0:01

Ted Audio Collective. Hello

0:08

Francis, Hello Gorgeous! You and I

0:10

have very different. Email

0:12

styles of. A.

0:16

Night Day. I.

0:21

Probably. Over think. And.

0:23

I might suggest that I and

0:25

I don't want to finish. There's

0:27

greater uncomplicate. I'm a i'm going

0:29

under thinker or I'll take it.

0:31

So France's you and I. I

0:34

think yet again represent to

0:37

ends of this spectrum. I

0:40

am remembering at in the last

0:42

few months. An email

0:44

that you sent to one

0:46

of our partners it in

0:48

the marketing space and we

0:50

were fired as clients within

0:53

twenty four hours. I. Think

0:55

it faster than that. Yeah,

0:57

I. Don't. Think your intention what?

0:59

like get five was it was I not

1:01

yet. It was not if I recall. We

1:05

hired someone to help drive

1:08

book sales. Yeah, and. They

1:10

then had all kinds of things they wanted

1:13

to do that we're going to drive all

1:15

kinds of other performance measures. Yeah, and I

1:17

just kept trying to refocus it on the

1:19

book sales said the communication I thought I

1:22

was sending is all of those other things

1:24

you can measure the but we don't care

1:26

and I was just trying to get them

1:28

back to How Will This Drive Book Sales?

1:31

How Will This Drive Book Sales? How This

1:33

Drive Book sales And then they fired me.

1:37

Why I think the substance of

1:39

your point was exactly. right?

1:42

But the style was where I

1:44

think Ross die old for this

1:46

audience. Ah and totally controllable experiment.

1:49

It was all me. To. There

1:51

existed an email you could have said

1:53

that would not have resulted in that.

1:55

Yeah. And I think this story illustrates

1:58

how consequential I can be to. A

2:00

style of written communication, right?

2:02

And that's. What we're gonna be getting into

2:04

today: I'm super. Excited! I.

2:10

Them more How much company builder and

2:12

leadership. Such and I'm Census Fry. I'm

2:14

a professor at the Harvard Business School

2:16

and I'm as list. And

2:19

this is fixable. From the Had

2:21

Audio Collective or Michelle. we believe

2:23

that meaningful change happens fast, anything

2:26

is fixable, and good solutions are

2:28

usually just a single brave conversation

2:31

with food we have today, while

2:33

Francis today we have our first

2:35

Master Fixer of Season Three on

2:38

a topic that is so important

2:40

and a topic that is tragically

2:42

overlooked. Very. Close to my

2:44

heart, which is the written word. The

2:47

written word. You have a lot of

2:49

reverence for the written word. I

2:51

do and I'm really excited to learn

2:54

from our guess. We have Todd Rogers

2:56

joining us today to talk about the

2:58

subject. He's a professor public Policy at

3:00

the Harvard Kennedy School, a behavioral scientist

3:03

whose what has focused on how to

3:05

use great communication to achieve a meaningful

3:07

goal. I know Todd. He

3:10

was a student back in the day.

3:12

Ah wow, I didn't realize I yeah

3:14

and he has a really refreshing take

3:16

on this that I think is gonna

3:18

get everybody to think differently. About

3:21

written communication Absolutely. Ah, He

3:23

coauthored a book titled writing

3:25

Effectively for busy readers and

3:27

investors. A taste of how

3:29

good he is access and

3:31

passage title that just came

3:33

out recently written with Jessica

3:35

Lasky think I highly recommend

3:38

it and after this conversation

3:40

I think everyone will do.

3:42

that was all that says

3:44

in. This

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4:35

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4:39

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get your podcast. Todd

5:07

Rodgers welcomed effects of off. Thanks.

5:09

Rob me excited. Beer. Skirt,

5:12

You're. A Behavioral scientists working

5:14

on a big problem. Which

5:17

is to help people right

5:19

and ways that are that.

5:22

Busy. Distracted people will respond

5:24

to and take some kind

5:26

of action. Even. If

5:28

it's just had Texas back

5:30

and can sound like you're

5:33

also trying to help people

5:35

use riding to Spar. Big.

5:37

Actions, Things like. Getting.

5:39

Our fellow citizens to vote. For

5:42

hims described your audience. As anyone who

5:45

writes anything which is a

5:47

lot of people, Todd so

5:49

is this a fair summary

5:51

of of your mission Has:

5:53

How do you. Think about it. i'm

5:57

glad you sword mission like it i this

5:59

entire program work for the last five

6:01

years and for the foreseeable few years

6:03

or maybe longer, is I

6:05

want everyone who writes anything to

6:08

add a round of edit where they ask

6:10

themselves, how do I make it easier for the reader? Because

6:13

it's more effective for us as writers achieving our

6:15

goals and it's kinder to our readers and more

6:17

inclusive. Whether it's a webpage, a proposal,

6:19

a report, an assessment, an email, a text, the

6:21

easier I make it for the reader, the more

6:23

effective I'll be and the kinder it is for

6:25

our readers. All right.

6:28

So speaking of text, I want to get this out

6:30

of the way, like right up at the top, because

6:33

my children ridicule me,

6:36

like relentlessly for using punctuation

6:38

in my text. And

6:42

I will assert that capitalization

6:44

periods, dare I say it,

6:46

even commas can be useful

6:48

to clarity in this form. So can you just,

6:51

can you settle this debate for us?

6:53

Like am I right? Or

6:55

are you a boomer? I

6:58

think if I was just going to be on the

7:00

side of my sons, I'm going to take your side

7:02

because I've never met your children and I've met

7:04

you. So yes, you're right. This

7:09

conversation is starting off so well.

7:12

You're already one of my favorite guests. So

7:15

how did this become the focus

7:17

of your life's work? I

7:21

was a political pollster. And then I actually

7:23

went to grad school after being a democratic

7:26

pollster where I was interested in just learning

7:28

the science and behavior change. And

7:30

then after grad school, I withdrew from grad

7:32

from my PhD program actually early to start

7:35

a research Institute in Washington called

7:37

the analyst Institute where we ran Obama's experiments

7:39

team and like we're the hub of data

7:41

science and behavioral science for the left. And

7:45

the whole program with hundreds of field

7:47

experiments and other data science approaches is

7:49

that how do we communicate to busy

7:51

voters effectively? And I always thought of

7:53

that as persuasion, but stepping

7:56

back, it's really like stage one is how do you make

7:58

it, how do you get through their attention? How

8:00

do you get them to encounter whatever it is

8:02

we're saying or sending? That's

8:04

stage zero before you can do anything persuasive.

8:07

So I actually realized that we want to move

8:09

up the chain. How do we

8:11

manage the reality that they're skimming, busy, and care less

8:14

about what we're saying than we do? Well,

8:17

let's get a little tactical, and we're

8:19

going to get into your principles. What

8:24

do most of us tend to get wrong

8:26

about written communication? I'm

8:30

hesitant when I say the most common, but I'll name

8:32

a couple. One,

8:35

we think that writing well is the same

8:37

as writing effectively, which

8:39

is we are taught how to write well, and

8:42

sometimes taught how to write beautifully. But

8:45

that's not the same thing as writing

8:47

effectively, practically. And

8:49

so what that means is we're taught

8:52

how to write these essays with introductions

8:54

and bodies and conclusions, and people aren't

8:56

getting past the second sentence. And

8:58

what is the metric you're using for effectiveness? Whatever

9:01

the writer's goal is, if the goal is getting

9:03

people to donate, if the goal is getting people

9:05

to sign up, if the goal is getting people

9:07

to respond. Subsequent action. Yeah, or if the goal is comprehension.

9:12

Whatever they are, we do these randomized experiments of

9:14

treatment groups and control groups, and you can

9:17

think AB tests, and we see that

9:20

there's some systematic tendencies. So you said, what

9:22

are some of the biggest problems? The biggest

9:24

problem is we conflate effective writing with good

9:26

writing. The other one is I think that

9:28

we struggle, and this is not a writing

9:31

problem. This has always been a problem, so

9:33

it's not unique to what we're discovering. But

9:35

I think people confuse completeness

9:38

with effectiveness, right? Like comprehensiveness with

9:40

effectiveness, and we'll get into that.

9:42

But I think that one

9:45

of the signatures of clear

9:48

thinking is being able

9:50

to recognize what

9:52

the most important thing is and

9:55

what's extra. And

9:57

so just for the answers to the doubt, you're defining effective

9:59

as The. Reader.

10:02

Takes the actions, He. Wants

10:04

them to take. Any

10:07

action to be comprehensive and I'm very agnostic.

10:09

the every writer with every piece of writing

10:11

has a different golf. Often those goals are

10:13

not clear to themselves and writing helps to

10:15

clarify are thinking and are and our goals.

10:17

But I'm or whatever your goal is. I.

10:20

Measure effectiveness by helping the writer achieve

10:22

it. It turns out it's also kind

10:24

or dear reader and more respect for

10:26

your it. Yeah, and we we think

10:28

a lot about the. Cost

10:30

of inaction in the work that we

10:33

do and that seems like a big

10:35

part is this: Story.

10:37

Egg we we could be using. Are.

10:40

Riding to spur action, progress,

10:42

apprehensions, And in most cases

10:44

we are. Failing to do

10:46

so? I I think so either. So

10:49

the the read most. radical. Take.

10:51

The just can I have is. Imagine

10:55

if. It's always our

10:57

fault if a busy person demonic

10:59

we sent them. If

11:02

we if we shift the responsibilities not the

11:04

readers' response to read, what we sense is

11:06

our full to right away that accommodates the

11:09

way they actually read which is busy skimming

11:11

between thirty second tasks like I think that

11:13

we often have default like well I sent

11:15

it, I set it. You're supposed to do

11:18

it. You must understand it, but if we

11:20

really own it, that would radically change the

11:22

way we think about our rating. Be Effective

11:24

is very is inspired in part by Done

11:27

Norman who founded User Center Design where he

11:29

worries like if someone interact with an object.

11:31

In doesn't understand how it works. It's always

11:33

the designers fall. And

11:36

I think we should if we seek about writing that way. Like

11:38

than. all of a sudden it's like oh My. God. I

11:40

want to think about so many things that way.

11:42

Yeah, I mean, it's a challenge, defenses, and I

11:45

will often. Posts. And leaders

11:47

is what. How's your behavior change

11:49

if you took? radical? Responsibility

11:51

for the performance of the people

11:53

around you. So. So

11:55

tired. One of the examples that. I

11:58

asked. the news is that we. The

12:00

at Harvard the promotion rate is

12:02

abysmally low. We're very proud of

12:04

it. We think it's part of

12:06

being a lead. But. Look

12:08

over at Caltech. Equally.

12:11

Elite if not more so.

12:13

Promotion rate is. Ten times

12:15

what are says something like

12:18

that to this out. they

12:20

take radical responsibility for the

12:22

development of junior faculty. This

12:24

is it. Near. And dear to

12:27

our hearts of what have we take. Radical

12:29

responsibility for the success of others.

12:31

How would we behaves? I've

12:34

the I love that I had never thought about

12:36

that way. I stick to that spot on all

12:38

right. So. In your buck you have

12:41

six principals for achieving effective writing. What

12:43

are they and how are you defining

12:45

them? The. First response: less is

12:47

more Which means using fewer words, few

12:50

ideas, and fewer requests. The second is,

12:52

make reading easy, which means short. Sentences.

12:55

Short and com and words to just

12:57

make it more accessible. More people and

13:00

less effort for the reef. The.

13:03

Third is designed for easy navigation because people

13:05

are jumping around and when they're busy, when

13:07

they're skimming, See. What To Make It

13:09

easy for them to pull out the information they're looking

13:11

for and navigate so that they don't just give up

13:14

on. The force is use

13:16

enough for matting but no more. Bold

13:18

underline highlight people interpret as a writer

13:20

saying to the reader this is the

13:22

most important concept season draw them to

13:24

that but it also licenses them. Do

13:26

not read anything else sir has to

13:28

be carefully this this is tell readers

13:31

why they should care because we often

13:33

focus on our goal. Are go

13:35

reading this and to the extent

13:37

that we can read frame the

13:39

content towards where they care about.

13:41

We. May as well tell the real Whether

13:43

Sugar and the sixties make responding easy, reduce

13:46

friction, simplify it as important as we wanna

13:48

make it easy for them. What's.

13:50

The most important one on this list

13:52

and or six principals. I have two

13:55

children. I love both my children equally.

13:58

I think they're all birds, but I will. choose two

14:00

that I think are fun

14:02

and most underappreciated. The

14:05

first is less is more. And

14:08

many people know this quote

14:11

from Blaise Pascal, but

14:14

makes me sound pretentious to say that. And I will

14:16

say like a normal person to Mark Twain who never

14:18

said it, that

14:20

I'm sorry, this letter is so long. I would have

14:22

written you a shorter one if I'd had more time.

14:25

And what I love about that quote

14:27

is it does two things. It says, one, I've

14:30

wronged you by this thing being so long. And

14:33

second, it takes time to

14:36

write less. It takes more time to

14:38

write less. And

14:41

so the first, this principle we're talking is less

14:43

is more. There are three components. One is fewer

14:45

words. Those who've read Strunk and White, the Elements

14:47

of Style, omit needless words is the easy one,

14:49

which is it's better to say two instead

14:53

of saying in order to, but the more

14:55

subtle one is omit only kind of useful

14:57

ideas. The more ideas

14:59

you add, the less likely someone is to read

15:01

and respond. And it's just a trade-off. The optimal

15:03

number is not zero. And

15:06

so there's just this sort of, this is

15:08

why we're not dogmatic about what

15:10

exactly, what the rule, what

15:12

the application of the rule should be. Other

15:15

than that, you just need to know that

15:17

there's a trade-off. The more you add, the less likely someone

15:19

is to engage. And if they engage, the less likely are

15:21

to read and understand. And

15:23

then the third is fewer requests, which

15:26

is we've done these experiments where you ask people to

15:28

do three things versus one. They're

15:30

less likely to do any one of them if you

15:33

ask for more things. By the way, we have quoted

15:35

Pascal pretentiously, and

15:38

we have also misattributed the

15:40

quote to Twain in print

15:43

in a book that has been printed

15:45

that doesn't come out with a next edition

15:48

yet. So we're just shamed. We

15:50

are restless to correct the record on this.

15:53

So glad we're getting a chance. But

15:55

that's a super, super powerful one.

15:59

One of the fun things. The experiments on that

16:01

topic is Will right. right?

16:03

Away our rights. Seven thousand elected school

16:05

board members were asking them to fill

16:07

out a survey in one condition. it's

16:10

a lot of deferential text about thank

16:12

you, thank you thank you. You're doing

16:14

important really challenging work Thank you please

16:16

on my server in the other, Thank

16:18

you for your board More people. He

16:21

saw my survey people predict the lager

16:23

one is at least as effective. probably

16:25

more effective, but. They're shorter,

16:27

one is twice as effect. And this

16:29

is we've run lotteries expense. We ran

16:32

one with the at one of the

16:34

Us Federal political committees, the in a

16:36

Democrat party Republican party where they send

16:38

a six paragraph fundraising email. And.

16:41

I say arbitrarily. Please.

16:44

Delete every other paragraph so it doesn't

16:46

make sense anymore. It's incoherent. And then

16:48

we find that even though it's a

16:50

we've arbitrarily, do we, there is a

16:52

paragraph still raises substantially more money. Home

16:56

like guys. Satirists allow their

16:58

that is, it's so powerful.

17:00

It it is. and Todd when I

17:03

love about it. Also, it's. You.

17:05

Are Mission trip And right you're

17:07

right on a mission and to

17:09

do the here also by any

17:12

means necessary to do it. So

17:14

the creativity in this experimental design

17:16

is so refreshing. It's so refreshing.

17:19

I thank you Francis! Todd

17:21

I'm I'm writing a case on the open

17:24

a I situation that's going on and I

17:26

have. Just committed for it to

17:28

be sort. Sense. It's

17:30

on page. Where on page

17:32

thirteen? Ah, I'm trying so

17:35

hard. Blueprint, right? A brief

17:37

expert witness is laughing at

17:39

that number of deaths. And

17:41

I'm trying so hard to make it short.

17:44

There to thoughts I have as

17:46

you're describing that the first I

17:48

work with of what has been

17:50

very surprising. Is the organizations

17:52

that have been interested their are

17:55

in in helping their organizations become

17:57

more effective. From private equity funds

17:59

to. You at the Us,

18:01

Navy and Army to like by

18:04

every one is interested in in

18:06

writing more effectively and I worked

18:08

with one government agency that issues

18:10

these reports. And. They have

18:12

a. Summary. Section.

18:15

Which. By Congressional Mandate has grown from

18:17

a summary to a seven page

18:19

summary section because it's all these

18:21

mandatory things. So now they're having.

18:24

I. Will call an executive summary, the doors and

18:26

on on top of the summary on top

18:28

of the reports because it's it's it's all

18:30

become so bloated and then it's want to.

18:33

You want the details of your open a

18:35

i guess like that. that's why it's so

18:37

that's why So hard and you want this

18:39

of the students were really good. gauge what

18:41

I'm at, attitude and and or to be

18:44

a little fred. they're gonna want to fall

18:46

and you don't want to deny them the

18:48

details of those threads and soaked structure is

18:50

the second prince of suffering as to what

18:52

and was asking what's the other favorite principles

18:54

one is designed for navigation. Which

18:56

is make it easy for people

18:58

tend to jump around. But. There

19:00

are three kinds of like reading people do.

19:02

One is that the close reading that we

19:04

were taught to do word by word by

19:07

word, the other skimming where we stay linear.

19:09

And. We just go fast and the other

19:11

which I think we need to write for

19:13

his skin. Which is just

19:15

starting around trying to find what we want

19:18

to fight. And. We've done

19:20

these experiments. Were you add headings? Flesh?

19:22

you know, sometimes we do. We do

19:24

it by tastes. When you add headings

19:26

in experiments we rods more than doubled

19:28

like lead. Someone uses anything past the

19:30

first few paragraphs. Speed like there that

19:32

you miss Your like said I would

19:35

have issued. Easy for you to find

19:37

the different topics in here. So.

19:39

You keep your thirteen pager and it may even

19:41

get longer if you add structure to it, which

19:44

is. Is. What it is,

19:46

but it'll make it easier for

19:48

them to navigate and find the elements

19:50

they're looking for. as as. Writers

19:52

do we have to adapt

19:54

to Atlanta. Brave new world

19:57

where where people are. socialized

20:01

by TikTok and jumping

20:04

from one screen to another. Like,

20:06

has the challenge evolved with our

20:08

use of technology? See,

20:11

I don't have a historical perspective

20:13

on it, but the

20:15

way I have come to think about it

20:17

is the switching costs are so

20:19

much lower for changing what it is we're reading.

20:22

It used to be a printed thing. You have

20:24

to put it down, find something else that may

20:26

take four seconds, may take a minute. Now it

20:28

takes a quarter second to move to the next

20:30

thing. So the cost

20:33

of moving to something else, the

20:35

foraging through some other information zone

20:38

is so much cheaper. And then the production

20:40

costs of producing more information and delivering it

20:42

to people have gone down. So the supply

20:44

has massively gone up and the switching costs

20:46

have gone down. So we may have the

20:48

same minds. We just live in a different

20:50

information ecosystem. And

20:53

the performance bar for us

20:55

as writers in that context

20:57

seems materially higher. Like,

21:00

it's so easy for you to ignore me

21:02

and move on to another shiny object that

21:04

I got to do more work to keep your

21:06

attention. Yes,

21:09

it is definitely all

21:11

those things combined to make it harder for

21:13

a writer to achieve their

21:15

goal of communicating effectively to

21:17

a busy, distracted reader. Will

21:21

AI save us from ourselves? Will

21:23

the Todd Rogers chatbot be

21:26

the solution to this whole problem? We

21:28

have trained on our

21:30

website this GPC

21:33

for on the principles and then tuned it

21:35

with pre-post emails and thousands of people use

21:37

it every day, which is really cool. That

21:40

it basically just rewrites your email in a

21:42

skimmable way. And it's really fun because

21:44

I use it in my teaching. And

21:47

I'm like, look, like it's hard to give 24 seven coaching.

21:49

It's hard to give coaching to everybody at the same time.

21:51

It's hard when we do multiple sessions to let

21:53

people see what it might look like. And it's

21:55

not the final word, but it's really

21:58

a helpful teaching tool for like in terms. internalizing

22:00

this thing I wrote, I thought it was pretty

22:02

skimmable and then it's like no, you can use

22:04

this and it will reorganize ideas. So one of

22:06

the principles is put one of the sub principles

22:08

is put similar ideas next to each other. You

22:12

know, like related ideas next to each other and it'll

22:14

like reorganize the ideas and then add structure to make

22:16

it skimmable just as a coaching tool. What's

22:19

the website? My gosh, what's

22:21

the website? Tell everybody needs to know right now.

22:24

Writing for busy readers.com. That's

22:26

extraordinary. I

22:28

mean, I feel like my dirty little

22:30

secret when I've been reading things is

22:32

that I jump around, but I haven't

22:35

wanted to confess it to people. So

22:37

you are making me feel you're just

22:39

legitimizing my dirty little secret. And so

22:42

just for that, I thank you. Francis, you are

22:44

not alone. I feel seen.

22:47

So, Todd, if we

22:49

go back to your beautiful list of

22:51

principles, which is the one that

22:54

trips people up the most? There

22:57

is one that I think surprisingly

23:00

is difficult for people because

23:03

of the way we are educated, which is

23:05

making reading easy. And

23:09

so I just start with a couple of facts. The

23:11

median, 50th percent US adult reads

23:14

at roughly the ninth grade reading level. So

23:17

the level at which we teach 14 year olds

23:20

to read. 20%

23:22

of US adults read at a fifth grade reading level, the level at which

23:24

we teach 11 year olds.

23:27

And when we think of that, well, how

23:30

do we make it easier for them to

23:32

read? In a more inclusive when we're communicating

23:34

to the public or to anyone, common

23:37

words are better than uncommon words.

23:39

Short words are better than longer

23:42

words. Simple grammar

23:44

is better than complex

23:46

grammar. You're breaking my poet's

23:49

heart on this. Hemingway

23:52

won the Pulitzer. This is the

23:54

go-to response to that. Is Hemingway

23:56

won the Pulitzer with the

23:59

old man in the sea? written at a fifth

24:01

grade reading level. One can do beautiful

24:03

poetic work, but it

24:06

can be hard. The cool

24:08

thing, and I think here's like, this is the logic of it

24:10

to me, is by

24:13

far the coolest thing that I learned in writing

24:15

the book and spending two years reading all this

24:18

other literature that I had no idea about is

24:20

this eye tracking research where they'll

24:23

lock you in and then watch

24:25

you read word, word, word,

24:27

and then period. And

24:29

there's this thing called the period pause

24:31

effect, which is

24:34

people just stop at periods,

24:36

which is a reasonable thing because the period is telling

24:38

you the idea is over. And then

24:41

they'll sit there and often have to go backwards

24:43

and reread. If the sentence was

24:45

too complex or they didn't understand it or like,

24:47

what's the idea? I don't get it. And so

24:50

the longer the sentence, you would understand the

24:52

longer the pause, the more complex sentence, the

24:54

greater the risk someone's going to go have

24:56

to not understand it and go backwards. And

24:59

all of that naturally suggests that's when they're

25:01

going to quit, right? You're making it hard

25:03

for them, given that the default behavior is

25:05

quitting when it comes to reading. Like we

25:08

want to make it easy so that we don't give them a reason

25:10

to quit. You'd have me rethinking my whole life, Todd,

25:12

but let me, I have a

25:14

playful example that I love,

25:16

just want some word association,

25:20

traffic signs, pillars

25:22

of beauty, just making

25:25

the problems worse. Like what's your,

25:27

and Anne and I spend an

25:29

inordinate amount of time discussing the

25:31

effectiveness and ineffectiveness of traffic signs. So

25:35

the marriage is alive and well, Todd. Yes.

25:41

I mean, I've already been injected into

25:43

two battles. One is with you and

25:46

Anne and your kids about whether to

25:48

use grammar, correct grammar, and then the

25:50

fade in text. And then we didn't

25:52

even talk about emojis, which is a

25:55

short but complicated answer. Traffic

25:58

signs, I think... the

26:00

goal even more urgent than

26:03

anything else to be super clear. There is

26:05

a thing called the Center for Plain Language,

26:07

which I love. They give an award called

26:09

the WTF award, which

26:13

is a sign that is in

26:16

incomprehensible signs in public

26:18

places. WTF

26:22

means words that failed. The

26:25

sign is, persons

26:27

shall remove all excrements

26:31

from pets pursuant to...

26:33

It's a real sign in a park. There's

26:39

only two outcomes. One is I understand what those words

26:41

mean and it's too difficult, I'm moving on. The other

26:43

is I have no idea what those words mean and

26:45

I'm moving on. The

26:48

goal is quick, easy comprehension. Sometimes

26:50

that could be images, but no matter what,

26:53

given that you're talking to everybody and the

26:55

median US adult reads at a 14-year-old reading

26:57

level, we want to make it easy. It's

26:59

also for people who can read it, it's

27:02

just unpleasant they're going to move on. All

27:04

right, give us your hot take on emojis.

27:06

Emojis can be helpful if

27:08

we all agree on what they mean. But

27:11

there are these incredible surveys in the Wall Street Journal

27:13

that have published a couple of these, where even

27:16

totally basic emojis, we, people over

27:18

40, interpret

27:21

a smiley face as, that

27:23

makes me happy, I agree, that's good.

27:25

Young people interpret a sarcasm as

27:28

irony. And

27:30

that would be literally pretty close to the

27:32

opposite of what I always thought it meant.

27:35

And so they can

27:38

be helpful as long as we agree, but

27:40

we should know that a lot of these

27:42

things are interpreted in totally diverse ways, which

27:44

means that all we're doing is injecting confusion

27:46

and lack of clarity into our

27:48

writing when we use them, as long as we

27:52

are not absolutely certain that they understand what we

27:54

think it means. Wow,

27:57

they are not the modern

27:59

hieroglyphics. that I was

28:01

assuming. I just always felt

28:03

inadequate for not knowing

28:05

them. Todd, you are awesome.

28:07

Thank you so much for coming on the show. Oh,

28:10

this is really fun. Thanks for having me, Anne and Francis.

28:14

Thank you. Francis,

28:28

what did you learn from Todd Rogers?

28:32

Professor Rogers, I

28:34

learned that communication is a form of

28:37

leadership. So when

28:39

we think about leadership, leadership is about making

28:41

others better, first

28:44

as a result of our presence and in a way that lasts

28:46

into our absence. I

28:48

have been guilty of communicating in a way that's all

28:50

about me, as

28:53

opposed to communicating in a

28:55

way that is

28:57

other-centric. So

28:59

I have been too self-distracted in

29:01

my writing, and that's

29:04

what we find with leaders,

29:06

are often self-distracted. And when

29:09

we liberate them to be

29:11

other-distracted, beautiful things happen for

29:14

them and for performance. So

29:16

I was super struck by

29:18

the parallels between communication and

29:20

leadership. I think we've

29:22

titled one of our chapters in

29:24

our book on leadership, Unleashed, It's Not

29:27

About You. And that's the

29:29

mantra that kept running through my head through

29:31

this entire conversation, is if I just put

29:33

that frame on everything,

29:35

then these people just

29:38

reveal themselves. Hello,

30:01

we'd like to talk to you. Xable

30:12

is brought to you by the TED Audio

30:14

Collective. It's hosted by me, Ann Morris,

30:16

and me, Francis Ray. Our team

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includes Isabelle Carter, Constanza

30:21

Gallardo, Ban Ban

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30:28

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