328. Ask Matt Anything: Don’t Let Your Communication Fizzle at the Finish
Think Fast Talk Smart: Communication Techniques
In this 'Ask Matt Anything' episode, Matt Abrahams addresses listener questions regarding the nuances of effective communication. He provide
Key takeaways
- Effective endings should revisit the core goal consisting of information, emotion, and action.
- To break repetitive speaking patterns, switch modalities by turning a declarative statement into a question.
Main topics
- Effective presentation endings
- Breaking repetitive speech patterns
Notable quotes
How you end something often can be as important, if not more important, than how you start.
Conclusion
The episode serves as a practical toolkit for communicators looking to
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi, Matt here. We're partnering with Masterclass to host a free Ask Matt Anything based on content from Think Fast, Talk Smart and my Strategic Communication Masterclass Certification course. Please join us at 8.30 a.m. Pacific on October 14th. Sign up at faster smarter dot io slash masterclass again 8.30 a.m. Pacific on October 14th at faster smarter.io slash masterclass. And now a word from our sponsors. Their support covers the cost of production, allowing us to bring you this episode free of charge. Speaker 1 (0:37) The more time I can spend thinking, teaching, and communicating clearly, the better I can do the work that really matters to me. Superhuman Go helps me protect more of that time. It works where I already work and is already up to speed on what's in front of me. So if I'm catching up on a long email thread, preparing for a meeting, or drafting a response, I can get help right there without switching apps, losing my place, or having to explain all the context again. It's from the makers of Grammarly, which I have relied on for years. And I like that Go can handle some of the most repetitive work that I have to do while I stay in control and focused on the work that actually needs me. Try Superhuman Go from the makers of Grammarly. Find out more at superhuman.com. Speaker 1 (1:24) How you end something often can be as important, if not more important, than how you start. My name is Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this special Ask Matt Anything inside our learning community of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. I am thrilled to be here with... Think Fast, Talk Smart learning community members from around the world and sharing this with all of our listeners and viewers as we come together to think about important communication skills. In a few minutes, I'm going to take some questions from those joining us and then try to give some answers that are helpful and useful. But before that, I want to talk about how we end our meetings and presentations. Many of us just simply run out of time. frequent way people end meetings and presentations is something like this. I guess we're out of time. Thanks. Not the most efficient or effective way to end. In fact, ending is really important. The way people feel at the end of an experience colors the way they see that entire experience. Think of this. If you have an amazing holiday, a great vacation, everything is perfect, yet on the flight, home or the drive home, there's a lot of traffic, things are late, your luggage goes missing. How do you feel about the whole experience? Often that will negatively color how it happened. And the same is true in our communication. If we end in a way that is off-putting or goes too long or throws too much additional information at people, their experience of our entire meeting or presentation could be more negative. So we need to really think about how do we land the plane? How do we end in a way that is effective and efficient? And the efficient part is really important. As soon as people get a sense that you're ending, they begin to check out. Their attention begins to get distracted. We need to stay focused. I believe the most efficient way to end a communication is to rely on the goal that helped you focus the whole communication in the first place. Now, I am a huge fan of having a goal. And to me, a goal has three parts, information, emotion, and action. What do you want the audience to know? How do you want them to feel? And what do you want them to do? If you structure your entire communication around your goal, you should be able to invoke the goal, speak the goal at the end to wrap up. So I might start with gratitude. I'm a big fan of gratitude. Thank you for your time. I hope you're leaving this meeting or presentation knowing this, feeling this way, and willing to do this. Now, you might not like those words, so change it, but do the same thing. Highlight the information at the highest level. Convey the emotion that you want people to have, and then give the call to action, the specific steps that you're asking for. When you do that, you are more efficient in how you end. Because the reality is, as soon as you signal your ending, actually think of this, think of your own behavior. Say you're on a Zoom, a team, a meet, and the meeting organizer, the person running the meeting says, in conclusion, what is your pattern behavior, your habit? Like Pavlov's dogs, you go up to exit meeting, pull up your calendar to see where you need to be next. So as soon as somebody signals ending, we begin checking out and moving to the next thing. So you have to be efficient. Leveraging your goal makes sense. If you don't like the goal as an ending, that's okay. Maybe you started with a story and you want to return to that story at the end. I love that kind of book ending where you start and end in a similar way. Still make it very efficient. So endings matter. In my experience, most people focus on the beginnings and assume when I get to the end, I'll figure it out. You need to think about how you end. It is as important, if not more important, than how you start. I just came back from helping people at a conference and several of the people as I was helping them prepare had, let's just say, less efficient and effective endings than they could have. And we really worked on it. So it's top of mind for me and hopefully will be helpful for you. Happy to take questions about that, how we end, but I'd love to take questions about anything. This is an Ask Matt Anything, an AMA. I do have a few questions that people