Step Eight: Releasing Defenses with Dr. Alison Wood Brooks

This episode is step eight in the 10-Step Toolkit to Having Critical Conversations featuring Dr. Alison Wood Brooks, a Professor of Business Administration and Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School who was recently named a Best 40-Under-40 Business School Professor by Poets & Quants. Her book TALK: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves will be published by Crown (Penguin Random House) in January 2025.

Her research on the science of conversation has been published in prestigious academic journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science, as well as in popular media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The New York Times, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review. 

 In this episode, we discuss:

• how to build a secure identity
• the power of hedging and receptive language
• mechanisms for holding accountability in conflict
• ways to move away from small talk 
• tangible tools to release defenses in conversation
  
  

If you have any questions or comments you would like addressed in the  Q&A with Dr. Brooks, please email whatsjustpod@gmail.com And please follow Whatsjust on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn and subscribe to the weekly newsletter to get details on where and when the Live Q&A is happening! 

And, as always, please review, subscribe, and share with everyone you know :)

Become a supporter of the show with a monthly subscription (amount of your choice) and get a shoutout in upcoming episodes!

Timestamps:

02:11 The Influence of Being a Twin

04:40 Exploring Self-Talk and Its Impact

06:32 Defining Conversation and Defensiveness

08:24 The Complexity of Conversations

10:29 The Dance of Communication

16:01 Navigating Sensitive Topics

19:39 Layers of Conversation Conflict

27:15 Building a Secure Identity

29:46 The Power of Receptive Language

32:21 Personal Reflections on Defensiveness

35:07 Accountability in Conversations

38:45 Navigating Difficult Conversations

44:41 The Art of Deep Conversations

51:28 Practical Tools for Better Conversations

54:48 Three Captivating Things

Transcript

  So people have this really fantastical  fantasy about naturalness in a conversation and it is a myth. When we see other people who are great at conversation, we believe that it's easy for them and like they haven't prepped topics or prepped questions and everything's just coming to them spontaneously and they're just genius and witty and it's just in them and they were born that way.

You just can't have a productive conversation if everybody's winging it and trying to be natural all the time. 

Welcome to Critical Conversations, a podcast for lifelong learners who like to get deep. I'm Abbie Henson, a qualitative criminologist searching for ideas on how to become a more cohesive, healthy, and compassionate society. If you found yourself wanting to have thought provoking deep and sometimes difficult conversations, but just didn't feel well equipped, This podcast is for you.

This season provides a 10 step toolkit for having critical conversations guided by my interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, sociologists, and more. Let's learn together. 

Welcome to step eight of the 10 step toolkit to having a critical conversation. So far, we've learned to become self aware, address our biases, become curious, create safety and conflict, and learn. Ask questions, listen, become vulnerable, and now we learn how to drop our defenses. Today's expert is Dr.

Allison Wood Brooks, an Associate Professor of Business Administration and a Hellman Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Business School. She was recently named a Best 40 Under 40 Business School Professor by Poets and Quants, and her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Forbes, the New York times, Scientific American and Harvard Business Review.

Her book talk, the science of conversation and the art of being ourselves will be released in January, 2025. And I'm so excited for that. I had so much fun speaking with Alison and I really know you'll be able to feel that. So let's get into it.  

I know that I'm supposed to give an answer like I'm a scholar and a professor and I was just deeply fascinated, which is true, but I think the answer, truthfully, is more personal than that.

It's I'm an identical twin.  And so I've had a sort of built in conversation partner.  From the moment that I opened my newborn eyes right next to me my whole childhood  and that means you know Twins are just like siblings except it's like watching  an exact copy of yourself She's so we're identical. So watching an exact copy of yourself  at close range interact with the social world.

So I would watch her, you know, lead our soccer team in a pump up chant. And then I'd be with her at a party with our friends. And then I'd be sitting down the row from her in band. Like you'd get to see, it's almost like watching yourself have conversations and make decisions. And.  It's a weird existence, but it's I think a blessing in the end because you get more feedback.

You see like, oh wow, she just gave an amazing presentation, which means I could do that too. And here's what I liked about it. And here's what I didn't like. And you see her, you know, I saw her do things that are embarrassing. So you're like, okay, I'm not, I'm not going to do that. So I think that profoundly influenced my interest in human behavior and in conversation specifically.

And nowadays I play in a band. That's how I met my husband. And I think being part of any sort of long term team of any more than two people is a pretty crazy coordination challenge.  And, and that continues to feed my interest in how do people get along? How do we sustain relationships over the longterm?

Even when you face challenges, 

I have always been, I'm an only child, but I've always been like obsessed with twins. Cause I find it, it's like the opposite of your 

existence. Yeah.  And I'm deeply fascinated by only children because it's so hard to imagine it's just like opposite ends of some sort of weird spectrum.

Right. Yeah. 

I mean. I was just having conversations with myself growing up, you know, I would like create scenes in my head and literally be like speaking them out. 

So there's, do you know, um, so Ethan Cross, who is this amazing psychologist at the University of Michigan, studies self talk? I think that's a fascinating topic, not only like quietly in your own mind, but people actually talk to themselves out loud, too.

You see athletes do it all the time, like Tiger Woods, they'll be like, damn it, Tiger, right? Like he's like cheering,  coaching himself out loud. It's just, they call it fragmented self talk. It's so fascinating. What was the flavor of your self talk? Was it in, was it always silent or like out loud? Oh, 

you know,  it would be like.

creating acting scenes in my head. Like it wasn't even directly related to anything I was doing. It would be like constructing a scenario and then like acting within the scenario. And I think I did it out loud, although I can't be sure.  I'll be honest, 

was this this morning? Yeah, 

it was just in the shower. 

Yeah, no. Although I will say like, it definitely is. still happens where I'll like create scenarios in my head. Although I think I've learned to not speak out loud, but I, yeah, I think it's fascinating. The idea that you were having these conversations or, or observing. Like a mirror of yourself having conversations with the world.

That's so interesting. So 

your whole life, your whole life, it's just really, and not only are you observing them, but you're also interacting with them directly, right? Like, so not only did I see her do embarrassing things later, I could be like, don't do that. That was terrible. So you're getting like,  triple the feedback was indirectly and directly.

At every moment, uh, most moments of your childhood and 

development. 

Um, 

Okay, so we're talking today about releasing defenses in conversation. And so I'm wondering if you can first, for our listeners, define just what conversation is,  what the flavors, I liked the, the flavor word that you use, what the flavors of conversation  What defensiveness is?

How can we define that? 

Conversation is easy to define. As a behavioral scientist, the definition of it is pretty soulless. It's just verbal exchange between two or more people, which means there have to be words involved. If there aren't words involved, it's not conversation. It's just body language, um, which  alone can be an indirect form of communication, but it's not.

A conversation. So when we think about conversation, we think about three types of information that are being exchanged. There's always words that has to be there. Sometimes there's also nonverbal cues like facial expression, hand gesticulation, body language. And sometimes there are acoustic cues. So the sound of your voice, if all of a sudden I start talking really low, you're going to, it's going to feel different and be important.

So those acoustic properties influence a lot of things, but as you know, like if you're having a conversation over the phone, then you don't get any nonverbal cues, or if you're, you know, talking over text or email, you don't get non verbals or the acoustic properties either, but what is always constant.

Is the exchange of words. So that's conversation you then we're going to we're going to get into the weeds about releasing defenses and defensiveness, which I think is going to take us in a direction of thinking about  the sort of. Distinction that a lot of people have made for a long time using this phrase, difficult conversation, which I think I'm going to push back on a little bit.

There's sort of decades of research about difficult conversations. We teach courses at business schools and law schools about negotiating and. Sort of so called difficult conversations. What I've realized in my research and what the field has is starting to realize over the last 10 years is that that might not be the right way to think about human interaction.

It's not that we, some conversations are difficult and some are easy. It's that all conversations, even though we have lots of them and they, some of them seem straightforward. Actually, all conversations are surprisingly complex. They require a lot of coordination, which is why they often feel awkward and hard, even when they should be easy.

And they can become difficult at any moment.  Especially, and we'll get here I'm sure, when someone feels defensive, or like feels like something about their identity is threatened, or all of a sudden you realize like, oh, we disagree about something here, or, oh no, this is like not the way I thought this was going to be going.

So in, in my work and in my book, I talk about a sort of. Taxonomy or typology of difficulty and how these difficult moments can happen in any conversation, even like a seemingly easy conversation between spouses can very quickly take a turn. It's not just these like fraught, you know, negotiations between high power organizations.

And so I think thinking, uh, thinking about everyday conversations in that way that they could move can, they can be both easy and hard and move between that sort of quickly. Is more helpful because then you realize like, Oh, every, this is normal. Like sometimes things are easy and going well, and sometimes they get hard and sensitive and we need to be prepared  for all of the above.

Yeah. As you were talking, I was kind of envisioning like ballroom dance or like salsa or something where a conversation. Yeah. It's always, it's, I like the coordination element that you're bringing up of, There has to be coordination between the two, or else you're stepping on each other's toes, you're, you know, falling out of sync, you're falling out of beat, and 

Even when, even when, even when people are disagreeing, or, or, feel hostile towards each other, or they're mad or they disagree, you still have to coordinate if you're going to talk to each other, right?

Like if the dancers are angry and they're lying to each other, they still need to work together to like move together, right? And in conversation, that means turn taking, sharing air time, not stepping, not interrupting. So it's weird. Like even when you're lying to each other and deceitful or. or disagreeing, you're still sort of cooperating in a way to even engage in a conversation.

Yeah. I mean, we can like totally take this metaphor all the way and like thinking of dance battles, right? Like you're, you're, you're like, you have a set amount of time, you are on beat, you are like, there are people, you kind of respect the other person because you're in the same space and you are competing for the same kind of thing, which, you I think in most conversations would be kind of connection, right?

Like even or understanding or being seen or whatever the intention or outcome is you're sharing that, or you should be sharing that. That would be a ideal scenario that would probably allow for greater coordination if the intention is shared. But yeah, I think. 

Cue the music. I think we better, I think we better have a, save a beat right now.

We have a little. Dance battle over Zoom. Put this in action. No, you're exactly right. And it's not just like dance battles. It's, it's freestyle rap. It's making music. It's like anything where there are multiple minds contributing in the same moment, being together with any other human requires this sort of coordination, no matter what you're up to. 

Yeah. Specifically thinking about the defensiveness and going like what I was envisioning with The ballroom dance is, I have a really hard time,  like in this, in the few, I've, I danced my whole life and, uh, mostly jazz and hip hop. I was the captain.  Yeah. I was the captain of the dance. 

Like, like you're, you could go on, so you think you could dance that kind of 

dance?

Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. I mean, I was, I was the captain of my. Dance team in high school and college and oh my god, 

you're so good. I revoke my offer to have a dance battle I sat down to you 

you win  well, but I I've and but that that was very like it was team oriented But it was kind of like you're your own dancer and I didn't do many paired dance So when I do paired dance, I often find it really difficult to let someone lead And I'm thinking of that, you know, within this context of defensiveness and like the I feel defensive maybe in those moments where I'm like, I don't know how to let you lead.

I like need to know what the next step is all these things and I think there has to be  a level of trust in the other person that you're communicating with, that they will guide you or hold your information or your responses in a  gentle and kind and caring way. Again, even if you're disagreeing or even if you're not seeing eye to eye.

It's a beautiful metaphor and In dance, the goal is, is probably clearer than in a lot of conversations, right? Like in dance, you know that you need to move together to in rhythm in a certain style. And so what your, where your trust issues come from is like, are you capable of leading me here? Or like, do you need me to lead?

Like, what, how are we going to do this? In conversation, there's this Extra layer of  confusion and probably mistrust, which is often you don't know what the goals are, right? Like, and maybe that's a little bit true in dance as well, but like in conversation, the number of possible things that people are aiming for are, are literally all over the map, you know, it's, and sometimes you can figure it out.

That's kind of your job to figure out what are my own goals. Self reading. What are your partner's goals? And then how can we pursue, how do we prioritize those goals and how do we pursue them in this crazy coordination environment that's like we're ballroom dancing, right? Like, how do we not step on each other's toes and make progress towards the things we care about? 

Having fun, making a decision, planning for the weekend, negotiating something, getting advice, or leaving, right? Like some, often one person just wants to get the hell out of there. And so figuring out what your goals are, what success even means. can be more complicated in a conversation than even in a ballroom dance.

One of the things that I wish I was better at, and I'm even thinking of a conflict I had last night with my partner, like when you are starting to feel  bill.  And when you know you're entering a topic that's sensitive and can get heated, I think it would 

be, can you describe that feeling? Like, what does it feel like when you know, what is the feeling like physically to you feel like when you are entering sensitive territory?

There's almost a sense of panic. There's like a chest tightening, or like a um, speeding of a heart rate, or, yeah, this kind of like, intensity, the panic is where I get caught up, because I'm like, oh no, like, we're going here, like, how do I get my point across, how can I not hurt him, how can I like, Deliver this in a way that he accepts and doesn't like exacerbate it and da da da and it's just kind of like this wheels turning rather than like an ease of flow and  And so when you feel that when you like feel that coming on to be like hold up I'm cool to go here, but let's just agree that on what we want the end goal to be.

Like, where do we want to, where do we want to end this conversation at? And let's make sure that whatever path we take gets us there together.  

Are you good at, are you good at end gaming? Are you good at like, explicitly saying?  I need, I just need you to hear me out on this. Like what are say, whatever your goal might be.

Are you good at saying that explicitly in that moment, whether it's that you're something is already getting tense or you feel like it could get tense. Are you good at like saying, okay, time out. I'm going to, here's what I'm going to need for the next four turns of this conversation.  Are you good at that?

I think some people are actually, can be good at that, but are you, do you think? 

I think I've done so much therapy  that I'm like, okay at it. I wouldn't say I'm great or perfect in any way, but I think I'm pretty good at at times being able to step outside and observe and be like, Oh, this is not, This is not going well.

Yeah, this is yeah, I mean, I definitely, of course, can be better for sure. It would be great to have my partner here to chime in on what he thinks, but 

it's hard. It's hard in those moments, whether you whether you're already getting sort of overheated or you're you see pathways where you're like, Oh, shoot, this could really  This is risky territory.

This could go off the rails.  It's very hard. Those moments are very charged. It's hard to step off the track and say like, Hey,  I'm feeling like things might this might be getting more tense than we intend. Like, let's talk about our end game. Let's talk about our goals. There are people who research these moments.

To be clear, I am not a scholar of defensiveness. I don't study what specific things make people feel most defensive. I don't, but I have studied anxiety. So when you start talking about these sort of little moments of panic. I know a bit about that. And then we know that those moments of panic happen very frequently in conversation.

They can be triggered by lots of different things, but defensiveness is often at the root. And so in, in my book, we talk about a framework. It's helped me tremendously think about these fleeting moments of tension. Like where is it coming from? I like to think of it as like layers of the earth.  Where above the surface is the content of the conversation.

These are the words that you're saying, the sounds, how you look while you're saying it. It's like the buildings, the airplanes, the birds, the trees, everything above the surface of the earth. Then right at, and we can have conflict that comes just from that, right? Like I use the wrong word, we misunderstand each other.

I do a silly Australian accent, you think it's British. Whatever, there's all kinds of like miscommunication moments and little moments of tension that can come just from our body language and our words and how we sound.  At the surface of the earth are our feelings. Sometimes they're observables or like a snake slithering in the grass.

And sometimes you can't see them, right. They're hidden beneath the surface, like in the soil  and there are emotions are complex. There's a lot going on there. They're often linked to what's going on above the surface with your words and your, your body language, but not always.  And then down one more,  of course, like conflict, a lot of conflict comes from our feelings and emotions, right?

If I'm, even if we just have incongruous emotions, if I feel very excited, hypothetically, and you feel like you want to be like calm and tranquil, our conversation is going to, that's going to be hard, right? Like we're not matching each other's energy. Then A layer down sort of in the bedrock of the earth.

That's where our motives and goals are like, what do I want out of this? What do you want out of this short term long term? There's a lot of nice research happening to try and map the enormous constellation of things that people want when they talk to other people. Sometimes it's just to build time.

Sometimes it's just to be polite.  Sometimes it's to have fun, but then there's all kinds of, you know, we need to make a decision. We need to brainstorm. We need advice. We need to, we need to like flatter each other. I need to ingratiate myself to you. There's just tons of things that we're aiming to do when we make decisions.

To talk to people or to avoid them. And then once we're in conversation, what we say to each other, and those motives are often in conflict, right? Like if you, you just want to, you want to interview me for your podcast, but if I show up and I'm like, screw that, like, I'm just here to have a good time.

You're going to spend the whole conversation trying to wrangle me in and like get anything useful for this podcast episode, right? Like that's in itself. A source of potential conflict. If I want to promote a certain thing about my research, but you're, you're not interested in that, or it seems irrelevant for the podcast, we're going to, we're going to be like miscoordinating about what to talk about and how to talk about it. 

So there's all kinds of complexity happening at people's notice. And then we go all the way down to the core of the earth. Right in our metaphor and at the core of the earth are aspects of our identities  and our identities are so complicated. You know, you can see we're like Caucasian women on now. I know you're a dancer.

You know that I'm a twin, but you know, everybody is just this incredibly complex, you know, mishmash of things that are both observable and not observable. Political affiliation, religion, sexuality, your experiences, your expertise, whatever, like who we are is really, really complicated and deep. Some aspects of it are observable and many aspects are not.

And so, of course, anytime a conversation feels like it might threaten one of your, an aspect of your identity, we get defensive. And it can happen in really subtle and unexpected ways, you know, like if you go to a political debate and they're talking about abortion or whatever you expect that that's going to be hard and like maybe threatening the people's identities.

But what's.  more common and more pervasive is like you're talking to a friend and they say something like, Oh my God, I think twins are so creepy and not knowing that you're a twin. And, and are you going to be able to laugh that off and be like, Oh my God, guess what? I'm a twin and we are so creepy. Or, or are you going to feel defensive and sort of scared and really threatened by that and it will influence all of the ways that you continue to interact and how and how your relationship unfolds.

And I think we're just, we're just poking these sort of invisible barbs into each other's identities constantly. It's not just like being a white woman or, you know. 40-year-old white woman. It's like, I wanna be a great wife, I wanna be a great friend. I wanna be a great daughter. I wanna be a great mom.

Everybody wants to be all, I wanna be a great singer. I wanna, you know, everybody has all of these hopes for who they want to be and when those hopes are, their self concept is threatened.  There's the risk of feeling defensive and then seeming defensive in your interactions with other people. 

Yeah, that is the  greatest, my, the way that I perceive this whole thing is that  confidence, Or security is kind of the antidote to defensiveness.

I've said this in other episodes as well.  And, and not taking things personally  is a great tool because there have been instances in my life where people have acted out where I could have a hundred percent taken that personally and it shatter my sense of self and self worth and all these things and make me question it.

But. To take someone else's actions or words personally is centering yourself in someone else's world.  We also know that if we examine ourselves and how we engage in the world, so often we're just thinking of ourselves, you know, and, and so, so often it has very little to do with you.  And, you know, the, like, with this example you gave of someone saying, I think twins are so creepy, like, that has nothing to do with you, because they don't know you, they don't know your twin, they're saying something very broad that's based in their own experiences, or their own stories that they've inherited, or whatever, and so, At that point, you get to choose.

All right, do I want to take this as a hit to me, or can I see that as like your experience, your story, that is completely outside of me because we just met. Like, you don't know anything about me. And I think it's really hard for people to not take things personally because we center ourselves so much.

Because we think of ourselves all the time. Yeah. Yeah, the ego is so deeply tied to our ability to communicate because Are we constantly seeking threat? Are we constantly perceiving threat to our sense of self?  And so I'm wondering, in your work, you know,  are there ways, are there mechanisms to have a stronger sense of self or a stronger security?

secure identity  in a way to feel less defensive or Even if so when you do find yourself being defensive Ways to ease up on that.  

Yeah I haven't studied it personally, but there are two I think there are two good answers to this The first is there is some really nice research that's happening right now  By some colleagues of mine, Julia Minson at the Harvard Kennedy School, Mike Yeomans, who's at Imperial College in London, Hannah Collins, who's, who's my doctoral student.

She's starting at UCLA. They don't study defensiveness per se, but they study these and their question is, how can you in your own mind remain open to the other person's point of view? So I think it's tightly linked to defensiveness, right? It's saying, how can we  There are people who are good at this, who are really good at remaining open to a very different perspective.

And their question is, what are they doing in their own mind? And also what words are they using as they engage with that other perspective? Like, how are they interacting with someone in a conversation with somebody who has a very, very  different perspective that for many people could be hurtful or offensive.

And so they've been looking at this, but so Julia's work, Julia Minson's work is really about what's going on in your own mind. How do you, how can we stay open and not defensive?  She calls it receptiveness.  And then she, together with Hannah Collins and Mike Yeomans, look at how do we sort of enact that receptiveness in our words and in our conversations with other people. 

So I'm most familiar with the cues from conversation and it's really small things, right? It's, it's using more affirmation, more acknowledgement of the other person's when, of what they say. So literally saying like, Oh, you just said. That you are working hard to get rid of, to, or to become more aware of your moments of defensiveness.

I think that's an amazing goal, right? Like just being able to repeat back what you've heard, affirm it, and then maybe ask a follow up question, like, how are you planning to do that in your life? People who are receptive do that more, they acknowledge, they repeat, they paraphrase, they affirm, they ask follow up questions.

Another big thing that they do is hedge their statements so they realize  That they need to take their ego out of it. That really no one, most topics, no one can really have a perfect, perfectly clear understanding of the truth.  And so to act like you do,  not only is incorrect, but is also not persuasive, and it doesn't help you engage with other people.

So instead, they'll say things like,  I've always thought it was likely that, you know, gun control would be helpful instead of gun control is helpful,  right? Because with that level of certainty is pedantic and no one wants to listen to it. Like, nobody wants it's hard to hear that, especially in live conversation with people.

It's easy. It's much easier to engage with someone who is hedging their claims and acknowledging an appropriate amount of uncertainty about things. And ironically, what they find is, so like, I think the worry with that is like, Oh God, would that make me look weak? Or would I be less persuasive? Would I somehow, I think it goes against our instincts of being resolute and decisive.

But what they find in their research is when you use hedging language like that, ultimately You are more persuasive because you seem because you seem reasonable and people like to interact with you and the way people's minds are actually changed is through repeated interaction with people they trust who maybe have slightly differing views, but it's like the gentle pressure of their slightly differing view, interacting and coordinating well over many interactions. 

And then so that's the first piece of receptiveness and receptive language. Is I think a huge sort of way that we can confront defensiveness and at least in our conversations with other people and try to be more receptive to other people's viewpoints and try to use that language more often, more anecdotally.

I have realized how important this is. I think by doing research on conversation, I realized like great communicators are good at this. They're, they, they at least seem less defensive when moments of difficulty arise and moments when they could be offended by things. They don't.  Overreact and snap and seem defensive.

And so I, on a personal note, have been trying to  become more aware of when those moments are happening in my own. And they, and I'm sure you feel this way too, Abby, they happen all the time. I mean, they're like one happened this morning. My mom babysat my kids last night. One happened this morning where I felt really defensive.

They made some comment where I was like, Oh my God, am I a bad mom? Like, did she.  And then last night we had a band practice and someone made a comment and I was like, do they think I'm not a good singer? Right? Like there's these little fleeting moments where you're like, what did they mean by that? Did they just infer that I'm not living up to the person that I want to be?

And so I've been trying to be more aware of those moments,  be a little bit more reflective about  why am I, Feeling threatened about it, like real. And then when you, when you realize that you realize, wow, like that's a, that's like a me thing, like they probably almost every time it's not really about you, you know, and even if it is.

It's not productive to feel hurt or like have a knee jerk to lash out at people. It just suggests that there's some sort of like confusion or disagreement or misunderstanding that like you should clarify. So anyway, that's been a personal project for me. It also sounds like a source, a pretty good source of humor because if you find yourself being defensive and you can stop yourself in that moment and be like, Oh my God, I'm being so defensive right now.

It's really funny. And it's pretty good at cutting the tension. I was remembering this story. I went out to lunch with my book editor and a Harvard colleague of mine came up and joined us at the table and my editor turned to him and he and he goes, Oh, I've heard so much about you. Allison talks about you more than any of her other friends.

And I was like, no, I don't know. No, I wouldn't. Cause I was like embarrassed that I, that he would out me to my friend like that. And then I stopped myself and I said,  Oh my God, that's what a lovely observation to make. What a lovely signal of closeness and friendship. And like, why wouldn't I just. Own that, you know, like it was a lot of times.

Our defensive reactions are pretty ridiculous. 

You know, it can be ridiculous, but it can also be rationalized by, um, by, uh, you know, a kindness of understanding yourself and your past experiences. And that's 

a nicer framing. I 

wonder, I wonder how.  much accountability there is for the other person, even if it's not about you,  how much accountability is there in them triggering you?

Yeah. What a great question. So I think this is where. This is what I grapple with the most in conversation is sort of like these issues of control from your own perspective and accountability for the other person and thinking about what do we really have control over. We have control, we don't have control over other people's choices, but we have control over our reactions to them.

And ultimately, so my students, my MBA students, I teach a course. at HBS called talk. And by the end, we get to these exercises where they're having these serious disagreements with each other and practicing how to disagree well, which often trigger defensiveness for them. And so they get, they improve immensely and their receptive language and their  receptiveness to opposing views.

But then in our discussion of it, They often say like, well, but what if I'm interacting with someone who is not trained in receptiveness, who's truly being a jerk? Like, do you remain? Do you turn the other cheek? Do you remain patient and unoffended and receptive even to people  who are being awful? And I really grapple with that one.

I feel like it's a, it's quite, it's sort of a philosophical question, almost a religious question, right? Of like, how much, when do you draw the lines? And when are other people, how, how will other people be held accountable for their behavior towards you? Yeah, and it's a, that's a, that's a tricky one. 

Yeah, and even on a smaller scale, thinking about the comment, like, twins are creepy, how accountable is that person for saying something  that isn't kind or  is, you know,  judgmental without realizing that it actually had a personal impact on you?

Correct. Yeah, right. How are they responsible and are they responsible for repairing it or apologizing or learning from it? How could, how could you expect them to do that? If they, if you never, if you don't talk about it directly, right. If it truly is this invisible barb that they've poked into your identity and you don't say anything.

I think that's what I worry about the most is how many times have I done that to people? You know, and the, and you don't. You don't even know it like I, I want to hold myself accountable but I can't because I didn't, I can't learn from it because if I didn't know that's that's hard and conversation is a way what they call a wicked feedback environment where so much of what gets said and done, you don't get feedback about you don't.

You don't realize what's gone well and not well, which is why we can bounce through life, having tons of conversations and never really get great at them, or get better at them. Um, not a lot of, a lot of, not a lot of direct feedback, like, hey, that. I loved that question. The best question you asked today, Abby, was about accountability, right?

Like, you don't get that feedback a lot of the time, and it's quite a gift. And I think it's a lovely gift if you can give it to your close relationship partners, to your romantic partner, your friends. If you can give them both positive and sometimes, if they really have hurt you,  letting them know.  Is brave and, and, and can be very productive because surely they don't want to make other people feel that way.

Yeah. There's a friendship I have that I think we have been close friendship that we've been getting much better at kind of letting some time pass and then being like, Hey.  Just so you know, like when you said that thing, yeah. When you said that thing the other day, like, I'm sure you didn't intend to whatever, but it just made me feel this way.

And I want you to know for future. And  it's not just  a work of self to not be defensive, but it is also accountability and delivery. Right, like there's, there's, there's a proper way or a beneficial way to deliver information to not elicit defensiveness.  Or to attempt to not elicit defensiveness. And sometimes it doesn't work.

Sometimes you can try your best and you still get met with defensiveness, but in the attempt and, and maybe, maybe there's some benefit to saying, you know, I'm, I'm really trying to communicate this in a way that is gentle and kind. And so here is my,  and my thoughts and  you can, you know, sit with that for a second and let me know how it feels.

But honesty is crucial in what we're talking about and, and the decentering of self, right? Like the idea that you would give feedback to someone else and say like, wow, I really loved the way you said that. Or, That really made me think that's centering the other person. That's not,  because I think some people can also get really caught up in, in those moments of being like, why didn't I ask the question that way?

And why didn't I do it so well? And da, da, da, da, da, and just get so caught up in the like critical, social comparison, like the, yes. 

There's two things that you said that I think are important to pull out. The first is that you let time pass. So like  if you feel like this like overheated or tense thing happened and whether it was clear or like observable or unobservable in that moment, letting some time elapse so that those, the tension can dissipate and you're not feeling like clearer heads can prevail is really important.

You know, you don't necessarily have to deliver angry feedback right then. And this is something that I talk, you know, with my girlfriends about all the time, like, in their marriages. This has been very helpful. Like, if you're really mad at each other about something, maybe just say, like, let's put a pin in this for, like, a day and revisit it tomorrow.

It's just so important. And then the second thing that you said that I think is really impressive and important, um, And there's some research emerging on this is about the sequencing of positive and negative feedback, not just like in one conversation, but across a relationship.  It's you're you can deliver that constructive feedback to each other as friends, because you also experienced so many positive things together.

You've been so kind to each other, you've been loving, you've expressed how much you admire each other, and in what ways, and subtle, big, and small, so that you're like prepped.  To be able to receive negative feedback or, or something, some truth, right. That isn't going to ruin your relationship or even maybe make you, it's less likely to make you feel defensive because this is a person you feel that you trust going back to this and all important word that we said at the beginning of our conversation.

Someone you trust.  Who they're not giving you this feedback because they don't like you or because they're pissed. They're giving it to you because they like you and want to stay in a relationship with you and want you to succeed in the world. And that's a big difference. 

Yes. A hundred percent. There has to be padding.

And lots of it. My colleague talks about a ratio of like at least five to one, like five positive, meaningful, positive. pieces of life or feedback or whatever, five positive things before you can even think about one, which is like, that's a high ratio. I think she, I think she might be right. People are studying like, what is the ratio?

What is the ratio within one conversation? What's the ratio over a certain period of time? And how does that go? But you know, defensiveness is a strong force that should not be underestimated in terms of. really ruining a conversation or, and at times a relationship.  

The wording that I use obviously from my podcast to reframe the difficult conversations is critical conversations.

Because I think these, the kinds of conversations we're talking about that defensiveness  often arises is In conversations, and, and I think that, you know, critical doesn't mean criticism.  It means something that's crucial to your evolution, to the evolution of a relationship, to your growth, to your better understanding of the world, or a perspective, or whatever. 

And it means 

important. It means important and meaningful. 

Exactly. And that's 

what everybody needs. In order to feel like you have a, you have wellbeing, that you have a meaningful existence is you need to meaningfully connect with other people. You need to have critical conversations. Yeah. Not serious, not angry. 

Just important. That's more than surface level.  And that you feel like you're really connecting. 

Yeah. I think difficult conversations is a bit too, it's a subjective term, trying to be objective. 

Ooh, I love that. Yeah, that's right. You know, and 

like, I find small talk to be incredibly difficult, whereas something deeper and like a little like fleshier and messier to me is way easier actually.

And we did. So, for some people, Are you the 

kind, Abby, are you the kind of person who like, when you're in small talk, it's a treasure hunt for you, you're looking for any way to turn it into something deeper, more meaningful, more interesting, like, all the time? 

100%. It's a great 

mindset to have, and it, and I'm sure it helps you be the kind of person who has, gets to the meaningful conversation where so many people yearn to be, and they're sort of, they don't know how to get there.

Yeah, yeah, I,  that often I can get deep with new people very quickly. But if I'm in a setting or I'm not in a space where I can give the energy, the idea of small talk is literally the death of me. Like I, I can't do it. I have to leave. Like, I, I literally, there have been so, and it's gotten worse, interestingly, like,  in the last year.

Like you're intolerant, 

you have an intolerant, an intolerance for shallow conversation. Yeah. I think a lot, but I think a lot of people do, right? Like nobody is like, you know what? I think we just should just, I'd love to talk about the weather for like a week. 30 minutes. In our research, we study topic switching.

You're really just an incredible example of topic switching and question asking, but when, but to help the normies out there who are, maybe it doesn't come to them so naturally, there's this framework we use where we talk about the topic pyramid, where at the bottom are topics that you could talk about with anyone, which sometimes are considered small talk.

So it's like the weather, how are you sleeping? Or, you know, like, what are you excited about? Things you could talk about with any person. And it's important to acknowledge that, like, you can't avoid the bottom of the pyramid entirely. Like, if you're talking to a stranger, you have to start somewhere. If you're even catching up with a friend that you haven't seen in a while, like, you gotta, like, oh, like, how's, school or whatever.

You have to start somewhere. The key is people get trapped at the bottom of the pyramid way too long. And so they start to say redundant things about the weather and about the restaurant, right? And that starts to feel very shallow, very quickly. The mistake they're making is that they're not ascending the pyramid towards more nuanced, interesting, deep, vulnerable  topics or questions that are tailored to the other person's interests.

They're tailored to the person's experience. They're tailored to the person's expertise, right? And all of those things are discussed. You have to think of what are they, what do they want out of this conversation? What are they interested in? What, what story might I be able to pull out for them from them that they might like telling or what story do I have to share that they might like hearing about that helps you climb this topic pyramid away from that shallow, small talk towards more tailored.

And then ultimately the peak is deep talk, right? Which is, you don't always have to be there, but when you can get there, it's. So rewarding and it feels like you're occupying this  beautiful shared reality with like another human being that is just, it feels wonderful and it's thought provoking and exciting and fun.

Some 

people might perceive it as too much work or  almost manipulative or lacking presence, but I do think that there's a way to have a kind of an arsenal of questions. You enter, you're like, all right, I know I'm going out to dinner with so and so tonight, or I know I'm gonna be mingling in this. This space, and let me just write a couple, I'll research like best top questions to open a deep talk or best questions to get deeper or best questions to get to know someone.

Or 

listen to a podcast  and it. If you listen to this episode and then talk to people about it. So, so now, so people have this really fantastical fantasy about naturalness in a conversation and it is a myth and it is damaging. Thanks When we see other people who are great at conversation, we believe that it's easy for them.

And like they haven't prepped topics or prepped questions and everything's just coming to them spontaneously and they're just genius and witty and it's just in them and they were born that way. It's just not true. Like most people who are good at, like before this podcast past episode, you read so much of my research.

We had a prep call. We thought about what topics we wanted to talk about. I thought about what topics I wanted, how I wanted to contribute to that.  You just can't have a productive conversation if everybody's winging it and trying to be natural all the time.  And what's so, and what's so great about like embracing that is then you can, then it can get really good, right?

Like then you can really think like, what is going to be interesting to Abby? What's going to be interesting to her listeners? How can I contribute to that and feel great about sharing my work and my expertise, um, with the world? And gosh, wouldn't it be great if we could have a little fun along the way? 

Yes, anyway, but the long story short, we, I have some research on topic prep where we have. And some participants go in blind and just be totally spontaneous in a conversation and others we say, okay, spend either five minutes or even just 30 seconds thinking about what you could talk about with this person.

It's night, there's no question. It's night and day. Prepping topics is always better. It's more enjoyable. It's more productive. You remember to bring up topics that you should bring up, right? Like there, it's just, it's, it's, it's much, much better. There's more fluency. People are less anxious. They feel more confident.

It's it's the ultimate life hack. And that's even with just 30 seconds of forethought, right? It's not rocket science. You just have to say, Oh, yeah. Okay. She said she was taking guitar guitar lessons. I'm going to ask about her guitar lesson or her mom was sick. I should probably ask how she's doing or Oh, I know.

She's been working on that hard thing at work. Maybe we can touch on that. But if she doesn't seem jazzed about it, we'll move on to something else quickly. Right? Like just a little bit of forethought is going to make the conversation so much easier. So much more meaningful, or like you're saying, like, look up a good question, you know, a pretty good one.

You can have an arsenal of go to good questions. Like one that I really like asking is what are you excited about lately? Like everybody has an answer to that. And usually the answer is pretty darn interesting. 

Totally. So to wrap this in a bow of tools, takeaways, we've spoken about topic prep just now.

We've spoken about receptive words and hedging.  What else would you say are some of the key tools and takeaways? that our listeners can run with. 

We talked about the topic pyramid, where you start at the base with small talk, but the key is not to avoid it entirely, but to climb the pyramid, guys. Get out of the base.

And it's okay to come back down, but like, just don't stall out at the bottom. We also talked about the sort of layers of the earth model of difficult moments in conversation. Difficult fleeting things can pop up at any layer. of the earth. And that's normal, but wrecking, starting to be more self aware of your defensiveness and tension in those moments can serve, serve everybody pretty well.

Totally. I love that. I like to end every podcast episode with three questions or three topics. So it's one question really, but what are the three things keeping your attention right now, whether it's a show, a podcast, a book.  activity, something outside of conversation and your research that is on your mind.

I just watched with my husband, Conan O'Brien, Must Go on Netflix. 

Yeah. 

Oh my god, I don't think I've laughed out loud while watching a movie or show in years. It is just, I don't know if this ages me or what, but he's just, Like chef's kiss, like the silliest, funniest guy, so ridiculous. I loved it so much.

So that is, it's on my mind because I'm like, why, why don't I laugh more  things? Like, why does it take such a ridiculous extent? To get me going, but I really loved it. So that's been on my mind. The second thing that's on my mind is our band. We are, our band's called The Lights and we're releasing our first album in like a month. 

We've been playing together for a really long time and we mostly just do it for our own pleasure. But then at some point we had like professionally recorded like 20 songs. So we were like, we should probably just like, shoot, put these, like release these. So that's been like a very joyful thing. Two of my colleagues at HBS are in the band and my husband is the drummer.

It's very, very fun. And then a third thing that's on my mind, I just finished writing my first book and I feel really proud of it. And I am putting the polishing touches on like the references section. And I'm so it's, I just really feel like an overwhelming sense of gratitude. and pride about getting through.

It took four years to write, and I'm really excited to share it with the world. And it's called Talk, the Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves. It'll be out in January 2025. 

Perfect. I can't wait to read it. I'm so excited. Well, thank you again so much. Thank you so much for joining me. I, I love this conversation.