0:00

McDonald's meets the Minecraft universe with

0:02

one of six collectibles and your

0:04

choice of a Big Mac or

0:06

ten-piece McNuggets with spicy netherflame sauce.

0:08

Now available with a Minecraft movie

0:10

meal. I participate in McDonald's for

0:12

a limited time on Minecraft movie

0:14

only in theaters. Hello

0:32

and welcome back to Beyond the

0:34

To-Do List, a podcast about productivity.

0:36

I'm your host, Eric Fisher, and

0:38

I'm excited to welcome to the

0:40

show Andrew Broadsky. He's a professor

0:42

at the University of Texas and

0:45

the author of the new book,

0:47

Ping, the Secrets of Successful Virtual

0:49

Communication. And in this conversation, we're

0:51

talking about how to improve. virtual

0:53

communication for greater productivity, stronger relationships

0:55

in the remote workplace, Andrew breaks

0:57

down that ping framework, and then

1:00

walks us through how each element

1:02

helps enhance virtual interactions, from

1:04

how to manage zoom fatigue

1:06

to the importance of perspective

1:08

in virtual communications, and how

1:10

to use AI effectively without

1:12

over-relying on it. So if

1:14

you're looking to improve your

1:16

virtual communication skills and make

1:18

your remote work more effective,

1:20

this conversation. with Andrew Brodsky

1:22

is for you. It is my

1:24

privilege to welcome to

1:26

the show Andrew Brodsky, Andrew,

1:28

welcome to Beyond the To-do

1:31

list. Thanks for having

1:33

me on the show. I have been thinking about

1:35

this topic for years. In fact, this

1:37

is something that, you know, had I

1:39

been looking into the crystal ball into

1:41

the future when I was a Com

1:44

major back in undergraduate studies,

1:46

one of my favorite things was communication

1:48

theory. Well, this has all and everything

1:51

to do with that and your new

1:53

book ping, which is an acronym, is

1:55

all about this virtual world we've found

1:57

ourselves in in in terms of not

2:00

just the pandemic, but people were

2:02

working remotely before that. I'm curious,

2:04

give us some of this backstory

2:06

as to because this isn't your

2:08

main focus as to what you

2:10

teach. Talk to me a little

2:12

bit about how this became something

2:14

that you decided, one, you were

2:16

interested in, and two, hey, there's

2:18

a book here. My interests in

2:20

virtual communication first came about actually

2:22

when I was a teenager. When

2:24

I was 16, I was diagnosed

2:26

very unexpectedly with rare and severe

2:29

case leukemia that ended up requiring

2:31

a bone marrow transplant. So I

2:33

spent at 16 over a month

2:35

in one of those bubble rooms

2:37

where basically people had to wear

2:39

gowns, gloves, masks that they want

2:41

to come in. And then for

2:43

the two years I was on

2:45

chemotherapy and radiation, I had to

2:47

spend a lot of that time

2:49

at home isolated from others because

2:51

my immune system was so weak.

2:53

And so from an early age

2:55

I became interested in, well, how

2:57

can we communicate better with people

2:59

from a distance? And I was

3:01

actually survived that, you know, I'm

3:03

on here today, things weren't great,

3:05

but I was left with an

3:08

immune deficiency as a side effect.

3:10

So this is still a topic

3:12

that's personally relevant to me. And

3:14

then when I began my PhD

3:16

at Harvard Business School, I decided,

3:18

I want to research this. I

3:20

actually want to find out the

3:22

answers to this. And I've been

3:24

researching this there and now as

3:26

a professor at the University of

3:28

Texas at Austin. The reason why

3:30

I decided to write this book

3:32

right now is that I've been

3:34

hearing so many conversations about his

3:36

remote work good, is remote work

3:38

bad. And the things that they're

3:40

all missing is that whether you

3:42

work from home, The office, hybrid,

3:44

anywhere in between, we are all

3:47

now virtual communicators. The old way

3:49

of the office was whenever you

3:51

had a question, you'd go knock

3:53

on your co-worker's office door or

3:55

go to their cubicle. Now people

3:57

are sending instant messages, slack messages,

3:59

even if people who are just

4:01

two feet away. And that's not

4:03

necessarily a bad thing because we're

4:05

no longer having to interrupt everyone

4:07

every time we have a question.

4:09

But it means that even people

4:11

in the office are still communicating

4:13

through these digital electronic or even

4:15

remote tools as some people call

4:17

them. So understanding how to do

4:19

this better is a meaningful question

4:21

that it applies to all of

4:24

us. Yeah, that's true. A lot

4:26

of people don't think of that

4:28

word remote to apply to the

4:30

communication we're having every day. Asynchronously,

4:32

which we should clarify what that

4:34

means, synchronous versus asynchronous for sure,

4:36

some people, they don't understand that

4:38

either, but that they don't realize

4:40

that like us texting with our

4:42

friends or our family members is,

4:44

air quotes, remote communication because we're

4:46

not in the same place and

4:48

we're not. necessarily sending or receiving

4:50

at the same time, which is

4:52

what a synchronous is. So. It's

4:54

a great point. And there are

4:56

a variety of different ways that

4:58

different communication technologies and modes are

5:00

categorized. I highlight two of the

5:03

most commonly discussed ones and two

5:05

of the ones that are shown

5:07

generally to be the most meaningful.

5:09

So the first is, as you

5:11

noted, synchronicity. How real time is

5:13

the communication? And the others related

5:15

to Q variety. So basically how

5:17

many different nonverbal cues are there?

5:19

Are they? How similar are they

5:21

to face-to-face interactions? And these two

5:23

things together equal how rich a

5:25

mode of communication is. But the

5:27

thing about these differences is that

5:29

even small difference in them can

5:31

be quite meaningful. So for instance,

5:33

synchronicity, video calls, whether it's Zoom,

5:35

teams, WebX. are very slightly less

5:37

synchronous than in-person interactions, because there's

5:39

very slight lag due to data

5:42

transfer speeds. And that explains the

5:44

reason why you find on Zoom,

5:46

you're constantly interrupting each other, or

5:48

there's longer awkward pauses, and there's

5:50

research that backs us up. that

5:52

shows that even these very minuscule

5:54

time lags that happen in video

5:56

calls can really interrupt the flow

5:58

of conversation. So even small differences

6:00

on these dimensions can be quite

6:02

meaningful. Yeah, that's very interesting. And

6:04

it is that kind of almost

6:06

uncanny valley of dialogue that happens

6:08

in those calls. That's the best

6:10

way I can think to describe

6:12

it. Something's not quite right here

6:14

and I can't figure it out.

6:16

My brain won't tell me what's

6:19

going on. Exactly. Yeah, and the

6:21

thing is, is like, even again,

6:23

we're talking with texting, like, it

6:25

could be, I mean, some, honestly,

6:27

one of the best things that's

6:29

happened recently has been, and we've

6:31

had this for emails for a

6:33

while, where you could schedule an

6:35

email to send a different time.

6:37

I don't need to, I don't

6:39

want it to be in their

6:41

inbox yet. I want to send

6:43

it 755 tomorrow morning, and I

6:45

can cue all those up. Well,

6:47

same thing with texting with texting

6:49

as of recently, at least with

6:51

iOS, at least with iOS. One

6:53

of the greatest things because it's

6:55

like I was teaching my daughter.

6:58

Hey, you may be at college

7:00

and it may be 1150 something

7:02

at night and you may want

7:04

to say something to your parents

7:06

But maybe you should schedule that

7:08

to send the next morning because

7:10

if we get a text from

7:12

you at about that time of

7:14

night We are going to One

7:16

see it and because you're in

7:18

our emergency allowed to come through

7:20

you know prioritization of pings. There

7:22

you go. There's the word and

7:24

because it's you we're going to

7:26

look because we think you might

7:28

be in trouble. But since it's

7:30

not, go ahead and just schedule

7:32

that for later. And that's an

7:34

excellent point. And for instance, when

7:37

I'm emailing my doctoral students who

7:39

work with me, I might have

7:41

an idea at like 8 p.m.

7:43

on a Saturday that I want

7:45

to get out so don't forget

7:47

it by Monday. But I might

7:49

lag my email on a Monday

7:51

so they don't feel like they

7:53

have to ruin their weekend to

7:55

respond to respond to my message

7:57

because I'm higher power than they

7:59

are. Not creating as much pressure

8:01

on other people or in some

8:03

cases making yourself look a little

8:05

more present. You could have 20

8:07

emails to your boss, but instead

8:09

of having them get 20 emails

8:11

all at once or 20 paragraphs

8:14

long email that they won't read,

8:16

you can have some of this

8:18

stuff get a little bit lagged

8:20

there as well. Yeah. So, well,

8:22

we kind of dipped into some

8:24

of the variables here that People

8:26

listening in would be like, oh,

8:28

yeah, that has happened to me

8:30

and kind of familiarized ourselves there

8:32

But let's jump back for a

8:34

second and talk about the title

8:36

here. So it's ping the secrets

8:38

of successful virtual communication and ping

8:40

is an acronym Let's talk about

8:42

what that acronym stands for Yeah,

8:44

so at least personally when I

8:46

read one of these books I

8:48

like to have an acronym because

8:50

there's always so many recommendations and

8:53

I never remember them so When

8:55

I wrote this, I was like,

8:57

I need to do one myself.

8:59

So I went with the pink

9:01

acronym to make it memorable. So

9:03

P is for prospective taking, I

9:05

for initiative, and for nonverbal, G

9:07

for goals. So P for prospective

9:09

taking. That centers on the idea

9:11

that when we're interacting virtually, we

9:13

often become more self-focused. That's because

9:15

instead of looking at someone who's

9:17

standing right in front of you,

9:19

a full human being. you might

9:21

just be looking at the text

9:23

on a computer screen of an

9:25

email or instant message. Or even

9:27

on video, you've got a small

9:29

square of the other person on

9:32

your video screen that you might

9:34

not even be looking at because

9:36

you're staring at yourself for an

9:38

instance to make sure you don't

9:40

have any broccoli in your teeth.

9:42

And so one of the key

9:44

things here is making sure you

9:46

take the perspective of the other

9:48

person and it's more effortful and

9:50

needed virtually because you end up

9:52

in those situations where you create.

9:54

miscommunication, misinterpretations, because you don't realize

9:56

how what you're doing is going

9:58

to come off. For initiative. The

10:00

idea here is you want to

10:02

bring back in whatever is missing

10:04

from a given mode of communication.

10:06

So each mode has strengths and

10:09

weaknesses, but there's things you can

10:11

do to help. supplement in any

10:13

situation. So as an example, text-based

10:15

negotiation. Research shows that text-based negotiators

10:17

build less rapport, less trust, and

10:19

worse negotiation outcomes than in-person negotiators.

10:21

But what one set of professors

10:23

found is that when they have

10:25

participants right before the text-based negotiation,

10:27

do a quick five-minute phone call

10:29

to what they said was schmoozing,

10:31

so basically just socializing for five

10:33

minutes right before the text-based negotiation,

10:35

and then they did the negotiation

10:37

still all over text. That group

10:39

ended up building more rapport, having

10:41

more trust. And they did better

10:43

both in their own negotiation, but

10:45

achieve better joint outcomes in their

10:48

negotiation for themselves and their counterparty.

10:50

So thinking about, well, what can

10:52

we add back in can be

10:54

really useful. And for nonverbal. And

10:56

the point behind this is that

10:58

there are so many different cues

11:00

virtually that just aren't as relevant

11:02

face to face. So typos can

11:04

relay emotion, time a day you

11:06

send a message can relay power.

11:08

Even with video calls or questions

11:10

about your backgrounds, lighting, should you

11:12

be looking at the person or

11:14

your webcam or yourself? And so

11:16

understanding these nonverbal behaviors is vital

11:18

to achieving your goals in any

11:20

virtual interaction, which leads me to

11:22

the G goals. So it would

11:24

be a very short book if

11:27

I could just say there's one

11:29

best mode of communication. Do everything

11:31

in person, that's the best. But

11:33

that's not the case. If you've

11:35

had hours and hours of wasting

11:37

meetings every week that should have

11:39

been an email, you know that

11:41

oftentimes there are better options. And

11:43

another example is cameras on or

11:45

cameras off during a video call.

11:47

So cameras on can be really

11:49

useful for new relationships where you're

11:51

trying to build trust, where you

11:53

want to show engagement. But on

11:55

the other side of that, it

11:57

can be exhausting to have your

11:59

cameras on. It can cause fatigue,

12:01

it can cause exhaustion. engagement, cameras

12:04

on is better. If your goal

12:06

is to maintain energy, reduce stress,

12:08

reduce fatigue, cameras off is better.

12:10

And so I bring all the

12:12

recommendations in the book to tie

12:14

back into this framework. So each

12:16

recommendation attaches to one piece of

12:18

that framework to help make it

12:20

more actionable when you approach your

12:22

virtual communication. Kind of in a

12:24

way that you may not even

12:26

have intended this but when you

12:28

were talking about that it made

12:30

me think of this kind of

12:32

We're disconnected especially I'm thinking of

12:34

social media and I'm thinking of

12:36

the fact that we see people

12:38

say things that they never would

12:40

say to that person in person

12:43

face to face, but it's because

12:45

there's this distance. There's this disconnect

12:47

and this first-person perspective of I'm

12:49

the one who doesn't see them

12:51

and doesn't and may not even

12:53

see their picture I might even

12:55

not even see their avatar I'm

12:57

literally just looking at the text

12:59

they wrote and I either totally

13:01

agree with it or I'm in

13:03

or the complete opposite and I'm

13:05

gonna make sure my opinion is

13:07

heard because I'm in a silo

13:09

of myself right here right now

13:11

alone in this room And

13:13

that's not always a bad thing though.

13:16

So yeah, of course, there are those

13:18

things where we get these huge arguments,

13:20

it's horrible, people say stuff, they would

13:23

really regret and they wouldn't have said

13:25

in person, but there's other situations that

13:27

lack of feeling constrained by others can

13:30

be really helpful. So brainstorming, for example,

13:32

some people love being in the same

13:34

room, they have their whiteboard, they're jotting

13:37

down ideas, it feels energizing, but the

13:39

science on this indicates that for early

13:41

stage brainstorming. It's better done virtually via

13:43

text-based interactions for a few reasons. So

13:46

the first one's what you just hit

13:48

on. We feel less constrained by others.

13:50

When we're all sitting in the same

13:53

room and everyone's staring at me, I'm

13:55

afraid to say an idea that's too

13:57

divergent because they're going to judge me

14:00

negatively on on it. And that's exact

14:02

opposite of what you want to brainstorming.

14:04

You want people to be way out

14:06

there, creative, not concerned about that judgment.

14:09

And then there's a couple other reasons

14:11

too. One of the simplest ones is

14:13

productivity. If you have 10 people in

14:16

a room and you want them to

14:18

each come up with 20 ideas, if

14:20

each person in the room is saying

14:23

20 ideas out loud, you're going to

14:25

be there for hours. But if each

14:27

person just types down 20 ideas, you

14:29

can do that pretty quickly. And then

14:32

the last thing is that we tend

14:34

to anchor on things that we hear

14:36

others say. So if we're going around

14:39

a circle in a room and someone

14:41

says an idea, my mind is now

14:43

stuck on that idea. So I'm thinking

14:46

of variations of that idea, which limits

14:48

my creativity. So this is one of

14:50

those situations that people really get wrong.

14:52

They think we need to brainstorm in

14:55

person. Creativity is better this way. But

14:57

in reality for those early stages separating

14:59

ourselves so that people feel freer can

15:02

be really useful. When you do want

15:04

to get to that stage where we

15:06

need to agree as a group, we

15:09

need to go back and forth to

15:11

figure out, okay, which idea are we

15:13

going to use? And how can we

15:16

improve that? That's when you want to

15:18

be in that rich or motive interaction,

15:20

whether that's video or in person. Yeah,

15:22

that limiting or that's self-imposed limiting because

15:25

we've heard other people's ideas and it

15:27

kind of says, oh, even if it

15:29

isn't. explicitly stated, it's subconsciously taken as,

15:32

oh, that's the kind of ideas I

15:34

should be coming up with, instead of

15:36

unlimited or limitless outside of the box

15:39

thinking from everybody, and then bring them

15:41

all together, and then maybe some of

15:43

the wackiest ideas get morphed and paired

15:45

together to bring something to the table

15:48

that couldn't have happened if everybody was,

15:50

one, in person, two, you know, synchronized

15:52

throwing them out at the same time.

15:55

So, so. there's definitely benefits. Yeah, and

15:57

I mean, especially when these situations you

15:59

want people to be creative or freer

16:02

having those virtual interactions can be. And

16:04

another example is actually when it comes

16:06

to gender. So when we think about

16:08

men versus women, if you were to

16:11

ask, which is the one that is

16:13

more aggressive and competitive, most of us

16:15

would say, obviously men. And the situation

16:18

is somewhat problematic when it comes to

16:20

things like negotiation, where in many situations

16:22

there, being more competitive and aggressive will

16:25

get you better outcomes. And so research

16:27

actually shows that. Women tend to do

16:29

better in negotiations when they are done

16:32

via tax or virtually because they feel

16:34

more free to do what they're supposed

16:36

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16:38

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16:41

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at mintmobile.com. Okay, so then let's jump

18:25

in real quick here. One of the things

18:28

I think that a lot of people are

18:30

thinking of is we've got all these different

18:32

tools. We've kind of named checked email and

18:34

texting and slack and I think we can

18:37

throw Microsoft teams in there. And there's probably

18:39

more that I'm not even thinking of, not

18:41

to mention all the other social media apps

18:43

and all the channels that are there too

18:46

as well in case those kind of are

18:48

in the mix. But one of the

18:50

things that happens here is we've

18:52

got all these. reasons to have

18:54

different decision-making processes in place. Not

18:57

that we're going to say that

18:59

this is solely about meetings, because

19:01

it's about all the communications, but

19:04

whether we should meet or not

19:06

has become an option now. In

19:08

fact, I think you say meetings

19:10

handled well, reduce email, and email

19:13

handled well, reduces meetings, and I

19:15

love that. This is the thing. You

19:17

need to approach communication

19:19

strategically. So many people just, okay,

19:21

we always have a meeting every week,

19:24

so we're going to have a weekly

19:26

meeting, or we're going to meet for

19:28

this because we always meet for that.

19:30

Or we're already in the email conversation,

19:33

so I'm not going to switch modes.

19:36

Even though saying, hey, could we tap

19:38

on a five-minute phone call just to

19:40

resolve this? Might save 20 emails

19:42

back and forth? People just don't

19:45

do it because we default to

19:47

whatever mode we've generally been

19:49

using for it. You get rid of a

19:51

whole lot of unnecessary meetings that could have

19:53

been handled via email. And on the other side

19:55

of that, and the part that people often forget, there's

19:58

a lot of emails and instant messages. that

20:00

should be handled via meetings. So for

20:02

instance, this conversation you and I are

20:04

having, you're asking me a bunch of

20:06

questions, I'm fairly talkative, so I have

20:09

multi-paragraph answers, it's gonna take us half

20:11

an hour or an hour to have

20:13

this conversation. If you would email me

20:15

all these questions, and I was writing

20:18

out five paragraph long answers, and I

20:20

was editing them, proving them, it would

20:22

probably take me days to write this.

20:24

And like this is one of those

20:27

examples that talking live is just so

20:29

much better than you having emailed me

20:31

these things for me to type up.

20:33

Plus, then somebody on the other end

20:35

of it, like I would receive it,

20:38

it would formulate the questions much more

20:40

succinctly because it's not conversational like this

20:42

is. You would then fret over, okay

20:44

I've got to make sure I fully

20:47

answer this and it's got to be

20:49

complete with no mistakes, no typos, no

20:51

anything. Then when you're done with that,

20:53

much longer than an hour, probably, you

20:56

send it to me, and then on

20:58

my side, I then have to go

21:00

through it and sift through it, make

21:02

sure, oh well I've got some follow-up

21:04

questions, and I shoot those back over,

21:07

whereas us just having this, and then...

21:09

releasing this in a format where somebody

21:11

can just play it while they're, you

21:13

know, I listen to a lot of

21:16

podcasts while I'm driving, you know, that

21:18

also frees up time. This conversation definitely

21:20

shouldn't have been an email. Yeah, it

21:22

wouldn't have been yearly as fun, and

21:25

that's for sure. That too. So I

21:27

think one of the things though is

21:29

that when people are taking these things

21:31

into account, especially companies and they're wanting

21:33

to reduce meetings, because they've identified, okay,

21:36

we're spending a lot of time in

21:38

meetings. How do we reduce the time

21:40

in meetings while increasing productivity? So there's

21:42

a lot of things you can think

21:45

about when it comes to meetings. The

21:47

important factors that the main ones are

21:49

first, is there a lot of back

21:51

and forth? That's something you're going to

21:54

want live. The next question is, is

21:56

it's just relaying? So if you're just

21:58

relaying information, do an email. Does everyone

22:00

need to be here is another question

22:02

because often people just get added to

22:05

meetings. And then you think about, okay,

22:07

how should we structure a meeting? Meetings

22:09

that come in with a specific agenda

22:11

and plan tend to work a lot

22:14

better and also making sure that you

22:16

have a confined time for your meeting.

22:18

when you just kind of have these

22:20

open-ended, like, okay, let's meet, we'll plan

22:23

a meeting for the first half of

22:25

the day, and if we end early,

22:27

we can go back to work and

22:29

focus on our stuff, those are really

22:31

bad because things expand to fill the

22:34

time available. I mean, this is Parkinson's

22:36

Law. And so making sure to put

22:38

those boundaries on can be really, really

22:40

useful. And then the last piece of

22:43

advice that I often give is that

22:45

you want to be thoughtful as an

22:47

organization when possible about the scheduling of

22:49

meetings, communication, because it's really hard to

22:52

go back from meeting to work to

22:54

meeting to work to meeting to work,

22:56

you lose that focus time. So finding

22:58

ways to chunk these things in together

23:00

when possible can be really beneficial. That's

23:03

not always possible because sometimes. you know,

23:05

it's good to just hop on the

23:07

call with your manager to troubleshoot something

23:09

and you don't want to have a

23:12

no meeting rule for Thursday because then

23:14

someone may be stuck and not be

23:16

able to progress in their work on

23:18

Thursday. But where you can finding ways

23:21

to chunk these things can be really

23:23

really beneficial for Phobus. Yeah, it's definitely

23:25

helpful for chunking things for sure. And

23:27

you know, I like to have no

23:29

meeting days, but those are days where

23:32

it's like, okay, have to make it

23:34

just the morning or just the afternoon.

23:36

And it has to be a good

23:38

day strategically, not just for me, but

23:41

for others as well. One of the

23:43

things I recommend with this too, and

23:45

it's not just meetings, but also emails

23:47

and some messages chunking your communication. So

23:50

some people take the approach of, I'm

23:52

attached to my phone, I answer everything

23:54

as it comes in because I want

23:56

to be at inbox zero. Other people

23:58

do the, I only go through all

24:01

my communication in the morning. and then

24:03

I never look at it. What the

24:05

research would suggest is best is splitting

24:07

it to maybe three-ish times a day,

24:10

beginning towards the beginning of the day,

24:12

you know, a little after lunch maybe,

24:14

and a little bit before the end

24:16

of the day, because one, you're not

24:19

switching back and forth. And we already

24:21

talked about meetings, but emails, there's research

24:23

that indicates it can take about a

24:25

minute from when you finish an email

24:27

to switch back into the focus of

24:30

work, which doesn't sound like much when

24:32

it's just a minute. But if you're

24:34

someone like me who's getting hundreds of

24:36

emails a week, that adds up to

24:39

a lot of minutes, we're talking about

24:41

hours of time just spent switching back

24:43

and forth, so avoiding those switching costs

24:45

can be beneficial. The switching thing is

24:48

just that one thing. That's not even

24:50

the time spent on reading slash replying

24:52

to the email. That's the, okay, I'm

24:54

done with it, and it's like that

24:56

buffer time. Exactly. And 60 seconds doesn't

24:59

sound long, but it adds up very,

25:01

very quickly. And so the other thing

25:03

too is like the reason why, you

25:05

know, that's why you want to chunk

25:08

it first. But the reason why I

25:10

don't say just do it once a

25:12

day is often these communications have relevant

25:14

information that can improve your productivity. So

25:17

you don't want to like start a

25:19

task of meeting the day. Your manager

25:21

happened to send you an email midday

25:23

that was really useful, but you don't

25:25

see until the next day. That's going

25:28

to be a problem. And lastly, the

25:30

thing that I like to note is

25:32

that communication can be used as a

25:34

kind of break. When you're really focused

25:37

on intense work, it drains your mind.

25:39

It becomes really, really hard to focus

25:41

after a while. So using emails, instant

25:43

messages, just as this like mindless break

25:45

in between periods of really intense work,

25:48

can really help to improve your creativity,

25:50

your focus. Ideally, obviously, just go and

25:52

go for a walk and relax, but

25:54

that's not always possible. So using it

25:57

strategically to give your mind a break

25:59

can be really, really bad. beneficial to

26:01

your overall productivity. Now I know you

26:03

also, since we're on the topic of

26:06

email, you talk about how email isn't

26:08

just about us, but it's about the

26:10

person receiving it. Talk a little bit

26:12

about that. When it comes to communication,

26:14

this gets to the P of perspective,

26:17

taking that we're just really bad at.

26:19

One of the activities I like to

26:21

do with my students in class is,

26:23

and it's based on this research study,

26:26

is that I take two students. I

26:28

tell one of them, I say, okay,

26:30

I want you to tap out a

26:32

song on the desk, and then I'm

26:35

going to have the other student guess.

26:37

So the first student taps out the

26:39

song on the desk, and I ask

26:41

that tapper, the first student, what percent

26:43

odds do you think the second person

26:46

is going to guess this song? And

26:48

they pretty much always say something really

26:50

high, like 80 percent, 90 percent, and

26:52

almost every single time the second person

26:55

does not guess the song correctly. While

26:57

we're tapping the song on the desk,

26:59

we hear the music in our head,

27:01

but the recipient doesn't hear that music.

27:04

So we think it's easy, but to

27:06

them, it's not. And that's the same

27:08

parallel that researchers have drawn to email

27:10

and text-based communication. We hear the motion

27:12

in our head as we're writing it.

27:15

We hear the meaning. But someone else

27:17

is coming from a different set of

27:19

information, assumptions. And so maybe you send

27:21

a message you think is positive, which

27:24

is great, thanks. But on the other

27:26

side, the other person was expecting a

27:28

lot more detail, so they read into

27:30

that way too much. So making sure

27:33

to take that step and to make

27:35

sure to think about, well, how are

27:37

they going to read this one? And

27:39

maybe I should be a little bit

27:41

more clear, or maybe I should be

27:44

a little bit more positive because virtual

27:46

communication often has a negative effect on

27:48

it, where it seems worse than it

27:50

is, can help you to make sure

27:53

you don't have those misinterpret. like they

27:55

can hear it one it's it's actually

27:57

key and peel has I don't know

27:59

you've probably seen this or the key

28:02

and peel sketch where they go back

28:04

and forth texting and they're reading the

28:06

the intonation of the text differently on

28:08

each side of the conversation and so

28:10

great thanks one of them's like great

28:13

thanks and the other was like great

28:15

thanks like what do you and he

28:17

takes it wrong anyways one of my

28:19

favorite sketches I'll probably put it in

28:22

the show notes for this episode just

28:24

as an example because it's funny but

28:26

it's why I always try to reply

28:28

to reply like in that instance in

28:31

that instance in that instance great comma

28:33

thanks exclamation point to lift it up

28:35

and say positive like yay great thanks

28:37

instead of great thanks period and it's

28:39

like I've read texts from bosses that

28:42

say great thanks and that's how I

28:44

read them and that's not maybe how

28:46

they meant them but that's definitely how

28:48

they conveyed it with how they the

28:51

care they took into what they said

28:53

and it takes two extra seconds I

28:55

love that clip, I actually use it

28:57

in my teaching. I remember at one

29:00

point they were like, you're ready to

29:02

go, and one of them was just

29:04

asking the other one, you want to

29:06

go hang out? And the one of

29:08

them thought, the other one wanted to

29:11

go fight, like you're ready to go?

29:13

Ready to go? But I mean, the

29:15

point about exclamation marks is a good

29:17

one. I also get a similar question,

29:20

like, should I use emoges, should I

29:22

not use emoge? is on the whole,

29:24

research is a bit mixed on it.

29:26

So sometimes it makes you look warmer,

29:29

sometimes it makes you look less competent,

29:31

it can hurt you. So when it

29:33

comes to those kind of things, my

29:35

recommendation is to engage in something called

29:37

language mimicry. And this basically involves where

29:40

you see what the other person does

29:42

and you copy that. So if they

29:44

use emogies, use emogies. If they use

29:46

exclamation marks, you do it too. If

29:49

they use certain like business jargon, you

29:51

do the same. The reason this works

29:53

so well is we trust others who

29:55

are like us. So if someone communicates

29:58

like us, we feel like we understand

30:00

them. And also, we all think we're

30:02

great communicators. So if someone else communicates

30:04

like us, we're like, oh, they're a

30:06

good communicator too. So you kind of

30:09

take your cues from the other person

30:11

in these situations, and that tends to

30:13

be most effective. But you don't wanna

30:15

go way overboard and copy everything they

30:18

do, because in that backfires, or it's

30:20

this game of like Simon says, like

30:22

you don't wanna go too crazy about

30:24

it, but that's usually the way that

30:27

I recommend figuring out, okay, what's right

30:29

in this situation, and it's just seeing

30:31

what the other person does. Yeah, I'm

30:33

curious. I want to talk a little

30:35

bit about AI, but not just yet.

30:38

So let's loop back around to that

30:40

in a second. But I think AI

30:42

could kind of say, you know, it's

30:44

sitting there as a third party and

30:47

it's kind of studying and saying, okay,

30:49

I see how they're doing it. And

30:51

then you write your response and then

30:53

it rewrites it to kind of mimic

30:56

that other person's. way of communicating. There's

30:58

probably much, actually let's just jump into

31:00

AI right now. So that's one example

31:02

I can see that actually is a

31:04

pro for using it in remote slash

31:07

virtual communication. When it comes to AI,

31:09

my general recommendation is to be very

31:11

careful with it because I see that

31:13

there's always going to be a value

31:16

to the human component of communication. The

31:18

problem is Most of the time, the

31:20

person you're in Drakenwith won't realize you're

31:22

using AI. But every once in a

31:25

while, they might. Maybe it uses a

31:27

word you don't normally use. Or maybe

31:29

you talk to someone about their past

31:31

weekend. They mentioned their whole family was

31:33

getting over the flu. It was like

31:36

a real pain. So then you just

31:38

copy and paste an AI email to

31:40

them a couple of days later that

31:42

says, I hope you had a great

31:45

weekend, exclamation mark, and send it without

31:47

thinking. you're gonna have a real problem

31:49

because they're gonna realize like I just

31:51

told them I the flu my whole

31:54

family did the last weekend that was

31:56

not written by them and if they

31:58

realize that one email instant message or

32:00

you had a video script during zoom

32:02

was written by AI They're going to

32:05

question every single interaction they've had with

32:07

you previously virtually and think, well, were

32:09

they using AI for that too? And

32:11

then they're going to ask, well, why

32:14

am I even interacting with this person

32:16

if all I'm doing is communicating with

32:18

AI? So the risks are really, really

32:20

high. That's not to say there's not

32:23

uses for AI. It's great for editing,

32:25

brainstorming. If you have like low stakes

32:27

repeated interactions, that can be good. But

32:29

I generally recommend if you have an

32:31

important message, you do want to make

32:34

sure the words are yours, because every

32:36

so often someone's going to realize that

32:38

something seems a little bit off, and

32:40

then the consequences can be massive. Yeah,

32:43

my rule of thumb has kind of

32:45

been to use it for some low-level

32:47

automation, gathering, collating, drafting, but then it's

32:49

still always, in other words, an intern

32:51

that's learning. But then not the, you

32:54

know, they're not the PR person, they're

32:56

the person that collects a bunch of

32:58

stuff and hands it to the person

33:00

who then does the real work with

33:03

it, and then it's officially usable for

33:05

public consumption. Yeah, and that makes a

33:07

lot of sense when it comes to

33:09

these kind of things as well. And

33:12

the other thing, at least when we

33:14

talk about intern, the other thing I

33:16

talk to students and executives about being

33:18

wary of when it comes to AI.

33:20

is something called cognitive offloading. So the

33:23

idea here is that we have technology

33:25

do the work for us, which is

33:27

great. Like all of the AI summarize

33:29

the meeting notes for us, for instance.

33:32

So I don't have to take notes.

33:34

The problem with that is that memory

33:36

is that information is no longer in

33:38

your head. It's no longer memory. So

33:41

if you're in a 20-person meeting, you've

33:43

got your camera off, and you're like,

33:45

oh, I've just said an AI summarize

33:47

it. Seems great. You can focus on

33:49

other things. But then suddenly a co-worker,

33:52

a manager, or a client from the

33:54

meeting is talking to you live and

33:56

they ask you something about it and

33:58

you're like, I need to pull up

34:01

my meeting. summary here, it's not going

34:03

to go over so well. And the

34:05

research on this shows that when we

34:07

cognitively offload, we remember less, we also

34:10

don't learn from experiences because we don't

34:12

have to internalize information as much. So

34:14

there's a real risk of overusing AI

34:16

that you basically don't know how to

34:18

do a lot of what you're supposed

34:21

to in the workplace. Yeah, and that

34:23

actually brings up an example that a

34:25

professor friend of mine shared which kind

34:27

of opened my eyes. He was relaying

34:30

back in the day when we were

34:32

students. There was somebody who got in

34:34

trouble. This is 25 plus years ago

34:36

now. Somebody got in trouble because they

34:39

were typing up notes during class and

34:41

then sharing them to people after class

34:43

was over. I was just like, wait,

34:45

what, really? That was a thing? Like

34:47

I was unaware that that had been

34:50

a thing back then. And he said,

34:52

now fast forward to a year or

34:54

so ago when we had this conversation.

34:56

And he said, I have four students

34:59

now who work as a team, where

35:01

one of them is, they're all in

35:03

the same Google Doc, one of them

35:05

is typing the generic notes, another is

35:08

coming behind and doing bullet lists from

35:10

that, another is adding in links and

35:12

jumping off points from all of that

35:14

and I forget what the other person

35:16

was doing and they were all contributing

35:19

and because they had different roles that

35:21

was working that way and one of

35:23

the things though that my friend said

35:25

was he doesn't have a problem with

35:28

it because they're all still doing their

35:30

own thing and they all have that

35:32

final draft and they all go through

35:34

it and they're all paying attention in

35:37

a different way but he went back

35:39

and said now the thing is a

35:41

back in the day when that one

35:43

student got in trouble with the professors

35:45

or the department or whatever didn't realize

35:48

was that one of our friends was

35:50

sitting there because he knew the notes

35:52

were going to be available later he

35:54

was fully present engaging with the lecture

35:57

not taking notes because he was afraid

35:59

he was going to miss something and

36:01

he's like just trying to capture mindlessly,

36:03

he was fully engaged and actually learned

36:06

better and then could review with those

36:08

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expert now at turbotax.com/guarantees. Well,

53:13

that's another podcast crossed off your

53:15

listening to-do list. I hope that

53:17

you got some great tips on

53:19

increasing the success of your virtual

53:22

communication and I highly suggest you

53:24

grab the book ping from Andrew

53:26

Brodsky You can find the links

53:28

to that in the show notes

53:30

at beyond the to-do-list.com and if

53:32

you picked up some tips and

53:35

tricks there do Andrew and I

53:37

the favor of sharing this and

53:39

send it on over to them.

53:41

You can share it from where

53:43

you're listening right now through your

53:45

podcast player app of choice or

53:48

again over at the shownotes at

53:50

beyond the to-do list.com. Thank you

53:52

so much for sharing. Thanks again

53:54

for listening and I'll see you

53:56

next episode. communication

54:00

and I highly suggest you grab the

54:02

book ping from Andrew Broadsky you can

54:04

find the links to that in the

54:06

shownotes at beyond the to-do list.com and

54:08

if you picked up some tips and

54:10

tricks there do Andrew and I the

54:12

favor of sharing this conversation with somebody

54:14

you know needs to hear this conversation

54:16

with somebody you know needs to hear

54:18

it send it out on send it

54:20

out to social media to your family

54:23

friends and colleagues or think of that

54:25

one person you know really needs to

54:27

hear this and send it on over

54:29

to them. beyond the todo list.com. Thank

54:31

you so much for sharing. Thanks again

54:33

for listening and I'll see you

54:35

next episode. So,

54:58

Outro Music