80. Magic Words: Change What You Say to Inspire and Influence Others

Words Matter Leveraging language can help us achieve our communication goals Join me as we delve into writing. My name is Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to think fast, talk smart. Today's podcast. I am very excited. to talk to Jonah Berger Jonah is no stranger to Stanford at GSB, he studied here and then went to GSB to get his PhD. He studied with one of our previous guests, Chip Keith Jonah, he is now a professor at Wharton and a consulting speaker. and author of several incredibly educational and fun books, including Contagious Why Things Get Hooked on Catalyst, How to Change Someone's Mind, An Invisible Influence, The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior.

I look forward to talking about Jonah's research, his writings and his new book,

magic

words

, welcome Jonah and thank you. for being here thank you so much for having me yes, I'm very excited about our conversation, let's jump right In persuasion and

influence

are topics that our listeners are thirsty to learn more about in your contagious book why things get you talks about

what

makes ideas Products and services become popular. Can you outline some of the key tools and tactics we can implement in our communication to help our ideas catch on? Yes, I think one of the main takeaways from that book is the power of word of mouth. and how to use it, whether we're doing a presentation, whether we're selling a product, we often want people to support

what

we're doing and we're sure that what we do matters, what we say in that presentation or, like As marketers, what we say in an ad can have an impact, but we can have a much bigger impact if we can get other people talking about our stuff, if we can turn customers into advocates, if we can turn listeners and colleagues into supporters, if we can get them to share a message, not only will we have more reach, we will reach a broader set of people with that message, but we will have much more impact and therefore contagious is about yes, our mouth has power , but how do we transmit it?

That's why I spent a lot of time studying. the science of word of mouth why people talk and why people share some things instead of

others

we have analyzed thousands of online content tens of thousands of brands millions of purchases in the United States and around the world over and over I once saw the same six factors emerge, so in contagious I talk about those factors that drive word of mouth and consumer behavior and, more importantly, how we can leverage them to create contagious content, how we can leverage them to create messages, ideas, products and presentations.

That will spread and become popular, word of mouth is undoubtedly powerful. I find myself looking for things to see and hear based on what my friends tell me and products to buy, what are one or two techniques that can help word of mouth develop the first big The principle I talk about is something called social currency and the very simple idea there is that the better something makes us look, the more likely we are to talk about it and share it, so I talk about a bar story, for example, a sample hidden in a hot place. dog restaurant like if you go down a flight of stairs there is a hot dog restaurant but in the corner of the room there is a phone booth and if you go into the phone booth and dial a number someone will answer the other line and they will ask you should have a reservation, if you're lucky, you have one, the back of that phone booth opens up and they let you into a secret bar called please don't tell and what I love about that story is, first of all, you know everyone, everyone can do it.

I understand that history, that kind of hidden information, really interesting stuff, this place is very popular, although it was never advertised. There are no signs on the street. There are no signs inside the restaurant. How did they get so much attention? They did something really very simple, they became a secret and if you think about it, there's a little secret about Secrets, if you think about the last time someone told you something and they told you not to tell anyone else, what was the first thing you probably did with that information? Yes, I told someone, you told someone because I had access.

Information makes you look good, it makes you look smart, it makes you look informed, so the idea of ​​social currency is not just about secrets, it's that we're more likely to share things that make us look good and then make us look good. they make you look bad. If I'm the first person to adopt a new product or service, if I have information that not everyone else has access to, if something really good, interesting, or exciting happens to me that makes me look smart, I'm more likely to share it. We talk about status. frequent traveler because it makes us look good to our peers.

We talked about releasing a new album because it shows that we are at the forefront and therefore the key idea is both for communication professionals and for people who want to spread the word. We often spend a lot of time thinking about ourselves, our message, our idea. We spend a lot less time thinking about what it will look like to the audience if we tell people about it. When I sell a product, maybe I make a perfect ad and I want to make sure that everyone will love the ad, but I don't think so much about well, someone sees how they will look if they tell their friends, because the better they look, the more likely they will be seen.

I'll be there to talk about it and share it. I love that Insight. I want to know where that bar is and I have to tell you that we often talk on this podcast about knowing your audience and taking the time to understand what they and you need. We're adding an extra layer to that, which is not just what they need, but also how your message impacts them and how they feel, how they look and that can lead to greater success and I have to tell you, use that technique with me. While I was preparing for this interview, you sent me an advance copy of your new book, Magic Words.

I read it. I told a lot of people. I know it's a great book and you should pre-order it as a result of having that information. and I have to share with you some of my colleagues think that I am smarter because of what I shared from your book, so you help me look good and you help me become an evangelist, so thank you for that and I would like to direct our attention to your new book in that book

magic

words

you explore language in its impact on behavior i actually have a quote here you write words you suggest who is in charge, who is to blame and what it means to engage in a particular action consequently slight

change

s The words we use can have a big impact, so my question to you, Jonah, is what kind of impact are you talking about?

Can you provide one or two examples that demonstrate that quote? Sure, yeah, what I find fascinating is that we use words all the time. As we convince

others

to maintain attention even to connect with our loved ones, we use words, but while we think a lot about the general ideas we want to communicate, perhaps we appear in front of an audience and our goal is to sell them a certain project we talk a lot about how good the project is we think a lot about the topic or what we want to communicate but we don't think much about how we communicate it the specific words we use when we share ideas and unfortunately that is a mistake because it turns out that subtle

change

s in Language can have a huge impact on everything from convincing clients and maintaining attention to connecting with the loved ones in our lives and therefore by understanding the science of language, the power of language, how it works and these . types of magic words we can increase our own impact whether that means being more creative being more invasive and holding attention and captivating audiences in almost every area of ​​life we ​​can use language to be more effective you have me convinced of that I've often told people that words matter, we really have to think about the language we use and we have to make sure that language is appropriate for our audience and has a purpose for them and for us.

Do you have some examples you can share about language use and how it can help us achieve our communication goals. Surely the book has six main types of words. I like frames so I put them in a frame called a speech frame which is specified because I couldn't think of something that had a K in it but which means words that evoke similarities asking questions is the p e is for emotion A is for agency and identity one of the C's is concreteness and one of the C's is trust, so I'll choose just one example of asking questions.

I find questions really fascinating because they do a great job, we often think of questions as gathering correct information to get an answer, but they also have a huge impact on how people perceive us and how we see the world and perceive others. There's some interesting research, for example, about asking for advice and we often think that we shouldn't ask for advice, why well, first of all, we don't want to bother someone, so if we're in the office and we have a problem that we're stuck on , we could ask a colleague we could ask our boss but we don't want to bother them they may not know the answer and worse yet or where they think less of us they will do well why why you ask me why I might' You don't find out yourself, so that we often don't ask for advice and not only is it bad because we don't benefit from the thoughts and advice of others and we don't gather that information, but it's also bad because we are missing something. a big opportunity because when the research looked at asking for advice and in a variety of experiments and situations that looked at how people were perceived when they asked for advice versus when they dipped their toes, not only did they not find that asking for advice hurts made us seem less. smart, less informed, have less experience in the space, it actually had exactly the opposite effect, asking for advice made people look better, not worse, it made others think they were more competent, smarter and more knowledgeable, and The reason it is very simple is that it takes advantage of people's egocentrism. everyone thinks they have good advice, most of us like ourselves, we like our own advice, we think we're pretty good, so when someone asks us for advice we say oh that person must be really smart because that's what smart enough to ask me.

In my opinion, asking for advice makes us look better, not worse, and you could say, well, wait, it's really kind of asking questions in general, but there's also research on the kinds of questions we often ask in a conversation. of introductory questions at the beginning of this conversation you probably said something like how are you and I probably responded something like well how are you right? And those are good questions, they're not bad, they're polite, but when researchers looked at a variety of different types of conversations, hundreds of different types of conversations, they found that one particular type of question was particularly impactful, quite useful in shaping how we think. perceived by others, they weren't these three introductory questions and they weren't mimicry questions when someone asked, What are you going to have for lunch, blah, blah, blah, what are you going to have for lunch instead?

It's a type of question called follow-up questions and what follow-up questions are is when someone says something. I enjoy this presentation instead of saying oh, I did that too when saying something. like cool, oh what part did you like when someone says I had a really hard day? show that you are interested in gathering more information because follow up questions do a few things first, they show that you are paying attention, being polite is easy, but they don't actually indicate that you are paying attention, but if you took the time. listening to what someone said and following what they said showed that you pay attention and care you are interested in learning more and that not only allows us to gather information but it lets people like us more, we show that we care about them and what is going on with their lives and as a result, they like us more and therefore even something as simple as the questions we ask and how we ask them can have a major impact on how we are perceived.

I really like this notion. of seeking advice and the benefits of doing so because you as a teacher and myself often tell our students to seek feedback, seek advice and many of them are shy to do it because, as you said, they are afraid that it will show weakness or reduce your status and I love the fact that the research suggests that it actually reinforces it and clearly the types of questions that you are giving examples of can not only help you get the information you are looking for, but also demonstrate that are you listening andinterested in what the other person says which is a great way, like you said, to build trust when connecting.

I'd love to ask you about another category of your speaking framework and we talk a lot on this podcast about trust and communication, any guidance on language use. and confidence that you can share, yes, I think all of us in our own lives can think of someone who just exudes confidence, right, who has so much charisma every time he speaks, other people listen, we can all think of someone in our own lives like that , and if you look if you look at the gurus, you look at the startup founders, you look at the leaders who are often considered charismatic, they often have something quite in common, they often do the same thing, which is to say, they speak with a lot of certainty and what do I mean?

Well, if you look at what some of these leaders know, things are not going to happen, they are definitely going to happen. A course of action is not just a potentially good course of action, it is clearly the right course of action. action everyone agrees this is unequivocal this is essential it is irrefutable it is guaranteed that they use a lotwhat some people call definitive they speak with great certainty and it is not surprising that when someone speaks with certainty when someone is so clearly sure of what is true, It's hard not to listen to them because they seem very convinced and I'm talking about five or six different ones.

Types of language are linked to certainty, but I'll pick one in particular here and it's a set of words and phrases called Hedges and if you look at academics, I'm guilty of this as much as anyone else, we often do a lot. of hedging we say I think this is the case this could be true this should work is a good possibility this will probably happen Hedge our language we do not say this is the best solution we say this could be the best solution we indicate uncertainty in our language and again, sometimes We want to indicate uncertain, sometimes we want to make it clear that it is not certain what is going to happen, but unfortunately we often use Hedges because they are a simple verbal take, it is easy to protect and we often unconsciously undermine our impact.

As a result, because if we're sitting there saying, "I think this or that or this might be true or this should happen or might happen, the audience is sitting there and it's going well, if you're not even sure it's going to happen, why?" What should I?" Continue well if you're not even sure this is a good solution if you're not even sure this is going to work if you're not even sure this is the best course of action I'm much less likely to be convinced As a result, and In fact, a lot of experiments that a colleague and I ran in this space, as well as analysis that we did, field data shows that the more Hedges we use, the less persuaded other people are, so I think this has clear implications. we want to persuade others to drop the barriers that that doesn't mean we can't be circumspect in our language, that doesn't mean we can't narrow down the world of things we're talking about, but it's better to be sure of one thing. smaller set of things than uncertainty often about a larger set of things well, I think what you said is actually maybe a little bit important.

I absolutely agree that hedging language can really undermine what you're trying to do, but there are while you point out times when I might want to lower my status on purpose to invite others to talk, imagine a boss saying we should do this, what do you think versus I think we should do this, what do you think, very, very different, so when the time comes? As for confidence, it seems like the most important thing is certainty and that's really helpful because nervous speakers, people who are new to positions and roles often use hedging language that can work against them.

I will definitely give you a simpler approach which is the idea of ​​turning the past into presence and I don't mean Christmas presence here so often when we talk about something we use the past tense oh I liked your food or you had good food at a restaurant . I thought the candidate for the job did. a very good job i thought the resume was impressive we are using the past tense that resume was impressive notice in that situation we could also use the present tense i think your resume is impressive i think the food is good i think this destination is a lot of fun and It turns out that when we use the present tense people think we are much more confident or certain in what we say and, as a result, we are more likely to be persuaded because the past tense often suggests that something was true for a particular person. at one particular point his resume was impressive suggests that when I looked at it last week I thought it was impressive that doesn't mean it's still impressive that doesn't mean you'll find it impressive but it suggests that it was impressive to me whereas if I say, hey, that resume It's impressive, I'm making a statement.

Not only was it true when I looked at it, but it will also be true for all people at all times and because you are willing to make that statement, people believe that they are much more sure of what you are saying and as a result it is much more likely to be persuaded, so the safe cover you know is one strategy, as well as turning the past into presence, but I'm talking about two or three others and that's it. about the use of language to convey certainty. I love turning the past into the present. I think it's really fascinating and it's actually going to change the way I ask my next question.

I was originally going to say "I say often," but now I'm just going to say "I say." That attention is the most precious commodity we have in the world today, however, gaining the attention of others is often not enough to be successful in our communication. We need to engage, which I define as keeping people's attention. I know along with some of your colleagues that you published recently. research that looks at how language, particularly emotional language, can help us engage. What did his research find and how can we leverage his findings to engage more in our communication?

Yeah, I love the way you posed that question and we've done some work on what catches the eye, for example, looking at posts on social media, for example, and looking at what drives engagement, what drives people to do click on something or titles or headlines, ways to use email subject lines to get people to open them, often words like you for The example can be quite powerful because they act as a stop sign, they say, "Hey, "Stop doing what you're doing." For most of us, we're not just trying to get people to open an email, but to read it.

We're not just trying to get people to stop scrolling through social media and see our posts. We hope they do. We'll read it, we don't just expect someone to start paying attention to our presentation, we expect them to pay attention to everyone else, so one thing we ask ourselves is: how can we maintain attention more effectively? How can we use language? in particular to maintain attention and I think this is an interesting question because I think some of us think that maintaining attention has to do with the topic, if I talk about celebrity gossip, people are going to pay attention if I talk about some technology new. or the people at Hollywood Blockbuster pay attention, but if I talk about climate change, if I talk about tax reform, if I talk about school budgets, it's going to be difficult to get people's attention, not just get their attention, but keep it, etc.

What we're interested in is whether we can keep people's attention even on these topics that might not seem so interesting. So what we did to do this was actually go through tens of thousands of articles online and not just look at whether people looked at them, read them, opened them, look how far they read, they kept reading this content, where did they stop? , they read a sentence and then chose not to participate and do something else, and we found some things that are quite interesting, so the first style can compensate for the content sure that the content is important, indeed, there are certain topics to which the People paid attention, the topics caught their attention more than others, but even controlling that certain language could capture the attention of any topic, so it's not just about what you're talking about. how you're talking about it and secondly, we found two main groups: one was the type of language that makes it easier to continue paying attention.

Concrete language was one of these things. I can touch a table. I can see a painting. imagine a cherry red convertible the word beautiful is harder to see the word strategy is harder to imagine concrete language because it is easier to think it is easier to process and it holds our attention better the same with familiar language the more familiar words let's use or even easier to understand Process language encourages attention, but even controlling for that, as you noted, we also found that emotional language was quite impactful. Emotional language did a great job of maintaining attention and it wasn't just that any emotion worked or a positive emotion helped, maybe a negative emotion hurt. were actually the tendencies or the association with a particular movement.

Some emotions, for example, tend to be relatively certain, other emotions tend to be more uncertain, an emotion like hope, for example, suggests that you know, I hope something happens, but I'm not sure about an emotion like anxiety. and anxious language says we don't know what's going to happen, so we found that language associated with uncertainty, whether for emotional or other reasons, was more likely to encourage people to continue paying attention, you know. , if you don't know. what's going to happen stay tuned to find out keep reading to find out what's going to happen and thinking about this I think of you you mentioned chip heath and his big book made to stick they talk about opening a gap of curiosity yes, where you point out that you know something but you don't know everything and to me that's a lot of what uncertain moves do and say, hey, stay tuned to figure out the answer and as a result, it keeps your attention, you know a lot of us use language in a way of dealing to demonstrate our competence, so we will use big words, complex sentences that remove emotion and what I hear you saying is that a lot of that really works against us when we try to engage and force people to continue listening to us.

So I think the advice to be concrete to generate curiosity is really useful and I challenge everyone to think about what they do with their language to engage people when they speak, because it seems to me that many of us actually are. subvert our own goal of keeping people paying attention. What I found fascinating when working on this book is that there are so many subtle things we can do in almost every area of ​​our life to increase our impact if we are trying to solve a problem, for example. Instead of thinking about what we should do, thinking about what we could do - literally changing a word from should to could help us think more broadly and find more creative solutions, even if we don't end up doing one of the things we thought.

What could we do. It helps us think about a broader set of ideas and makes us more creative and better at solving problems if we try to get someone to help us instead of asking them for help, asking them to help us makes them more likely to agree to help us similarly when We try to get someone to vote, asking to be a voter instead of asking to vote makes it more likely that they will accept and put both ideas under a strategy called Turn actions into identities, be sure that voting is a good thing. Sure, helping is a good thing, but what we all really want is to see ourselves positively, as intelligent, effective, and competent, and so we adopt behaviors that allow us to claim desired identities and, if suddenly, voting becomes a opportunity to show that Well, now we are more likely to do it if helping is an opportunity to show that I am a helper.

It is much more likely to do so. The same thing happens on the opposite side. Losing is bad, but being a loser, well, it's even worse. Cheating is bad, but being a cheater is even worse. Research shows that if you ask students instead of telling them not to cheat, you tell them not to cheat, they are much less likely to cheat because now cheating would show that they are cheaters. Claiming this unwanted identity and when we want to motivate others, you know, turning actions into identities even when we describe ourselves and our peers, if you think about it, we often describe ourselves using an adjective or again a verb, we say: I'm working hard, that's good, but let me tell you, imagine, I told you about two people, someone who runs and someone who is a runner, if you had to guess which of those two people runs more often, the person who runs or who is a runner , Well,I would say based on what you know.

I said it's a runner, yeah right, being a runner suggests a stable trait, it's not just something that happens once in a while, it's who you are and so instead of talking about yourself as a worker, talk about yourself as a hard worker instead of talking about yourself. as a creative you are a Creator or someone else as a Creator instead of being an Innovator you are an innovator by claiming these identities, whether describing ourselves that way or to others who we want to be perceived favorably, encourages them to see those things as more stable. traits and make people think that they are more like they can persist as a result, so I find that putting ourselves in the role of runners as someone who is a helper really helps our audience see us as more engaged and being someone.

Who is most involved in that? I imagine before finishing. I'd like to ask you the same three questions that I ask everyone who joins. Are you willing to do it? It sounds great, great, if you caught the best communication tips you've ever received. a five to seven word presentation slide title, what would it be? I'll go with three words, I'll understand your audience, uh-huh, yeah, I'm in marketing, so I can cheat a little bit so you know I've been at Wharton for a long time. Think about 15 years and at some point, once you get the position, you will be asked to teach the basics of marketing and the main thing you take home from that course is being customer-centric.

Great marketing doesn't end with the customer, it doesn't create a product and To figure out how to sell it, it starts with understanding what products or services customers want and designing those products. The same as a communicator. The better you understand your audience, whoever that audience is, the more effective you will be. That is a theme that has been echoed many times in this podcast and thank you for adding to that chorus question two: who is a communicator that you admire? and why I don't think I have a specific person in mind, but I'm always amazed when people can tackle complex topics. and ideas and make them simple, so I was at the doctor recently and I was dealing with a particular Doctor who just made the simplest things complex.

I had no idea what they were talking about and then similarly that same weekend I was at a local museum talking to someone about butterflies and I don't know anything about butterflies. Our son is almost six years old. He years loves butterflies and they were able to take the most complex things about butterflies and make them simple, so I think anyone who can take a complex topic and make it simple is a great communicator. I agree, I call it accessibility, we have to take this. complex topics and make them accessible to many people and it is a true gift in art, although there are some very specific tactics that we can use question number three, what are the first three ingredients that are part of a successful communication recipe?

I think going back to what we already talked about, you have to start by understanding your audience, secondly, you have to find a way to communicate it in a simple way, but then I think, thirdly, in the end you have to push them to the action. Much in my last book The Catalyst when we try to change someone's mind too often we start by pushing trying to add more information, persuading them with facts, figures, it is much better to identify the barriers to change them and mitigate them and really think about how can we help help people get to where we wanted them to get in the first place on their own by asking the right questions that lead them down a path rather than forcing them down that path?

This is why I believe that great communicators are good at not only telling their audiences what to do, but helping their audiences see that the best way for the audience to achieve what they wanted to do is to do it with the Communicator was interested in them doing it. first of all. I love it, I love it, that leads you in your direction. well Jonah, thank you very much, we all benefited from what you have been able to teach us or should I say thank you for being a great teacher. It's been wonderful learning from you and having the opportunity to chat with you and I wish you Well, in your book, magic words, it's really magical.

I have learned a lot and, as you hear from everyone listening today, my behavior changed immediately. Thank you so much, thank you so much for having me, thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast Talk. smart, the podcast from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, this episode was produced by Jenny Luna, Ryan Campos and Matt Abrahams, our music was provided by Floyd Wonder for more information and episodes, find us on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts, thank you and be sure to subscribe and follow us on LinkedIn thank you