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

Brandon Li 0:00 [on-hold music]

Brandon Li 0:07 Hello, everyone. Hope you're having an awesome day so far. My name is Brandon Li. I'm on the Google Lens team here, and it is my honor and privilege to be your host for today's event. Welcome to Talks at Google. Well, folks- [audience applauding] [laughs] Well, folks, we've got, I think, a fascinating topic for today's discussion. We're gonna be having a conversation about conversations. Now, quick poll, show of hands, do we have any software engineers in the room today? Okay, excellent. Good to see we still exist in 2025.

Speaker 0:47 [laughing]

Brandon Li 0:48 Now, it's no secret that a lot of us went into this line of work to, um, minimize human contact.

Speaker 0:56 [laughing]

Brandon Li 0:56 But [laughs] as a lot of us found out, it turns out that talking to each other is still a huge part of our day-to-days and our jobs. The good news is that conversation is something that we can actually all get better at, and we have an expert here with us today to show us how. So without further ado, love to say a few words about our guest. Our guest joins us here today from Harvard Business School, where she's the O’Brien Associate Professor of Business Administration. She's recently put out a new book, on your chairs, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. And about this book, I think it speaks volumes that Angela Duckworth, who is already an excellent conversationalist, and my personal favorite podcast host, has this to say about the book. "This book has raised my game as a conversationalist. I'm recommending it to everyone I know." And finally, our guest has been featured in places like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and her findings have even been referenced in the Pixar movie Inside Out 2. Please give a warm Googly welcome to Dr. Alison Wood Brooks.

Speaker 2:01 [applauding]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:02 Oh, thank you. That's so nice.

Brandon Li 2:03 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:04 Thank you, guys.

Brandon Li 2:06 Good to have you with us, Alison. Uh, I must say, this is the most prepared I've probably ever felt-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:12 [laughs]

Brandon Li 2:12 ... in an interview. I was reading your book, and it kinda felt like I had a coach with me telling me what I needed to do, so.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:18 Cheerleader and coach.

Brandon Li 2:19 Yes, cheerleader.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:20 Yes.

Brandon Li 2:20 Thank you for that.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:21 [laughs]

Brandon Li 2:22 So, uh, I wanted to kick us off by taking us back in time a bit, to a time before Alison Wood Brooks became a behavioral scientist.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:30 Mm.

Brandon Li 2:31 And I was curious, if I were to ask this past Alison, "Alison, what do you think makes a good conversationalist?" what do you think she would've said?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 2:39 Oh, my gosh. I lo- I love questions like this that take you back in time to a different version of yourself. So I'm going doodle-doo, doodle-doo. Um, so before I was a behavioral scientist, so I was born an identical twin. Uh, I loved playing sports, playing basketball and soccer growing up. I also loved music. Very serious oboe player, you guys.

Speaker 2:59 [laughing]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 3:00 Um, but I think, you know, hobbies aside, uh, I've always really loved people. Uh, I may be one of the only academics who is truly extroverted. [laughs] Um, and I think I've always been fascinated by, um, that there are people out there that just seemingly are really good at conversation, kind of fixated on, like, what are the things that they're doing that make their conversations more exciting and more intriguing and more engaging, more productive, more efficient. Um, so even if I wouldn't have used those words probably, I think I would've said something like, "There are just some people I love talking to."

Brandon Li 3:40 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 3:40 And I think we all feel that way. And so later, when I did become a behavioral scientist, maybe it's no surprise that I became obsessed with trying to figure out what are those people doing.

Brandon Li 3:49 Mm. That's great. And I think your book does an awesome job of demystifying some of those things and, uh, combating what you call the myth of naturalness. You know, there's actually things that we can learn, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:01 Yeah.

Brandon Li 4:01 So I think two of the things that struck me when reading your book are, number one, the number of people willing to have their conversations recorded-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:08 [laughs]

Brandon Li 4:09 ... for science.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:10 [laughs]

Brandon Li 4:10 And number two, so with your findings, some of them are things that, you know, we hear them, it's like, "Oh, that kinda makes sense," but a lot of the things are actually fairly counterintuitive-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:19 Yeah

Brandon Li 4:19 ... right? But importantly, backed by the research.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:22 Yeah.

Brandon Li 4:22 So, um, could you kick us off by maybe just, like, sharing one or two of the findings that you found particularly exciting for you or that you feel like are game-changers?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 4:30 Oh, my gosh. Where do we begin? Um, I, yeah, I think when we think of behavioral science, you summarized it really well. What I am always trying to find are these things that are, like, a little bit surprising. So at first you go, "Oh," and then you're like, "Of course," right? So it's like an idea that's been rolling around in the back of your mind, this fuzzy thing, that someone can come in and with data and evidence and sort of confirm or disconfirm that suspicion that many people have maybe had about what they've seen in the world. Um, so an example for me, uh, one of the things we talk about in the book are topics. Something that blew my mind recently is that I think certainly I walked around with this lay belief, I think a lot of us walk around with this lay belief, that in order to have a deep conversation, you need to stay on a topic for a long time and, like, really... Explore it deeply, get maybe get really personal about it, uh, really reflect. When we study conversation, many conversations at large scale, what you realize is actually good conversationalists are achieving depth on topics and moving across them quickly. So it doesn't... Staying on a topic longer does not actually mean you're getting deeper on it, but some people are better at extracting the meaningful content from a topic more quickly by asking follow-up questions, by revealing more about themselves, by just being better sort of listeners trying to look for the best golden nuggets that emerge from their partner. It's almost like they're better curators of topics, and then as soon as it starts to feel like, okay, those golden nugget- We've, we've extracted most of the golden nuggets from this thing, we got to move on to something else. And so good conversationalists achieve both depth and breadth of topics. That blew my mind. Um, do you want me to keep going?

Brandon Li 6:16 Oh, yeah. Feel free.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 6:17 [laughs]

Brandon Li 6:17 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 6:18 Um, another thing that I think is quite helpful in practice that we've learned about question asking is you'll often see, like, on LinkedIn or there's even... There's this New York Times article that this journalist just, uh, was... I was emailing with yesterday, where she's like, "Well, what questions should we ask our moms on Mother's Day?" Um, which is a great topic, great idea. Everybody should be calling their moms on Mother's Day and asking good questions. But my point to her when I wrote back was the question that you start with, so something like, "If you could go back in time," like, "Who were you friends with when I, when I was a baby?" That's a great question. Gonna start you down a really interesting tree br- branch. But everything that comes after it may be even more important. Are you listening to what she says? Are you searching for points i- in her emotional tone that are particularly exciting or intriguing, or maybe she's, uh, feeling uncomfortable about something, and can you pick up on that and then take a deeper dive in it with follow-up questions? Can you reveal something about your own life that helps to re- relate to those feelings in her? Um, so I think the, the sort of starting point of a topic or a conversation is just one turn, and conversations are actually hundreds of turns. So thinking about how that cascade unfolds is, can be very, very valuable.

Brandon Li 7:33 I like the, uh, phrase that you use sometimes to describe it, searching for treasure. It's like-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 7:37 Yeah

Brandon Li 7:37 ... you know, a little light bulb goes off and it's like there's something here, and you want to keep going for it. Not to force it, but to kind of, you know, like go with what it's giving you. But you also talk about how there's some upfront work that you can do before the conversation. This is one of your more, uh, maybe not controversial, but, like, a little bit harder for people to accept. Uh, preparing topics. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 7:57 Yeah. You've done a great job. Look at your screen. You've got so many great-

Brandon Li 8:01 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 8:01 There's highlighting, you guys. It's amazing. Um, so of course, most great conversations are a combination of forethought in whatever form that you like to plan or prepare, and then flexibility once you're in it. Um, I've always been a sort of habitual topic prepper, not in a formal sense, but I just really like thinking about people when we're apart, and I, I find it very helpful to push yourself to think like, "W- I know I'm going to see this person tomorrow. What will actually make our conversat- What will be fun to talk about? What do we need to talk about? What does this person need from me right now?" I've always found that to be a helpful mindset, and I was surprised to learn when I started teaching my class called Talk at Harvard that not everybody is thinking that way. Not everybody is doing that cognitive work. And so we wanted to run experiments to see, like, what if you push people to do it? Um, what if you push people to just come up with a couple bullet points before every conversation, uh, of possible topics they could talk about? So do a little bit of topic prep. And what we found is, confirmed my instinct, which is, um, when you nudge people to prep topics, even for 30 seconds before a conversation starts, uh, it makes it much more enjoyable. You feel less anxious during it because you don't have those little panics where you're like, "Oh God, I know we need to talk about something else. I don't know what that should be." It's a little creativity task. So it just takes a little bit of that pressure off. There are fewer disfluencies like ums and uhs and stutters and pauses. Um, and you, you're more likely to land on mutually interesting topics. When you're doing those little creativity tasks, our, our, our instinct leads us to often talk about things in our environment. So, like, let's, we'll talk about the food that's on the table in front of us, or maybe we'll gossip about a person standing nearby. That's not necessarily the best thing to talk about with that person, right? You should be thinking about what do they need, what do I need, let's talk about those things. So the reason this finding, even though it's, it's sort of robustly helpful to people, the reason the finding feels a little controversial is because many people don't want to do it. You ask them to prep topics, and they're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. This feels super rigid, woman. Why are you, why are you making me think ahead or write something down before I call my mom or before I talk to my bestie? I should just know what... I'm going to know what to talk about with people I'm close to, especially." And not, sort of going a step beyond I will know is I should know because that's what a good relationship is. That's what good conversation is, and it gets back to this idea of myth of naturalness. We have this belief that good conversationalists are not only good writ large, they're good on the spot, spontaneously. They're coming up with these jokes and, like, ideas and topics and questions, like, right then and there. And when you actually start studying lots of conversationalists at scale, you start to realize that's not, that's not true. Uh, good conversationalists are, are very often quite prepared, um, even if you can't observe that preparation.

Brandon Li 11:11 There's a lot to, um, probe a little bit further there, and I imagine some of us in the room resonate with some of the objections. But I actually wanted to ask, I'm a little curious- Um, how did you even think to research this question? 'Cause that's no- not the most obvious hypothesis I would have thought about. Like, you know, does preparing topics help with conversation? Like, I've never even considered that as like a, an option.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 11:33 Totally. So when I, uh, at some point around 2015, maybe about a decade ago, I realized that there were whole fields that seemed to be about conversation, so social psychology, communication. And, and as a behavioral scientist trained in like that world, I also realized, but nobody's actually gone to the trouble of recording people actually talking to each other, and then using new tools that had, had emerged technologically, like natural language processing and machine learning, to analyze transcript data at large scale. So it felt like it was both a methodological opportunity of like, oh, we can do this better. We can actually study what people are saying to each other and how they're thinking and feeling while they do it. Descriptively, all right, like describing what are people doing at very large scale. Once you get into what are people doing, you start to realize, oh, there's so much room for improvement here. When you look under the hood, conversation is incredibly messy. There's so many flops and fumbles and collisions and problems and little difficult moments. Then you start to think, okay, what are the little life hacks? What are the mindsets? What are the things that will be most helpful to the most people across most different conversation contexts? And so then we start testing using experiments, uh, different interventions. And so topic prep is an example. Um, you can... We've also tried, like, just tell people to talk about more topics, so covering, moving more quickly, asking more questions, asking more specific types of questions, trying to incorporate more laughter. Um, any little behavior that in your mind you're like, "Ugh, I love when people do that. I love compliments. I love when people say thank you."

Brandon Li 13:20 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 13:20 If you can nudge people to go in with a mindset to do those things more, often they are able to do it, and it makes their conversations much, much better.

Brandon Li 13:31 Yeah, I think, um, you know, I, I can relate to this idea of somehow having this instinct of it needing to be organic. But as I reflected on it, there's other areas in our lives where we do preparation, and we don't see it as a bad thing. So one that came to mind was, like, you know, if you travel with some friends, for example, it's helpful to have someone who's looked up what restaurants we should eat at, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 13:49 Mm-hmm.

Brandon Li 13:49 Like, you don't necessarily want to walk into the first one that you went into. Um, but with conversation, I think, so there's this kind of like, uh, you know, our culture really prizes authenticity and being organic. But I think another aspect of it, which I'd be curious to get your thoughts on, is I wonder if there's also this fear of coming across like we have an agenda-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:08 Yeah

Brandon Li 14:08 ... or like we're trying to manipulate somebody.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:10 Yeah.

Brandon Li 14:10 And you talk about the role of perception in conversation as well, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:14 Yeah.

Brandon Li 14:14 So does it matter if the other person knows that you've prepared topics, or even if you, you know, whip out a sheet of paper with, like, stuff you pre-prepared?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:21 [laughs]

Brandon Li 14:22 Does it, does it still work to have those things prepared?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:24 Let's imagine that you had this beautiful little screen that, with all these questions and highlights, but instead of doing this in front of your colleagues at Google, we were doing it, like, with your family-

Brandon Li 14:35 Yeah

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 14:35 ... or with your, like, coolest friends. Would they be like, "Brandon, you're such a nerd. Like, what are... Like, you're trying to push your agenda. Like, what are you doing? This is supposed to be casual." So there are all kinds of variables that shift from one conversation to the next depending on who's there, what the, what the goals are, uh, what the lighting is like, who's in the room. Um, and doing conversation well is such a, it- it's this delicate act of co-creation, and it requires tremendous self-awareness. So like reading yourself. How am I feeling? What do I want out of this? Mind reading. Like, I need to figure out what are your goals here. What are you trying to do? What's the point? Why did you say yes to this? Um, and then room, and room reading, right? Of reading all of the cues of who's in the room and what they, w- what they care about. Um, that's a really complicated skill and is, is, is incredibly important. Yeah. You mentioned that you going on, like, a trip with friends, it's often helpful to have somebody who actually does have an agenda. The topic prep is particularly helpful in groups.

Brandon Li 15:37 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 15:38 Uh, so most of the book focuses on one-on-one conversation, but group conversation takes all of the sort of co- coordination puzzles and problems and challenges, and they multiply exponentially as soon as a third person pulls up a chair, let alone like a bus full of people at a bachelor party.

Brandon Li 15:53 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 15:53 So as much as we might tease people who seemingly are too intense and are, like, devising an itinerary or an agenda, we really should be thanking them. Uh, because without it, everybody's gonna pair off in subgroups. Nobody's gonna know what the goals are, what the timeline is. And so when you go in and you're like, "This is supposed to be so fun, so we're just gonna be super casual about it," it actually leads to sort of coordinational chaos, and you need a, sort of a plan in order to, once you get to a thing, um, actually enjoy being together and feeling confident in what the purpose is.

Brandon Li 16:25 Yeah. I actually personally have an issue sometimes that my wife points out, which is, like, assuming the worst in people. Like, that they would think that you have bad intentions or something. And I think this sort of thing, you know, we can frame it as, like, an act of care even. Like, I've taken the time to think about you.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 16:41 Yes.

Brandon Li 16:41 Yeah. So absolutely. You mentioned mind reading, and, um, you know, as you kind of pointed at, like, there's a lot of nuances when it comes to conversation because people are complex, and therefore conversations are complex. The topic of mind reading I found interesting 'cause it, it came up in a c- a couple different contexts in your book. So the first one is, you know, in this coordination game, we implicitly need to do some amount of mind reading where we can't explicitly ask for every single thing. But at the same time, you pointed out how, uh, trying to put ourselves in somebody else's shoes is actually really difficult for us, and we're often very bad at it. So sometimes it's actually better to just ask the person directly. So, um, I think with, uh, a lot of this information, we have to kind of- read and consider very carefully. Like, how do these things that feel like they're at tension come together? So could you say a bit about how that works?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 17:28 Yeah. So what you're alluding to is this belief that we are capable of perspective taking, right? That, um, you hear that phrase all the time. Like, "Oh, I need to take his perspective," or, "She didn't take his perspective." Um, humans actually can't, aren't good at guessing what other people are thinking. Even my identical twin sister, who has the same DNA as me, and very same upbringing, um, it is striking... I see her often. It is striking how often, um, I don't know what she is thinking, and it's really important. The only way that I could know what she's thinking or feeling is by asking her, right? Conversation is the medium by which... The, the only way we can actually hear directly, sort of download someone else's mind and their experiences. Um, i- in the, in the book, I talk about this study where it's so amazing. Um, it's by Boaz Keysar, who's a psychologist at the University of Chicago. He had people, um, sit back to back and, uh, like, say scripted phrases out loud so that one person would say something like, uh, uh, "What are you doing here?" And then the other person had to guess that person's intentions just by, based on the sort of, like, inflection of their voice. Um, that person guessing thought they were, was, like, wildly overconfident, right? This person was told what their intention was, and then they had to guess from a predetermined list. There were, like, four options. And they'd get it wro- they'd get, they'd, they're no better than chance at guessing what that person's intention was supposed to be. The best part of this study, uh, is that they then did it in another language, right? So they had, uh, people saying the phrases only in Chinese and, and non-Chinese speakers listening and trying to interpret their intentions. And still, just based on the sort of prosodic cues related to how that person's delivering that line in another language, the listener still feels wildly overconfident that they know what that person means, they know what that person is accusing them of. Um, and they just don't. We actually don't have a better, better than chance, uh, way of knowing other people's intentions.

Brandon Li 19:31 I want to touch on questions really, uh, quickly as well. So questions, uh, you mentioned earlier as, as another thing that you studied. Uh, questions are something really near and dear to my heart. I, I think we should all ask more questions. And I think a situation that maybe some of us in the room find ourselves in is, you know, we're in a meeting, and then one person starts talking, and the other person starts responding, and they have a lot to say, but they've misunderstood what the first person is talking about. And then you're kind of left there thinking, like, "If only they had asked a question."

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 19:59 Yeah.

Brandon Li 20:00 Could you talk to us a bit about the power of questions?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 20:03 Yeah. And what you're alluding to, question, top line advice is just, like, we should all be trying to ask more questions. That's a very healthy mindset. And even holding that mindset will lead you to ask good questions. Uh, when you tell people, "Ask more questions," they often ask more follow-up questions, which are just a superhero of question types. It shows that you're listening to someone, that you heard what they said, that you're curious to know more. All of those things show your partner that you care about them, and you're more likely to uncover actually more accurate information and deeper information. The meeting scenario is a fun one. Um, it would have helped if that second speaker would have asked a question to clarify before they launched in. But also, there are people observing that can also ask a question or sort of call out, "Oh, I think there was a misunderstanding here." That's called a repair side sequence.

Brandon Li 20:52 Oh.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 20:52 Uh, repair is incredibly important. I think we hear about repair often in, like, public discourse around apologizing, um, which is wonderful. The last whole chapter in the book is about apologies. They're an incredibly powerful tool in our toolkit. But what linguists often focus in are more micro repairs, these little moments in conversation where you're like, "Oh, I think maybe we are using the same phrase in a different way," or, "We're using different phrases to mean the same thing." Or, "You said, you made this joke, and I was laughing at it because I thought you were being sarcastic, but others are laughing because they thought you were being sincere." Like, there are all of these ways that we misunderstand each other. Um, and it's quite helpful to have that, a moment of courage and s- and sort of call out the misunderstanding or just ask to clarify. And that little sidebar of repair is, is, is like a little sidebar. You clarify the thing and then get right back to the conversation. Sometimes our fear is that that sidebar's gonna take too long, like it's gonna distract us, carry us away, uh, on a digression, or just be sort of, like, rude or weird. But actually, it usually only takes two turns of the conversation-

Brandon Li 22:00 Oh

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 22:00 ... and then you can get right back into the, the meat of whatever you were talking about.

Brandon Li 22:04 Yeah. And, um, uh, what, what you're talking about kind of feels like there's this collaborative element of some conversations. And, um, so before today, I, you know, I'd mentioned this event to a few friends, and a very common reaction I got is like, "Are you nervous?" Like, "This person's an expert on conversation. She's gonna be noticing all your mistakes. She's gonna be grading you in her head." And, um-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 22:27 [laughs]

Brandon Li 22:28 ... honestly, I don't really feel that much of that. Uh, and I think part of it is 'cause you're, you're very approachable. But also, I think I realized that one of the effects of great conversationalists is they bring out the best in other people to some extent, and they make you feel like a great conversationalist too, right? And it kind of makes me think of, uh, if any- anyone's done partner dancing, like salsa or something, like, you know, like, a, a good so-called leader is supposed to give some cues for, like, where you're trying to go next, right? Uh, could you say a bit more about, like, the conversation equivalence of that concept?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 23:01 Yeah. First, I'd like to give you an A+.

Brandon Li 23:03 Thank you.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 23:04 From this Harvard professor. Um, it's, it's a common thing that I hear from people They'll often say like, "Oh, but I'm so nervous to talk to you." And I'm like, "No, of all people in the world, I understand the depth of complexity and difficulty of this thing that we're doing, and I want us to succeed at it so much. I'm gonna help you as much as possible and not judge you," right? Like, this is a huge part of it, is, is pushing your brain that was built to do negative social judgment to not do that. And it becomes even harder when people say things that you don't immediately agree with. And still we need to push ourselves to affirm how they're feeling, learn as much as we can about why they've come to believe something, uh, tease apart where... What's the data underlying that thing and so that you can possibly have a future together where you could actually like work on untangling the puzzle together. Um, yes. Okay, so your, but your question is about, uh, co-creation essentially-

Brandon Li 23:59 Yeah

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 23:59 ... right? It's like a, this, this partnership dance. That's exactly right. We don't go through life actually ma- ch- making a series of pitches. I think a lot of people actually believe that when I talk to the entrepreneurs at HBS, I, I, um, I feel like I need to like jump up and down and be like, "I know you've been trained to like pitch your deck, but you're pitching to human minds who all have preferences, and need, real needs and desires, and things that they're looking for." Life is a series of conversations. It is not a series of one-way pitches to nobody. Um, so asking questions about what people actually want and need first is going to help you if at any point you s- feel like, okay, now is the moment that I actually need to be persuasive or try to pitch something, and be influential to someone else. But until that point, you really need to do this dance of like, I need to learn as much as I can about you, and your mindset, and what you care about. Um, and I think what you described, which is like you're there to help each other do as best that you can in that moment, that's such a healthy approach. It's very tied to the K of the TALK acronym, kindness, which is like our brains are built to be egocentric and self-centered. That's just... They're, we're built for survival. We're built to focus on all this information we know about our own perspective. So to the extent that we can push ourselves in every conversation to just like relentlessly try to focus on the other person and think about, what are they wanting right now? Why is Brandon nodding his head right now? Like, how is he feeling? What can I do to make this the most exciting and great for him and for everybody else here? Um, that takes a push in your brain. It's, it goes against our nature, and it makes everything better. It makes it feel like I'm on your side. I've got your back. I work with some really amazing, um, im- like freestyle rappers. I have them come to my class. Uh, they started a Broadway show many years ago called Freestyle Love Supreme, uh, together with Lin-Manuel Miranda before Hamilton, before that, all of that, that first was Freestyle Love Supreme. And I love it because they're just such gifted improvers, and th- really we're not teaching my students to like beatbox and rap, but they're so good at showing the students what you need to be good at freestyle is good collaboration. And so before they go on stage, they always come over. They go to everybody, and they just whisper to them, "I've got your back."

Brandon Li 26:29 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 26:30 They did it to me, and honestly, I don't think I've ever s- felt like more warm and loved in my life.

Brandon Li 26:35 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 26:35 Right before you go on stage, you say, "I've got your back." Like, and that's how everyone wants to feel in every interaction, and I think that's what good conversationalists make others feel that way. Um, show other people that that's where, where they're coming from, even when they're mad, even when they don't agree with, with what you're saying.

Brandon Li 26:56 Yeah. Yeah, I love that. It's like, it's not even just the specific words or phrase that you say, but setting the tone for-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 27:02 Yeah

Brandon Li 27:02 ... yeah, what's to come.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 27:03 Yep.

Brandon Li 27:04 Um, so we've kind of been touching on y- uh, you know, every great framework needs a great acronym. So you have this acronym TALK in your book. Um, and we've kind of implicitly covered some of the, the different letters, so topics, asking, levity, and kindness. And it strikes me that whenever we include things into a group, we are implicitly excluding other things, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 27:27 Yeah.

Brandon Li 27:27 So I'm curious, what didn't make the cut? So, you know, I'm thinking of things like knowledgeability, uh, I don't know, cultural awareness, uh, mastery of language. I'm sure all these play some sort of role, but like, you know, what, what things did you not include because they're either not as important or not as important as we think?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 27:45 Oh my gosh. I r- okay, first of all, I have to get it off my chest, I'm not a fan of acronyms.

Brandon Li 27:50 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 27:51 Like, I don't love them in general, but I really love this one because it's simple. You can remember it. Because when we go into a conversation and you look under the hood, we're, we're confronting a really vast ocean of complexity of the things, and I, I really despise when people are like, "Here are the 20 things you need to do to," or, "40 things that you should be working on." So I think this acronym honestly captures a pretty comprehensive-

Brandon Li 28:21 Mm

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 28:21 ... approach to all conversations. That is a very ambitious thing to try and do.

Brandon Li 28:26 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 28:27 Topics and asking focus on the informational content.

Brandon Li 28:30 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 28:30 Uh, are we raising the, the topics that actually pursue the goals we, we mean to pursue? Are we using the interactivity through question asking to get to the information we need, or, uh, able to sort of keep things pr- information private that we don't wanna share? Then you move into levity and kindness, and that moves into the more relational, emotional things that humans deeply care about. I was first recruited to Harvard to teach negotiation, and honestly, that class is amazing, but it d- it is missing that sort of relational, emotional side of life, um, that are really important. It almost presumes that everybody's walking through the world just wanting to persuade other people to agree with them, when in fact, I think we pursue a lot of goals like having fun, filling time, just being together, showing love to somebody else, um, teaching our children valuable things, um, that are not about persuasion at all. But they are about levity, kindness, being together, um, feeling the sort of full heaviness of our humanity together. So to answer, so I'm dodging your question a bit. I do think the TALK, uh, acronym captures the almost full landscape of conversation. Now, there are other chapters in the book, right? So there is a, a chapter about group conversation, where, like, how do we take these maxims and, and use them when things get even more complicated? There's a chapter on difficult moments. Um, so how can we possibly remain kind and asking great questions or not asking questions that are too intrusive when we're really disagreeing or confronting difficult moments? Um, and then the final chapter's about apologies. There are also two chapters that I dropped from the book at the last moment that I would be happy to share with you. Do you wanna hear about them?

Brandon Li 30:16 Yeah, please.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 30:17 Okay, relevant, yeah. A little insider of secrets.

Brandon Li 30:20 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 30:20 Um, one of them was about silence, and so I think, um, there could be an argument made that when you're working with an a- acronym called TALK, it a little bit implies that talking more is always better, which is not, obviously not the case. And so much of the social world lives in s- our silences with each other, um, in our pauses, in the time we spend with other people not talking, um, in shared glances and other things that we do with people we're in really meaningful relationships with, where we don't need to say anything at all. Uh, so the communication that sort of happens be- between the lines, I think is really, really important. I dropped it because I think it's a whole separate book, you guys.

Brandon Li 31:04 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 31:04 So stay tuned. Um, the other chapter that I dropped at the last second was about talking in the digital age, and I think that will maybe not be surprising to people here. Technology is evolving so quickly and so- in such exciting ways that I felt like any chapter that I wrote [laughs] in this book would be outdated in, like, a week. In fact, while ... It, this book took five years to write, so while I was working on it, ChatGPT came along. You know, AI, like, became a thing. Um, it's, it's ... So I just felt like, okay, I really want this book to be timeless, but I have so many, um, thoughts about how to apply the TALK maxims, not just face to face. But using digital tools, how our devices are affecting us, how, what AI is gonna do, um, what we've learned through the science of conversation with humans, and how we can use that as inputs into developing, um, tech.

Brandon Li 31:59 I think this is a great survey of some of your work, and you know, obviously we're just scratching the surface. I, I would really encourage folks to read the book through. Um, but something that, um, I find useful to do sometimes is to test the limits of a concept, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:14 Love it.

Brandon Li 32:14 And I know no better way to do that than would you rather question.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:19 [laughs]

Brandon Li 32:20 You're familiar with the concept?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:21 Do we have to keep it, like, PG-13? [laughs]

Brandon Li 32:23 Oh, um, my questions are PG-13.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:26 Okay, good, Brandon. [laughs]

Brandon Li 32:26 It's up to you how you wanna answer. All right. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna pose two people to you, and you're gonna tell me who you would rather talk to.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:34 Okay.

Brandon Li 32:34 Okay?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:34 In academia, we call this conjoint analysis, by the way.

Brandon Li 32:37 Conjoint analysis.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:37 I think. I think that's the same thing. We'll find out, we'll find out.

Brandon Li 32:40 Yes.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:40 Yep.

Brandon Li 32:41 All right. Uh, someone who makes uncomfortable eye contact-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:45 Mm-hmm

Brandon Li 32:46 ... or is looking at their phone while talking to you.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:49 Un- I prefer un- uncomfortable eye contact.

Brandon Li 32:51 Okay. We, we can make that happen if you want. [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 32:52 In fact, in my, in my c- in my class, I, so much so that I have my students, um, sit across from each other and look straight into each other's eyes for four minutes. Exactly. Someone's flapping their hands over they're like, "No."

Brandon Li 33:07 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:08 It's, like, horrifying to them. If you try it, which I urge you to do with a loved one or a friend, even a stranger maybe, um, it's an incredibly intimate experience. Weird, but they'll ... You kind of go through mo- moments of, like, laughing because it's so weird and awkward, and then often my students, like, cry by the end.

Brandon Li 33:27 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:28 It feels like this really connective thing with another human being. There's a really beautiful YouTube clip actually where they bring people together who don't speak the same language and make them have four minutes of sustained eye contact, and by the end, many of them are crying. Many of them are sort of, like, refugees, and they feel really loved and connected. Anyway.

Brandon Li 33:45 Okay.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:45 Yeah, so.

Brandon Li 33:45 Eye contact.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:46 Eye contact.

Brandon Li 33:47 All right, next one.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:47 [laughs]

Brandon Li 33:48 Someone with lots of interesting stories but rarely asks you questions, or someone who asks a lot of questions but rarely shares anything about themselves.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:57 Questions.

Brandon Li 33:58 Ooh.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 33:58 Every time. I don't like storytellers.

Brandon Li 34:01 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:01 Um-

Brandon Li 34:02 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:02 ... other people do. That's just, that's me as a person-

Brandon Li 34:04 Yeah

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:04 ... not me as a scientist.

Brandon Li 34:05 Yep.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:05 Um, I, uh ... And if you are a storyteller and like sharing stories, I think it's really important to be attuned to how people rea- are reacting to you. Um, if people are interested and excited about what they're hearing, um, they tend to use back-channel feedback, so, like, literally sort of interrupting with, like, "Oh, no. Oh my gosh, no. Huh, what?" Um, so they're sort of, like, cheering you on. In the absence of that from your listener, it, you sh- can almost assume that they're not interested.

Brandon Li 34:39 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:39 Um, and it's more often the case that people are, are pretending, listening politely-

Brandon Li 34:45 Mm-hmm

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:45 ... to long stories-

Brandon Li 34:46 Yeah

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:46 ... especially if they're not personally relevant, than, than being actually excited about it and hearing them.

Brandon Li 34:51 Makes sense. Makes sense.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:53 Ooh.

Brandon Li 34:53 All right, third one.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 34:53 One take.

Brandon Li 34:55 Someone who is direct but may offend you with what they say, or someone who is respectful and sensitive but it's hard to know what they're thinking?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:03 Oh, I love all of those people. Um, I think I prefer people who are respectful and hard to read, and I would take it on as a personal project to connect with them personally to really figure them out.

Brandon Li 35:18 Mm, uh-huh.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:19 Privately.

Brandon Li 35:20 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:22 Um, I love a challenge.

Brandon Li 35:24 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:24 I love people who are hard to sort of crack into, and I love asking questions and sort of making people feel safe in answering them. Um, I think the other flavor, people who are very, very direct and have the potential of hurting, there is this ch- often a very common trade-off of directness and, uh, like, cruelty.

Brandon Li 35:48 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:49 And I think a little... Often people loo- lean too far in the direction of directness-

Brandon Li 35:53 Yep

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 35:53 ... at the cost of, of harm.

Brandon Li 35:55 Yep. I feel like, um, that's what I've heard is a, a pretty common misinterpretation of radical candor-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:01 Yes

Brandon Li 36:01 ... where it's just, like, an excuse to-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:03 Yes

Brandon Li 36:03 ... be mean.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:03 Yes. Yes.

Brandon Li 36:05 Um-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:05 I actually talked about this with the radi- there's, like, this podcast born out of radical candor, and we talked about this very thing, is, like, they, they worry that people interpret radical candor-

Brandon Li 36:13 Yep

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:15 ... as, to quote Taylor Swift, um, uh, being cruel for, uh, cruel for the sake of being honest-

Brandon Li 36:20 Mm

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:21 ... um, is not what radical candor means.

Brandon Li 36:24 Right.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:24 Yeah.

Brandon Li 36:25 All right, last one, and, uh, we'll make this one an audience question. So you guys can answer first, and hopefully it doesn't influence your answer. But, uh, so person A is someone who you find hilarious, or someone who isn't that funny but laughs at all your jokes.

Speaker 36:40 [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:41 [laughs]

Brandon Li 36:41 Okay? All right, who, who likes person A? All right. Person B? Wow.

Speaker 36:48 [laughs]

Brandon Li 36:49 Okay. I don't know if I believe all of you.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:51 [laughs]

Brandon Li 36:53 How about for you?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:54 I raised my hand for the second one, but I love them both-

Brandon Li 36:56 Yeah

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:56 ... so much.

Brandon Li 36:57 Yep.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 36:57 We need them all. Um, we t- I talk about this in the levity chapter and so much with my students. Um, I'm very good friends with two scholars at Stanford named Na- Naomi Bagdonas and Jennifer Aaker. They have a book, if you haven't read it, it's called, um, Humor, Seriously. And, um, in it they present these four humor styles that vary on two dimensions: highly expressive versus subtle, and then sort of affiliative versus aggressive. And their argument is wherever you are, if you're, you know, very expressive or very subtle, very affiliative or very aggressive, all four of those humor styles are valuable, and we should all, um, be trying to create moments of levity when we can, when it feels appropriate. But also, uh, we should be trying to appreciate when other people are attempting levity, uh, because it takes a lot of courage and sort of competence to actually pull it off. And it's in service... Sometimes I think humor and levity can feel sort of superfluous, like it's this extra thing that we're doing on top of the real work of conversation or the real work of work. Um, when you actually study humor and levity, you realize that it is this conversational thing that is in service of all of the important goals that we're working towards. Like, it, it is this spirit of play that is a, a very important antecedent to creativity and safety and, and making decisions and trusting each other, and, like, all the good things that we need in the recipe for success for very serious goals. Um, so even though it seems unserious, it's, um, it's very important.

Brandon Li 38:31 I just realized if you couldn't see it on camera, 90% of the room took the hilarious person.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 38:35 [laughs]

Brandon Li 38:36 Um, but on the topic of levity, I wanted to shift us a little bit to making this practical, applying some of these findings. And I was curious, like, you know, in, like, a workplace corporate setting, sometimes it can feel fairly sanitized.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 38:49 Yes.

Brandon Li 38:50 So do you have any suggestions on how to bring levity into that sort of setting?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 38:54 I'm tempted for us to stand up and just do some, like, weird improv exercises together. I feel like that would be too, uh, excluding our digital friends, if people are gonna watch this later. There are so many things that you can do to lighten the mood, and anything, any move doesn't even have to be funny for... So for those of you who are like, "I'm not funny, I'll never be funny," it's cool. You can still, you can still take advantage of levity because you can do things that are completely unfunny, like changing the topic. You've been changing topics raucously during this conversation, and I love it. It makes it so fun and engaging and interesting. We have lots of examples of other conversations that are the opposite of that. You stagnate way too long on a topic, and all of the good juice was, like, in the first 30 seconds. Um, that's a real problem because you need to be engaged in order to make progress together and continue to feel, uh, engaged. Um, okay, so levity moves. Uh, just changing the topic a little bit more frequently. Um, warmth moves, like giving compliments and telling people that when you feel grateful to people, actually say it out loud.

Brandon Li 39:58 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 39:58 Like, I re- I'm so grateful that you prepped and that you are willing to interview me here today. That's so amazing. I'm so grateful that everyone took time out of their day to come and share this space together. That's so incredible. And I don't think we hear people say those things, like, really authentically and sincerely enough. Um, that's a levity move. Um, and then of course, like, lots of humor. So there's, um, all kinds of... You... I don't... I'm not convinced that we know how to teach people to be funnier of all sort of talk things, um, but you can try some of the moves that we see funny people making. Usually, it's a mindset. Uh, I think we have this belief that you should try and be funny. That usually leads you to, like, tell stories people aren't actually interested in. Sometimes it leads you to make jokes that are a little too aggressive. So instead of trying to be funny, the better advice or mindset is to try to make it fun.

Brandon Li 40:50 Mm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 40:50 Like, find the fun.

Brandon Li 40:51 Mm-hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 40:51 Focusing on the other people, like what would be fun about this for Brandon? Like, what if... I should have brought, like, tennis rackets, and we could've, like, hit tennis balls back to, and forth to each other. What would make it fun for you guys? Oh, probably standing up and doing, like, a weird thing would make it fun and memorable. A little bit weird, but memorable.

Brandon Li 41:06 Yep.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 41:06 Um, so that goal of finding the fun rather than, than being funny.

Brandon Li 41:10 Yeah. And I think it's really powerful when a leader models that-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 41:13 Yeah

Brandon Li 41:13 ... as, as a cultural tool.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 41:14 Totally. And it's in these little fleeting moments on the edges of our conversations, but those little micro moments are quite meaningful.

Brandon Li 41:21 Yeah. Uh, last couple from me, and then we'll have some time for audience questions. But, uh, another kind of maybe application to our setting is, uh, help us to make, uh, our design reviews better. So we have this thing called design reviews where it's very common where we have either a document that people comment on, like, offline, or we'll meet in, like, a group setting and discuss it. And, you know- With the nature of this sort of thing, sometimes there's disagreements, right-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 41:47 Yeah

Brandon Li 41:47 ... because, uh, and, and we wanna encourage that, 'cause, you know, that's how you can challenge ideas and make sure that they're the right ones, right? Uh, but there's better and worse ways, I'm sure, to approach that, and there's higher and lower status people in the room. So I was curious if you can give us some advice for people in both of those positions for how to navigate that situation.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 42:06 Yeah. Um, disagreement is difficult to navigate no matter who you are. Uh, one sort of top-line piece of advice is n- is making sure you don't omit the, the first part of the sentence, which is, like, "I can see why you've come to think that's a good idea."

Brandon Li 42:22 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 42:22 Or like, "That's..." Like, "I would love to hear more about what you're thinking on this," or like, "Oh, I can see why you're getting excited about this," right? The affirmation, validating their feelings, and, like, the work that they're doing first before you go on to actually say, like, "But I don't think it's a good one," like, "I don't think that's what we should pursue." Our instincts instead lead us to just go to the, like, no place. Um, but that first bit of validation is incredibly important to maintain trust and to show someone, like, even if I'm going to go on and vehemently disagree with you, I still care about you and believe in you as a person. I got your back, right? Like, I... It's okay. It's just this thing.

Brandon Li 42:58 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 42:58 Um, so that validation piece is important. Then you bring-- But you bring in these status dynamics.

Brandon Li 43:03 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 43:03 Right? Status is, um, this inherent sort of puppeteer in all of our interactions, particularly in the workplace, because we actually have formal roles that, that sort of dictate our, our status hierarchy. We also have unspoken things like race, gender, age, competence, training, um, all of these variables that influence our subjective judgments of status. How much do I like and admire you? How much am I required to like and admire or respect you? Um, that are at play, uh, particularly in group conversations. What I would like to point out that I found surprising in this research and in this work is, um, status hierarchies change. They're dynamic, and what I've learned is that they're dynamic at the topic level.

Brandon Li 43:50 Hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 43:51 So when you're talking about a certain topic, like, the people in the room who have consensus around their expertise are probably higher status, but then the topic shifts, and that status hierarchy can get rearranged. We move from-- We're talking about conversation. Here I am, all haughty-taughty, like, like the expert. We start talking about tennis or emergency medicine, boy, I, I'm better start asking more questions than, than sort of saying what I believe.

Brandon Li 44:18 Hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 44:18 Um, and I think tho- those sort of conversational dynamics should shift at the, at the topic level. When you find yourself dynamically in a high status position, just a bit of awareness can go a long way. Your goal there is to, um, yes, share your expertise when you think it has a value to add, but often our instincts lead us to be so blustery and fill so much airtime with our expertise that you don't leave space for other people.

Brandon Li 44:45 Hmm.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 44:45 So it's really important to always be thinking, like, how on-- in this group can I also be making the low status people in the hierarchy feel welcome? Like, so that when they do have a good idea and something to add, they actually say it. They feel comfortable saying it.

Brandon Li 45:01 Yeah.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 45:01 Um, and then on the flip side of that, when you're at the low part of the status hierarchy, first of all, such a tough place to be. It is actually a much more limited position. When you say things, they're more likely to be judged as, uh, like, negatively, as less valuable. Um, you have a, so you have this narrower range of things that you can say. If you don't say anything, you're not actually contributing to the group probably and, like, maybe people won't come to know what your expertise is, so there's this really tricky bind. Um, some of the talk strategies can be incredibly empowering. So, like, you don't need to actually have any expertise to be an expert at conversation itself. So as a group conversation is unfolding, for example, if you know the goal of that meeting is to make a decision by the end, and you've got all these, like, blustery coworkers who are, like, getting off topic, you can just say something like, "Hey, I remember our goal here was to make this decision in the next 20 minutes. Just wanted to, like, be a timekeeper. Just wanted to keep us on task." Those kinds of nudges are themselves valuable to the group, even if you don't have a, like, substantive thing to add there.

Brandon Li 46:11 And then last one from me. [clears throat] So you've been teaching this class for, like, seven years it sounds like.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 46:17 Yeah.

Brandon Li 46:18 Uh, and I was curious what the reception to your book has been, 'cause I'm sure you've heard from people who aren't represented in your class normally, right?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 46:26 Yes.

Brandon Li 46:26 So, you know, what's, what's, what's that been like?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 46:28 Yeah. Um, my class is very diverse, so, like, it's a lot of international folks. Um, age range from, like, 27 to 40. Um, so I do... I, I feel like I get a diverse range of humanity in my classes and a big sample. Um, however, they're all Harvard students, right? Like, they're all already sort of high achievers. It's why I was so excited to write this book, was to reach a wi- a wider swath of people who won't be able to come to Harvard or to Google and, um, learn these things. Um, it has been so moving and meaningful to see it connecting with different audiences. Uh, I'll give some examples. Um, I've really been excited to hear that lots of parents are co-reading the book with their teenagers. Um, I think a lot of, uh, parents these days are very worried that their kids are not learning social skills in the way that their parents did and, and, and maybe, um, not well in general. Um, so that has been really fun to hear about, that it's, like, this meaningful life experience for families. Um, another audience that I hoped would get onto it and seems to be really excited about it is, um, the autism community. Uh, so there are, there are lots of sort of pockets of, of, of the autism community that is, are finding the book so intriguing and helpful, and the strategies are helping people both as individuals and in these, in these, um, groups. Um, also around the world, right? So most of the data that we have so far, because the science of conversation is relatively new, right? Aristotle ... They were talk- they were studying, like, public speaking for centuries, but we were really only able to start studying real transcripts at large scale over the last 10 years. So the science is quite new. So that means that most of the samples are skewed towards US populations just by, like, that's how, you know, US scholars work. It's harder to get international samples. So when people in India and Greece and, you know, uh, Egypt start reading this book, it's so helpful to hear the things that I hoped would, um, transcend culture and international boundary, uh, borders actually do. Like, it's like these, these fundamental things about being human and about, yes, we are all choosing topics. Yes, we're all making these choices to ask questions or not. We're all making these little moves about levity. We're all trying to bring this mindset to focus and listen. That transcends location, and then it's fun to hear, like, on the edges they're like, "Yeah, but we do backhanded compliments a little bit differently here." Um, so these ... Where are the sort of cultural differences and pr- differences in preference often around, like, directness and, you know, how many questions is too many? Those sorts of things.

Brandon Li 49:22 Well, thank you for all that, Alison. Uh, we're gonna take some questions from the audience now. So we'll do a couple from the room. There's some mics to the sides, and then we'll do a couple Dory questions as well. And as just a little extra incentive to step up to the mic, we have a limited set of these workbooks to accompany the book. So you get first dibs on those if you ask a question. So-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 49:41 [laughs]

Brandon Li 49:43 ... have at it. [laughs]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 49:46 I should've called them playbooks.

Brandon Li 49:47 Playbooks.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 49:47 They're, they're, they're not, it's not worky work.

Brandon Li 49:49 Yes.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 49:49 It's, like, fun. [laughs]

Brandon Li 49:51 Start over there.

Speaker 49:52 I'm a little short. Okay, let's see. Um, all right. I wrote it down. Uh, [laughs] so, um, first of all, thank you so much. This was amazing. Um, you must ... You prepped a lot by writing the book, so [laughs] it was like your confidence was there, and you were ... I feel like I know you. Um, so-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 50:09 Mm-hmm

Speaker 50:09 ... I loved, I loved being a part of this. Um, I really, I wanted to ask you, which skill or tactic have you incorporated which has brought you either the most joy or you've seen the most impact in, like, incorporating into your conversations over the past few years?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 50:21 Oh, my gosh. What a great question. It's, it's like choosing a favorite child. Um, I find topic prep and asking follow-up questions and callbacks to be the most helpful. So callbacks are when you've listened really intently to somebody, and you've engaged with them. And then the conversation goes somewhere else, you switch to a new topic, and then you try and, like, call back to the earlier thing, um, both to show that you were listening to your partner, but also it almost brings a laugh because it's, like, surprising and it feels so good to your partner. They're like, "Oh, my God, she was really listening, like, 15 minutes ago to the, when I was talking, telling her this random thing about my mom." Um, it's what we call long-term listening. It's not just, like, smiling and nodding in the moment, but lo- using verbal content to actually say it out loud that you heard your partner. Um, I love callbacks because you can use them within one conversation. You can also use it across many conversations in a relationship. So I can call back to the conversation I had with Brandon before this session and say, "Oh yeah, remember when you told me that your wife was an emergency, um, doctor? I just thought that was so amazing, and she's so brave." The, like, being able to do that is what it means to be in a relationship with someone, to actually have listened to them and actually be thinking about something they said and then call back to it. It's just magic. So topic prep, follow-up questions, and callbacks. Three of my faves. Thank you.

Brandon Li 51:53 Let's go to this side over here.

Speaker 51:55 Seconding the thank you for coming here and talking to us. This was super informative. I wanted to get back to, uh, what you said about the, um, signals that people are sending non-verbally or with just syllables on the, are, are they interested or not. And I feel like-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 52:15 Mm

Speaker 52:15 ... with 2020 moving all of us online for our, a lot of, for a lot of our conversations and the technology cutting out when someone else speaks, I think a lot of us have stopped giving those verbal-

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 52:27 Yeah

Speaker 52:27 ... cues because you don't wanna basically steal the sound from the person who's actually giving the, the conversation, uh, or the, the, the information at this point. What are things that have developed since? Um, have you, do you have data on that? And, like, what should we look out for now, and has that impacted in-person conversations in addition to the online conversations?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 52:50 Fabulous question. There's great research showing that, yes, well, you know, talking, um, uh, through tech does disrupt especially those, like, sort of prosodic cues, right? Like, the little micro pauses, micro moments, um, that are disrupted by the tiny delays in our connection are disruptive to conversation. Or for anyone who has done, like, a webinar and talked into the impossibly silent void, um, and feel horrible about yourself because you're not getting anybody's giggles or, um, little guffaws or sniffs or anything, it is soul crushing. Um, it's why in-person interaction can- cannot be perfectly simulated, because we get so much more information. So what ... As a scientist, we think about three buckets. There's words. There are, there's non-verbal information, which, on the receiving end, is everything that comes in through your eyes. So it's not just the person's, like, body language, facial expression, hand gesticulation, but literally the whole physical environment around them. And then the acoustic properties. So like, what are we hearing? What does their voice sound like? Is there something whirring? Is there a screen whirring right behind them? Is the air conditioning on? Um, you can think about different forms of media as, um, being more and less rich across those three categories, right? So Zoom cuts off a lot of the non-verbals. We only get a square. Uh, it cuts off a lot of the acoustic properties because we can't hear the, um, the, the back channel, the yeah, mm-hmm, oh, mm, sniff, sniff. Um, and then there are lots of channels where we only get words, text, uh, email. Uh, when we're on the phone, we only get acoustic. We don't get non-verbal. So you can, you can chart all things across this. Um, as creators of these digital worlds, there are things that we can do to try and simulate face-to-face interaction. That's why we love GIFs, GIFs, um, bitmojis, emojis. It's why we love voice memos. All of these things that like on the margin make our communication more rich and get us closer to that feeling of being actually in person actually do make us feel more connected. Um, and I think we all just will continue to struggle a little bit on Zoom and, uh, Google Meet. Yeah. [laughs] Yep.

Brandon Li 55:01 I wanna take one from the Dory. [clears throat] So, uh, along with many other Googlers, I'm neurodivergent and find my default communication approach can be different from others. Uh, for example, very direct, unaware a topic is taboo, don't fear difficult conversations. Any tips for embracing being ourselves when it comes to hardwiring versus successful communication?

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 55:22 Oh, what a great topic. Um, I too am neurodivergent in some ways, so hi, friend. Um, so even by asking this question, um, Tali, is this Tali? Um, even by asking this question shows an immense amount of self-awareness, uh, that you're thinking about... You're aware that communication matters and different styles land differently, and it seems like you're grappling with this idea of sort of authenticity, right? Um, can I be... To what extent should I be like trying to fit in with the norms of what I think will work versus what I actually want to say? It's a question that we all grapple with, regardless of whether you're neurotypical, neurodivergent, or on what vector you're neurodivergent. Um, ultimately, what matters is what behaviors are... what are, what are you choosing to do, and how are you making other people feel? And how is it making you feel? And so I just, I guess my answer to this would just be like continue to grapple with it. This is the stuff of life. This is the social world. Try and focus as much as you can on other people because our instinct is to focus on ourselves. Um, so if you can try and push yourself to focus on how your communication is landing with the people around you, that is very meaningful. If, if being direct is hurtful t- to people, you can't be that direct. Um, if, uh, if you're disagreeing... If you're going through the world disagreeing vehemently all the time and never validating people, that's gonna cause problems in your life. Um, but I think that this is sort of the, the, the whole point of the social world is trying to figure out, uh, how to... how we can bring our best selves to each, to each interaction.

Brandon Li 57:10 So I think we just have time for one more, but I do wanna say that Alison's gonna stick around for a meet and greet. And so I think in that case, maybe I will, uh, prioritize... Oh, yeah, one of the, uh, other Dory questions. Uh, and then also, if you want one of these playbooks, come find me.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 57:26 Oh, we gotta hand them out to these guys.

Brandon Li 57:28 Yes, for sure.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 57:29 [laughs]

Brandon Li 57:29 Come find me afterwards. But, um, so last question today. Conversations flow naturally when there is a mutual topic of interest. Can you share on how to navigate when there isn't necessarily common interests or maybe sometimes conversations become one-sided because one person wants to talk more? These conversations can become monotonous very quickly.

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 57:47 Oh, I love this question. Okay. A conversation is almost always a search for like serendipity. You're constantly relentlessly searching to find mutual interest. Sometimes those topics are easier to find than others. Um, this is also why a lot of people get stuck in a doom loop of sm- small talk, right? It's not that the topic itself is the problem, it's that you stay too long on things that are not mutually interesting. So we need just a little nudge of more courage to switch to something else when it becomes clear like, "Oh, this isn't working." You can also go in with this mindset of like, "I'm gonna push, push this conversation forward, this flow, until we find a golden nugget, until we find a thing where we're like, yes, okay, this is great. Now let's unpack this whole meaty thing." I think people are a little bit too happy to sort of swirl, uh, circle the drain and swirl in that place, often out of actually like sincere and virtuous for reasons, right? Like they're... You're... We're too polite. We don't wanna be aggressive. We don't wanna be too intrusive. We don't wanna switch topics for fear that it might offend the other person. But the risk of being bored and their disinterest is actually greater. It's a sort of silent killer of conversation, so it's an actually greater risk than just those individual tiny risks that you need to take to find a better place.

Brandon Li 59:12 Well, that's all we got time for, but one more time for Dr. Alison Wood Brooks. Thank you so much. [clapping]

Dr. Alison Wood Brooks 59:17 Thank you, Brandon. You're amazing. [outro music]