This is the second post in a three-part series exploring how we communicate within our organizations. This week, we talk about calibrating the depth of what you say in response to the conversation at hand.
July 12, 2023
A couple of months ago, Maestro Group was experimenting with using a new online platform that fosters connectivity in the workplace. After an all-hands meeting, Will stopped into my virtual office to ask me what I thought of the new platform.
“Oh, I’m just drafting a memo about it,” I told him.
“A memo?” One of this platform’s features is audio, so I could hear exactly how much Will did not need a memo. I gave my quick take and moved that document to my virtual trash can.
I am a recovering “overtalker,” by which I mean I sometimes misjudge the depth of the conversation at hand. I use a paragraph when a sentence will do. When texting, I crowd my side of the thread with bubbles.
To my defense, I spent 25 years in cultures that foster overtalking. When other folks joined college fraternities, I pledged a debating club that met on Friday nights (complete with Solo-cupped beverages) and prized those who dominated the conversation or got the biggest laugh. I learned to write in workshops where your engagement is often judged by your sheer volume of feedback. In the classroom, though I loved designing interactive exercises, I found that the fundamentals were best covered via an old-fashioned lecture.
My tendency isn’t extreme or mean-spirited; it comes from overenthusiasm. Overtalking is something we encounter in any organization or business. If your reaction is, “thank goodness we don’t have anyone like that in our company,” newsflash: the overtalker is probably you. Your coworkers may code it as, “wow, you’re so [pause] thorough!”
In sales organizations, which thrive on collaboration and velocity, overtalking is a problem. The good news is that we can do something about it.
To understand the temptation of overtalking, we need to understand the brain chemistry attached to talking about ourselves. In May 2012, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published a paper by Diana I. Tamir and Jason P. Mitchell, two psychology professors at Harvard University, that explored why humans gravitate to “disclosing information about the self.” Although it had been theorized that personal disclosures trigger reward responses, this set of five sequenced studies provided the neuroimaging and cognitive data to prove it.
The psychologists associated minor monetary awards with three options: 1) talking about one’s own opinions and attitudes; 2) describing the opinions and attitudes of a famous figure; or, 3) evaluating a factual trivia item. When payoffs were equal, participants chose to answer questions about themselves 66% more of the time than questions about other people, and 69% more of the time than questions of objective fact. Neural activity lit up in the mesolimbic dopamine system, which is associated with primary rewards, secondary rewards, and social rewards. Even after choosing to answer questions about themselves became associated with a lesser payoff, participants still chose that option over and over.
The next round of study showed that while self-introspection is rewarding, self-introspection shared with another participant triggers a separate, distinct reward in the mesolimbic dopamine system. This held true even after factors were added to offset the possibility that subjects thought talking about themselves would be “easier” than talking about others. In the discussion section of the paper, the Harvard psychologists observed that while we usually focus on the social rewards of self-disclosure—building intimacy and trust—subjects’ willingness to sacrifice money, a sturdy secondary reward, suggests the value of self-disclosure actually ranks among primary rewards such as food and sex.
This is why, when you sit down with someone for a discovery call or a sales interview and they talk more than you do (optimally, about 57% of the time to your 43%), they come away thinking, “that was a fantastic conversation!” Being asked to think about yourself feels good. Knowing you have an audience attentive to those insights feels positively orgasmic.
Another way of saying this: humans generally enjoy self-disclosure. At nine months of age, children begin drawing attention to what they’ve learned or find interesting in the environment to a degree beyond other primates. Humans allocate 30–40% of their speech to documenting subjective experiences, and on social media this percentage spikes to 80%. Self-information can include stories, showing off skills, or sharing opinions.
Overtalking is an exaggerated engagement with a natural pleasure. Who is most prone? You might be tempted to picture someone inordinately extroverted and confident, and that can be the case. But overtalking also happens among introverts, especially once they lock onto a favorite topic, and can mask social anxiety or imposter syndrome.
There is no singular overtalker “type.” What they (we) have in common is that they (we) center themselves in conversation, wrecking the balance like a bull in a china shop. They do this explicitly, by interjecting irrelevant personal anecdotes, or implicitly, by insisting on a style or depth of conversation that best suits them, rather than focusing on the needs of others. They (okay, I) put together a memo when their coworker only wanted a quick take.
When you overtalk, you risk missing important cues from your team. Maybe your insight into a project really iscompelling—but also outside the scope of work, making it a poor use of meeting time. Maybe you’re proposing a technological solution that was already tried a year before you came on board. When you overtalk, you’re spending so much time on the features of your product (in this case, you and your opinion) that you forget to explain the value to your client (the other people in this conversation).
As you read this, perhaps you’re sighing in self-recognition. Uh oh. What now?
First, if reading this has made you aware that you might be an overtalker, don’t panic. You’re a good person who cares about the experiences of others, which means wanting to ensure coworkers enjoy being in conversation with you. The way forward is to practice, practice, practice. Learn to pace yourself. Although Maestro Group usually talks about a “rule of three,” for this scenario we’re going with rules of two. Specifically:
Overtalkers are in danger of missing out on the joys of genuine collaboration. The pool of conversations you’ll have within your organization will vary, from moments that require a quick wading-in to more serious deliberations. Don’t put your floaties on when you’ve been invited up to the high-dive board. And don’t go head-first when the water is only three feet deep.
Ready to communicate more effectively and get higher sales? Contact us to learn more about our trainings at mastery@maestrogroup.co.
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