Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Career growth starts with stepping outside your comfort zone.

Building a successful career isn’t about following a set path—it’s about knowing when to evolve and embracing change. Whitney Johnson believes that success comes from disrupting yourself—challenging routines, stepping into discomfort, and continuously evolving. “People think staying in their comfort zone is the safe choice,” she explains, “but real growth happens...

In the age of virtual communication, here’s how to ensure your messages convey what you mean.

Texts. Emails. Slacks. Zooms. We’re communicating in more ways than ever, but Andrew Brodsky has a word of warning: Your virtual communication might be sending messages you’re not aware of.

Brodsky is the author of PING: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication. And as a professor of management at the University of Texas ...

Career success takes a status boost, not a power grab.

How do you chart the career course you’ve always imagined? According to Alison Fragale, it’s about gaining influence through status, power, and ultimately, being “a likeable badass.”

As a research psychologist, professor, speaker, and author, Fragale is on a mission to help women take control of their careers. In her book Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success Th...

How to turn curiosity, clarity, and AI into your most powerful job search tools.

Job search isn’t just about landing your next role—it’s about understanding who you are and how you want to show up in the world. According to Andrew Seaman, Senior Managing Editor for Jobs and Career Development at LinkedIn, that process begins with curiosity, not certainty. “People assume they need to apply to dozens of jobs with a perfec...

Amidst constant change, clear communication is the key to navigating uncertainty.

How do you communicate with others when you’re confused yourself? For Rob Siegel, leadership isn’t about avoiding uncertainty, it’s about embracing the clarity that ambiguity can bring.

"What if ambiguity is the new normal?" asks Siegel, a venture investor and lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. From rapidly evolving AI to rat...

How victim, villain, and helpless stories sabotage our most important conversations.

The hardest conversations aren’t just about what you say to the other person. According to Joseph Grenny, critical conversations begin with the stories that you tell yourself.

As a leading expert on business performance and communication, and a New York Times bestselling co-author of Crucial Conversations, Grenny explains that navigating...

Great strategy starts with a question—and a story worth believing in.

A good strategy isn’t just built—it’s told. For Martin Reeves, chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute and author of The Imagination Machine and Like: The Button That Changed the World, strategy and imagination are both deeply communicative processes, rooted in storytelling, curiosity, and the courage to reframe assumptions.
“A strategy is really j...

A live SXSW panel on how employee complaints illuminate the path to organizational innovation.

Wrong question: How can AI revolutionize productivity in my organization?

Right question: What do my employees hate most about their jobs?

For the Portland Trail Blazers, a winning game plan for AI implementation didn’t begin with a tech-first approach — it began with a talk-first one. “The whole concept was to talk about pa...

How to have the conversations that are most difficult — and most important.

Before you can have hard conversations with others, you need to have an honest conversation with yourself. That's the counterintuitive advice from Sheila Heen, who says our own internal narratives often derail our attempts at negotiation and conflict resolution.

"The first negotiation is actually a negotiation I have with myself about my own stor...

Stay sharp, sound confident, and speak with impact — even when you're put on the spot.

Communicating clearly is challenging enough when there’s time to prepare. But in most situations — whether in meetings, casual conversations, or high-stakes moments — we rarely have the luxury of scripting our words. We must think and speak in real time.
Spontaneous communication is a daily challenge, yet few of us receive formal t...

The power of creating the reputation you want to have.

Whether you know it or not, you have a brand. What that brand is, says Lorraine Lee, doesn’t happen by accident. “You can either form and create it, or you can let people define it for you.”

A teacher, content creator, speaker, and author of Unforgettable Presence: Get Seen, Gain Influence and Catapult Your Career, Lee helps people improve their communication presenc...

Alex Rodriguez shares why in sports and business, striking out is just a part of the game.

From the baseball field to the boardroom, great communication is critical for success. But as Alex Rodriguez knows, we don’t always hit it out of the park. For this sports superstar turned entrepreneur, striking out is never the end of the story.

“I'm fifth all-time in the history of strikeouts,” says Rodriguez. “That means there's...

This live Q&A with host Matt Abrahams celebrates 200 episodes of Think Fast, Talk Smart.

In an age of endless content and information, how do we ensure our communication cuts through the noise? Across 200 episodes of Think Fast, Talk Smart, host Matt Abrahams has discovered four essential ingredients that help messages rise above the chatter: concision, relevance, accessibility, and precision.

“Attention is our most ...

This three-part miniseries is all about keeping your cool when speaking on the spot.

Communicating effectively can be challenging enough, even with plenty of time to prepare what we want to say. But for most of our communication, there’s no time to plan, practice, or perfect — we have to respond in the moment.

Spontaneous communication is a part of our everyday lives, but few of us have been trained to handle these impromptu...

This three-part miniseries is all about keeping your cool when speaking on the spot.

Communicating effectively can be challenging enough, even with plenty of time to prepare what we want to say. But for most of our communication, there’s no time to plan, practice, or perfect — we have to respond in the moment.

Spontaneous communication is a part of our everyday lives, but few of us have been trained to handle these impromptu...

This three-part miniseries is all about keeping your cool when speaking on the spot.

Communicating effectively can be challenging enough, even with plenty of time to prepare what we want to say. But for most of our communication, there’s no time to plan, practice, or perfect — we have to respond in the moment.

Spontaneous communication is a part of our everyday lives, but few of us have been trained to handle these impromptu...

Communication isn’t about perfect word choice, it’s about connecting with others.

For native speakers and language learners alike, communicating comes with all kinds of challenges. But no matter how much we stumble over our words, Lindsay McMahon says communication isn’t about perfection — it’s about connection.

The CEO and founder of All Ears English and host of the All Ears English podcast, McMahon is on a mission to help ...

Stanford experts answer live questions on leadership, authenticity, and communication.

What happens when four top Stanford thinkers take live questions from a room full of leaders? In Part 2 of this special Think Fast, Talk Smart series from the Stanford LEAD Me2We Conference, Matt Abrahams and his panel of expert GSB faculty—Allison Kluger, Naomi Bagdonas, Christian Wheeler, and Nir Halevy—answer questions from a live audi...

Effective leadership begins with the way you communicate.

Leading with impact isn’t about speaking louder—it’s about communicating in ways that resonate with what people already value. In Part 1 of this special two-part series from the Stanford LEAD Me2We Conference, Matt Abrahams brings together four expert GSB faculty—Allison Kluger, Nir Halevy, Christian Wheeler, and Naomi Bagdonas—to explore how to lead and communicate ...