Stanford GSB Offers Three Tips To Make You A Better Impromptu Speaker
When it comes to off-the-cuff speaking situations like “being called upon to introduce someone to others, having your boss ask you for feedback on a new idea, or handling questions at the end of a meeting,” dread can overcome even the most seasoned pro.
The Stanford Graduate School of Business recently looked at three communication fundamentals every MBA needs to “think faster, talk smarter, and become a more compelling, confident, and connected spontaneous speaker.”
Step 1: Get out of Your Own Way
“Before speaking, you likely judge what you intend to say and weigh it against your internal criteria. Simply put: Setting greatness as your goal gets in the way of you ever getting there. Quiet your busy mind and really listen to what is needed in the moment. Focus on what people are saying and how they are saying it. In so doing, you get out of your own way and can respond authentically.”
Step 2: See the Opportunities Over the Challenges
“When you feel challenged, you will likely do the bare minimum to respond because you are protecting yourself. If you see the interaction as an opportunity where you have a chance to explain and expand, you are going to interact in a more connected, collaborative way with your audience. Rather than a challenge or threat, see the spontaneous speaking situation as an opportunity to clarify, to understand; for dialogue and engagement.”
Step 3: Leverage Structure
Spontaneous speaking situations force us to simultaneously figure out what to say and how to say it. When you develop comfort with these two reliable structures, you will be able to think on your feet with more aplomb:
Problem-Solution-Benefit: Address the issue or the problem, then talk about a way of solving it, and finally, speak to the benefits of following through on your plan.
What? So what? Now what? Talk about what “it” is (e.g., your feedback or your answer), then discuss why it is important to the recipient(s), and finally, explain what the next steps are (i.e., how the recipient can apply the feedback or answer).
You can read more about Stanford GSB’s suggested speaking techniques here.
Stanford International Students Stay Home, Take Study Trip of Middle America
Amidst this divisive political moment, coastal dwellers have begun to reconsider the culture and future of what many might have once condescendingly referred to as “fly-over country.” Stanford recently published an article about some outside-the-box economic strategies currently underway to revitalize the Rust Belt.
After leading study abroad trips to Seoul and Shanghai, Matt Mascioli, MBA ’17, wanted to show off a part of America that folks “don’t typically see on the coasts.” Mascioli co-led 18 international students on a Global Study Trip that included Detroit, Pittsburgh, Charleston, North Carolina, and his native state of West Virginia.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to lead peers into a place that most of them have never been, and to lead them in learning from a different perspective.”
In Detroit, Mascioli met with the mayor’s jobs and economy team where they learned about the city’s extensive development plans, which include replacing 100,000 vacant homes—a byproduct of a decade of white flight—with public spaces.
For the more rural portion of the trip, Mascioli partnered with two of West Virginia’s “leading economic thinkers,” WVU’s John Deskins and Stephen Spence from WV’s Department of Commerce to give Global Study students a bird’s-eye view of the problems facing the state. Mascioli explains that having locals “devoted to thinking about what is the economic future of that region” is important to clarifying a place’s seemingly impenetrable logic for outsiders. He elaborates:
“It’s easy to assume from the outside that there’s zero rationale about how people are thinking. But once you’re on the ground and get to know people and organizations, oftentimes, it makes a lot more sense.”
Stanford Hosts Future of Work Symposium
The recent Stanford “Future of Work” symposium, co-presented by Stanford Career Education and OZY EDU, explored a number of topics related to a changing labor force in the face of automation, and what a more expansive definition of continuing education might entail.
Coursera CEO Jeff Maggioncalda SGSB ’96 and one of the panelists, believes that college degrees “will remain useful to build fundamental skills,” but that even college-educated members of the labor force “will be expected to continue their education throughout their careers” in order to stay competitive.
This is especially true for graduates with humanities and social science degrees, whose knowledge, according to Stanford’s Senior Vice Provost for Education Harry Elam, Jr. remain crucially important to helping industry “understand biases in data, facilitate collaboration, bring insight, provide historical perspective, and humanize technology in a data-driven world.”
GSV Asset Management co-founder Michael Moe believes that humanities and social science graduates can help us augment “the three R’s” with “the four C’s”: critical thinking, communication, creativity, and cultural fluency.
MindSumo co-founder and current Stanford GSB student Trent Hazy believes people with humanities and social science can “easily develop transferable skills that employers value. Humanities majors who also learn some quantitative skills by taking classes in statistics or logic will have an advantage over those who don’t.”
Coursera VP and Stanford GSB ’10 grad Julia Stiglitz believes startups like hers open up “educational opportunities … to anyone who has the will and desire and ability to go through it, and as a result I think we’re going to see all sorts of new people come into fields they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.”
When it comes to the projected 2030 obsolescence of half of today’s jobs by automation, all the speakers firmly believed that technology will create “new economic opportunity” in the long-term. Moe concludes: “While automation eats jobs, it doesn’t eat work.”
What Exactly Does Stanford Know About Humor?
There is a rarefied power in humor, or at least there is in certain sections of the business world, and, possibly, comedy. The Stanford Graduate School of Business recently highlighted standout professor Jennifer Aaker and Lecturer Naomi Bagdonas, who created the first ever Humor: Serious Business class at Stanford GSB last spring.
Bagdonas, in an interview with Gentry Magazine, explained that her class is about “the power (and importance) of humor to make and scale positive change in the world, and also to achieve business objectives, build more effective and innovative organizations, cultivate stronger bonds, and capture more lasting memories.”
She elaborates: “Laughter makes us more physically resilient to the tensions and stressors of corporate life. It releases oxytocin, which facilitates social bonding and increases trust. When people laugh together at work, relationships improve, and people feel more valued and trusted, mitigating the effects of these workplace stressors.”
Aaker explains that around the age of 23, many people seem to fall off a “humor cliff” and become more solemn and severe, as if growing into oneself means restricting the possibility of fun.
Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas / Photo by Jack Hutch
“We go to work, and all of a sudden we’re very important, and we’re very efficient, and we’re no longer allowed to leave the house in sweatpants or count ice cream as a food group,” she said in the interview.
Aaker adds that many workplaces contribute to this self-perception. It’s no joke that “workplace stress — fueled long hours, job insecurity and lack of work-life balance — [was linked to] at least 120,000 deaths each year and accounts for up to $190 billion in health care costs.”
Bagdonas’ goal is to use the course to “instill a mindset that taking your work seriously doesn’t mean you need to be serious all of the time. In fact, being serious and being humorous can be in service of each other. The right balance of levity and gravity gives power to both.”
Read the whole Gentry Magazine interview with Aaker and Bagdonas here.
Stanford Professor on How to Avoid Jerks at Work
Stanford organizational behavior professor and de facto jerk expert Robert I. Sutton’s latest book The A**hole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People Who Treat You Like Dirt gives you the tools and knowledge to lay with the pigs without getting mud on you.
A Recommendation Revolution Is Underway in MBA Admissions: What You Need to Know
I’m busy, you’re busy, your boss is most definitely busy. Indeed, publications ranging from Men’s Health to the Atlantic, the Washington Post to Forbes are all reporting that “busyness“ has become the new status symbol for our times. Which is part of what makes asking someone to write you a letter of recommendation for business school so daunting. Now, try telling that person that you actually need five different letters for five different schools. Oy vey.
As uncomfortable a spot as it puts applicants in—it’s no better for recommenders. Even your most vociferous supporter is going to wonder what in the world she’s gotten herself into when she realizes that helping you in your pursuit of acceptance to business school means taking time away from work or play or family or whatever else to labor over leadership assessment grids, each a little different from the one before, and write 10 slightly different answers to 10 slightly different questions. Here’s hoping that your top-choice school doesn’t happen to be the last one she gets around to…
Good news. The graduate management education industry recognizes the strain that letters of recommendation put on applicants and recommenders alike and has been wrestling with ways to make the process easier for everyone involved. To this end, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) established a committee made up of admissions representatives from dozens of leading business schools to brainstorm about ways to lessen the burden while still collecting the third-party assessments of candidates that are so critical to the MBA application process.
GMAC Pilots Common MBA Letter of Recommendation
As an outgrowth of that committee’s work, GMAC last year piloted a common MBA letter of recommendation (LOR) that schools can choose to incorporate into their applications to reduce the burden placed on applicants and recommenders alike.
“The Common Letter of Recommendation (LOR) effort is intended to save you and recommenders valuable time by providing a single set of recommendation questions for each participating school,” reads the GMAC website. “This allows your recommenders to use the same answers for multiple letter submissions, alleviating the workload of having to answer different questions for each school multiple times. You benefit because it makes the ask for several different letters to be written on your behalf much easier.”
Cornell’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, NYU Stern School of Business, and Michigan’s Ross School of Business were among the first schools to pilot the Common LOR last year. In addition to a single set of open-ended essay questions, the pilot Common LOR also included a leadership assessment grid inviting recommenders to rate applicants on 16 “competencies and character traits” grouped into four main categories of achievement, influence, personal qualities and academic ability.
“At Johnson, we saw the Common LoR as a clear opportunity to improve the admissions process for candidates and their recommenders in a way that would also add value to our own assessment of applicants,” Judi Byers, Johnson executive director of admissions & financial aid, told Clear Admit. “A thorough and consistent review is important to us and the grid provides a straightforward base of insights that can be assessed and compared reliably while the accompanying letter adds meaningful detail and context,” she added.
Soojin Kwon, managing director of full-time MBA admissions and program at Ross, sees applicants and recommenders as the main beneficiaries of the Common LOR and is pleased that more schools are coming on board. “As more schools adopt it, applicants won’t have to feel like they’re burdening their recommender with completing multiple rec letters with different questions and ratings grids,” she told Clear Admit. “This year, more than a dozen of the top 20 schools are using it.”
Ross was also among the schools to first pilot the Common LOR last year, and Kwon served as part of the GMAC committee that helped craft it.
Common Questions Easy to Agree on, Common Leadership Grid Not
“What we found in using the Common LOR this year past year was that the questions gave us helpful insights into applicants, particularly on the important area of constructive feedback. The questions, however, were fairly similar to what we and other schools were using before, so it was easy for the AdCom to use it,” she notes.
Those questions are as follow:
- Please provide a brief description of your interaction with the applicant and, if applicable, the applicant’s role in your organization. (50 words)
- How does the performance of the applicant compare to that of other well-qualified individuals in similar roles? (E.g. what are the applicant’s principal strengths?) (500 words)
- Describe the most important piece of constructive feedback you have given the applicant. Please detail the circumstances and the applicant’s response. (500 words)
- Is there anything else we should know? (Optional)
“The rating grid was quite different from what we’d used in the past,” Kwon continued. “It was also the most difficult part for the GMAC advisory group to develop and get agreement upon. The group worked this past year to revise and simplify the grid so that AdComs could get more meaningful insights from it.”
This year, the 16 competencies and character traits from the original grid have been distilled to 12, with specific questions about analytical thinking and information seeking omitted. Johnson and Ross have both incorporated the revised leadership grid into the LOR distributed to applicants as part of their applications, as have most other schools that have this year decided to incorporate both the grid and open-ended essay question portions of the form. UT’s McCombs School of Business and Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, notably, still seem to feature the earlier version of the leadership grid in their application, the one that calls on recommenders to assesses applicants on 16 competencies and traits.
