><p><br></p><p>Can kindness be a company’s competitive advantage? Bonnie Hayden Cheng says yes — and she’s got a business metric to prove it: return on kindness.</p><p>Cheng is a professor of management at City University of Hong Kong who researches how workplace behaviors affect interpersonal dynamics and well-being. In her book, The Return on Kindness, she explores how organizations that foster a culture of kindness see a measurable ROK — one marked by a more committed, more productive, and less expensive workforce. “Organizations that have this kind of cu...
255. How Leaders Sound Smart Without Saying Too Much
<p>The keys to communicating clarity, not confusion.</p><p>What separates communicators who clarify from those who confuse? The ability to “Simplify complexity,” says Adam Bryant. “I don't think you can be an effective leader if you can't do that.”</p><p>Bryant is a senior managing director at the ExCo Group and former New York Times journalist who interviewed over 500 CEOs for his renowned Corner Office column. Through those conversations, he identified a pattern: the best communicators turn complexity into clarity. For Bryant, that means checking your own expertise, considering not whether something makes sense to you, but whether...
254. Start Fresh: How Framing, Timing, and Talk Can Improve Your Finances
<p>How to have more open conversations about money.</p><p><br></p><p>Talking about money is taboo for many people. But according to Wendy De La Rosa, financial well-being only starts when we break the silence around finance.</p><p>De La Rosa is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-founder of the Common Cents Lab, an initiative aiming to increase financial well-being for low- to moderate-income people. For many, she says, shame keeps us silent about money. “Shame is paralyzing, and more than any other negative emotion, [it] leads us to i...
253. Top 10: The Best Communication Tips from 2025
<p>Our 10 favorite communication insights from 2025.</p><p>The most transformative communication insights are the ones we actually remember to use. That’s why host Matt Abrahams is taking stock of his favorite communication tips from this year, so we can carry them into the next.</p><p>In this annual Think Fast, Talk Smart tradition, Abrahams shares his top 10 communication insights from guests over the past year, from facilitating connection through Gina Bianchini's "proactive serendipity” to Jenn Wynn’s use of dialogue as a gateway to synergy. Whether you're looking to build trust, boost productivity, or speak more spontaneously, this y...
252. Rethinks: How to Make Complex Ideas Accessible
<p>Presenting complex information for your audience to understand.</p><p>As communicators, we often need to take complex information (e.g., financial, technical, or scientific) and make it more understandable for our audience – we’re experts and they likely aren’t. But having so much knowledge on the topics we discuss can often make the job more difficult: we dive in too quickly, forget about our audience's needs, or use jargon that goes over their heads. </p><p><br></p><p>In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, strategic communications lecturers Matt Abrahams and Lauren Weinstein explore the “curse of...
