Dr. Alison Wood Brooks | The Science of Conversation & the Art of Being Ourselves | Talks at Google

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

April 14, 2025

Duration

59m

Channel

Talks at Google

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Harvard professor, award-winning behavioral scientist and leading expert on the psychology of conversation, Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, discusses her book Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, which reveals the hidden architecture of our conversations and how even small improvements can have a profound impact on our relationships in work and life. Get the book here: https://goo.gle/41SeCrk. Learn more about Alison: http://www.alisonwoodbrooks.com. Dr. Alison Wood Brooks is the O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School, where she created and teaches a course called “Talk.”. As a behavioral scientist, she is a leading expert on the science of conversation. Her award-winning research has been published in top academic journals and is regularly cited in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and NPR. Her research was referenced in two of the top ten most-viewed TED talks of all time and depicted in Pixar’s Inside Out 2. In 2021, Dr. Wood Brooks was named a Best 40 Under 40 Business School Professor by Poets & Quants. Moderated by Brandon Li.

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Brandon Li

  host

  Google Lens team member and Talks at Google host/moderator for this event.

• Dr. Alison Wood Brooks

  guest

  Harvard Business School professor and researcher/author focused on the science of conversation.

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Talks at Google, featuring Brandon Li and Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, Dr. Alison Wood Brooks | The Science of Conversation & the Art of Being Ourselves | Talks at Google explores Conversation skills are learnable: use topics, questions, levity, kindness. Alison Wood Brooks explains her research-driven view that conversational skill is learnable, challenging the “myth of naturalness” that great talkers succeed purely through spontaneity.

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