Toolkit: Talk Like a Leader (Part 2)

Summary

Fixable — Toolkit: Talk Like a Leader (Part 2)
Hosts: Anne Morriss & Frances Frei
Date: March 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode of "Fixable," leadership experts Anne Morriss (CEO, best-selling author) and Frances Frei (Harvard Business professor) continue their deep dive into the art and science of "talking like a leader." Picking up from Part 1—which introduced the essential leadership mindset—this installment focuses on actionable tools: content, structure, verbal delivery, and visual delivery. The hosts dissect each aspect, providing practical examples, memorable anecdotes, and concrete tips for leaders wanting to up their communications game—whether addressing thousands or just your own team.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Role of Performance in Leadership Communication

[03:03] Anne Morriss: "Communications is a performance. And to succeed at it, you need to come at this challenge as a performer."

• The term "performance" is reframed as taking full responsibility for the audience’s experience, rather than being “fake” or inauthentic.
• Bringing intention and awareness to communication actually increases authenticity by reducing self-doubt and distraction.

[03:36] Anne Morriss: “The more awareness and intention you bring ... the more present and authentic you can be in the moment.”

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2. Content: Practicing "Deeply, Simply"

[04:18] Frances Frei: “When we understand something deeply… one fork is to match the deeply with complexity... the one that we prefer and advocate is … ultimately describe it simply.”

• Simplicity is hard, but essential. Clear, simple messages reach more people—including outsiders, not just insiders steeped in jargon.

• Iteration is key: Refining your message down from complexity to elegant simplicity may take 10-15 drafts.

  [06:01] Frances Frei (quoting Blaise Pascal): “I apologize for writing a long letter. I didn't have the time to write a short letter.”

• Practice like a pro: Use lower-stakes settings to test and hone your message, just like Conan O’Brien prepping for a big event.

• Recommended practice: Minimum 3 run-throughs for most presentations; for high-stakes, aim for 12–100 practice sessions.

  [08:39] Anne Morriss: “…at least three. Run through that presentation at least three times … can you do it in double time?”
  [08:23] Frances Frei: “I’m going to go 100 times… Let’s take it as the floor and the ceiling.”

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3. Structure: Storytelling for Change

[09:21] Anne Morriss: “Our next point is around structure… we have a structure that we love around leadership storytelling: honoring the past, giving people a compelling change mandate, and providing a rigorous and optimistic view of the future.”

• Narrative Arc: Past → Present → Future
  • This structure is especially powerful for change leadership, guiding behavior change.
• Honor the Past
  • Without crediting previous successes or foundations, people become defensive and less receptive to change.
  • Explain what remains and what will improve to combat fear of things getting worse.

  [11:10] Anne Morriss: “When you honor the past, you are often being very clear about the things you are not going to change…”

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4. Verbal Delivery: Tone, Pace, and Pitch

[15:26] Frances Frei: “Tone, pace, and pitch. Those are the three subheadings that I would put on verbal delivery.”

Tone

• Variety is vital: Monotony is the enemy of retention and impact.

  [15:43] Frances Frei: “Variety is the spice of life… even if you're the most brilliant speaker in the world, if you come in with no variety, the whole message isn't going to get there.”

• Emotional play: Leaders' emotions are contagious and amplified in rooms. Be intentional about which emotions you share.

  [17:28] Frances Frei: “Young leaders often don't bring intention and they think, I'll just do it natural. And the chance of your organically hitting just what is needed… is a needle in the haystack.” [18:51] Anne Morriss: “…what you are feeling isn't always useful to the people around you. …it may mean you need to take a beat before you walk into that room…”

• Narrate your emotion: If you can't pause, name what you feel and bring the room with you intentionally.

  [19:30] Anne Morriss: “You can get up in the front … ‘Listen, what I'm feeling right now is anger… but let me tell you how I got here. And then let's decide together…’”

Pace

• Use speed strategically: Speed up for emphasis, slow down for impact, pause for ultimate gravitas.

  [20:53] Frances Frei: “Speeding up, slowing down, repeating—these should be in everyone's arsenal.” [22:23] Frances Frei: “A pause is the ultimate flex… strong leaders, oh, you might even see a smile creeping in because you're resetting the entire room for what's about to come next.”

Pitch

• End sentences intentionally: Downspeaking (ending lower) signals authority; upspeaking (ending higher) suggests a question or lower status.

  [23:13] Frances Frei: “…if your pitch is a little lower than the average pitch in the room, people take it a little bit more seriously.” [25:03] Frances Frei (on upspeak vs. downspeak): “Those are two entirely different sentiments, and you used exactly the same words.”

• Be aware of habits: Socialized patterns (e.g., women upspeaking to appear non-threatening) may not serve leadership communication. Be intentional, not automatic.

  [27:01] Frances Frei: “Habits are not authentic. They are habits.”

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5. Visual Delivery: Posture, Presence, and Clothing

[30:27] Anne Morriss (on visual signals): “What should we be thinking about when it comes to the visual signals we're sending...?”

Posture

• Simple cues: Engage your core, shoulders back, chin up—these immediately boost your presence and credibility.

  [31:45] Frances Frei: “You're sitting up, your shoulder blades are slightly trying to touch each other, and chin up. If you just do that, you're doing plenty for posture.”

• Payoff: People focus on your message (not your body language), believe you more, and you think and breathe better.

• Works online too: “Rule of thirds”—your eyes should be in the top third of a Zoom frame.

Clothing

• Optimize for your comfort, then for others:

  [34:40] Frances Frei: “We want to solve for making ourselves comfortable, subject to the comfort of everyone else. Sequence matters.”

  • Example: Frances wears the same black shirt daily (for simplicity, comfort, and to avoid distraction); Anne uses clothing to embody the role or mood she wants to channel (e.g., "priest-like garments" for high authority moments).
  • The "barefoot test": Don’t neglect social context—no barefoot in the office!

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On performance:

  [03:14] Anne Morriss: "Performative has become this ultimate insult... To me, to perform means to take full responsibility for the experience you’re creating.”

• On the power of a simple message:

  [05:01] Frances Frei: “You are unlikely to get there on the first draft. The payoff is that you will speak to more people and they will understand what you’ve said and ... carry the message with them.”

• On repetition/practice:

  [08:23] Frances Frei: "I'm going to go 100 times [of practice]. …Minimum of 12 and then put a max at 100."

• On honoring the past in change:

  [11:18] Frances Frei: “People are not afraid of change. They are afraid of things getting worse.”

• On emotion as contagion:

  [16:44] Anne Morriss: "When you are ... a high status person in the room, your emotions get totally amplified."

• On pitch and socialization:

  [26:00] Frances Frei: "Once I learn how everyone else interprets an upspeak as either lower status or a question ... I have an important decision to make."

• On habits and authenticity:

  [27:01] Frances Frei: “Habits are not authentic. They are habits.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Main theme & performance in communication: [03:03–04:18]
• Deeply, simply content: [04:18–09:21]
• Structure: the change story and honoring the past: [09:21–12:34]
• Verbal delivery (tone, emotion, pace, pitch, upspeak): [15:10–27:15]
• Visual delivery (posture, presence, clothing): [30:27–38:41]

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Takeaways

• Leadership communication is performance—not about faking, but being intentional.
• Simplicity wins. Work hard to distill your message. Practice, iterate, road-test.
• Use story structure to drive change: Honor the past, define the present, inspire the future.
• Vary tone, pace, and pitch. Pause for emphasis, end sentences decisively, and choose your emotional presence deliberately.
• Align visuals (posture, attire) with your message—project conviction, comfort, and appropriateness for your audience.

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Whether you’re leading a boardroom or starting your management journey, this toolkit will help you “talk like a leader”—with impact, clarity, and authenticity.

Transcript

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[Frances Frey]

Does Howard Johnson still exist by the way?

[Anne Morris]

Well, I'm living in 1968 Mad Men. So that was the last episode. I've been dreaming.

[Frances Frey]

Don Draper does not upspe ever.

[Anne Morris]

No, he was never Francis. You are listening to Fixable, a podcast from ted. I'm Anne Morris.

[Frances Frey]

And I'm Frances Frey.

[Anne Morris]

Last week we laid the foundation for talking like a leader by getting everyone into the right not about you mindset. One of the challenges of leadership communication is that it can be very self distracting. We want to look good and sound smart. We spent that episode talking about the power of focusing less on our own performance and more on truly being of service to your audience, which is often a counterintuitive pivot. Definitely check it out if you haven't already. Frances, I have some very exciting news. We are not done with this topic yet.

[Frances Frey]

No. Once we've gotten into the right mindset, we then have to prescribe a bunch of things to do. And I think mindset is necessary but not sufficient. And that's what we're going to do now.

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[Anne Morris]

And we're going to break this challenge into four parts today which are the four main tools in your communications toolkit, content structure, verbal delivery, and visual delivery. Frances, how does that sound?

[Frances Frey]

I am so ready.

[Anne Morris]

Let's do it. The headline on our conversation today is that communications is a performance. And to succeed at it, you need to come at this challenge as a performer.

[Frances Frey]

Ooh, I'm intrigued. That word gets a very bad rap in 2026. You know, we often think about performance as fake or as inauthentic.

[Anne Morris]

Yes. Performative has become this ultimate insult that we hurl at each other. And I want to try to rehabilitate it a little bit today. To me, to perform means to take full responsibility for the experience you're creating for another person or a group of people in your audience to be aware

[Frances Frey]

of what you're actually doing.

[Anne Morris]

Yes. This is the task. And the irony is that the more awareness and intention you bring to this project, in my experience, the more present and authentic you can be in the moment of communications contact, because you're not so self distracted.

[Frances Frey]

What does that look like?

[Anne Morris]

Well, I think it starts with deep confidence in your message. And Francis, you and I often talk about understanding what you want to say so deeply that you can describe it simply. And I think this gets at the heart of this challenge. Why don't you kick us off here with this idea of deeply, simply communications. What is it?

[Frances Frey]

So in my experience, when we understand something deeply, there's two forks to the path. And one fork is to match the deeply with complexity and all of the nuance and all of the jargon and all of the inside baseball, the fork in the road.

[Anne Morris]

So option one, the option two, the

[Frances Frey]

one that we prefer and advocate is I understand it so deeply that I'm going to the other side of complexity, and I can ultimately describe it simply. I often think of it describing it elegantly. Like, it's so elegant in its simplicity. That's what we're advocating. So, like, why?

[Anne Morris]

Why bother? Yeah, because this sounds hard.

[Frances Frey]

Yes, it is hard. I want to be super clear. It is hard. And you are unlikely to get there on the first draft. The payoff is that you will speak to more people and they will understand what you've said and they will carry the message with them. So when I do deeply complicated communication, I'm usually only reaching the people who already knew about the topic. I'm talking to the insiders. Deeply, simply communication allows me to talk to everyone I love that.

[Anne Morris]

Can you understand what you're doing so deeply that you can distill it down to just a few words?

[Frances Frey]

And I think those phrases that animate everyone to row in the same direction, to have a common understanding, that is priceless.

[Anne Morris]

And what's your favorite? The Blaise Pascal quote that you love.

[Frances Frey]

I apologize for writing a long letter. I didn't have the time to write a short letter. In my experience, it can take 10 or 15 drafts to go from a long letter to a short letter. And you don't set out, by the way, to write a short letter. You won't understand it deeply. You have to set out and write the whole thing and then tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten.

[Anne Morris]

This is the essence of how you get to deeply simply is iteration. Right now, as we record this, the Oscars ceremony is coming up. So I'm thinking of Conan and Brian preparing to emcee the Oscars. And as we speak right now, he is road testing his material in these smaller, low stakes rooms. And that is the image that I want to offer people in thinking about how to do this is you need to get your reps in and you need to do it when the stakes are lower. So when the stakes are higher and you're in a setting where you really, again, you have to make communications, contact, and it has to land, you are totally ready for it.

[Frances Frey]

What strikes me about Conan o', Brien, who is arguably one of the best deeply, simply communicators in the world, he practices more than we do. Usually the people that aren't as good are supposed to increase the practice reps. And so I really take inspiration from we have to be practicing at least as much as he does because we are not as good as he is.

[Anne Morris]

I actually believe more strongly than all of the sentences you just said. It's almost like conflict. Like the teams that excel have more conflict, not less. People that truly excel in this space practice more, not less.

[Frances Frey]

How many times do you imagine that Conan o' Brien would practice before a high stakes event? Just so that we have an order of magnitude.

[Anne Morris]

That is a great challenge that I'm gonna go chase down. But in my limited knowledge of this, I would say that he's taken this material for a test drive that we're all gonna hear. It's a short monologue, right? I think no more than 10 minutes to kick off the Oscars. And I bet at least a dozen times he's in front of a live audience before he does that.

[Frances Frey]

This will be a fun bet. I'm going to go 100 times. All that to say let's take it as the floor and the ceiling. We now know, folks, how often we should be doing it. Minimum of 12 and then put a max at 100.

[Anne Morris]

Yep. And another rule of thumb I've heard on this is at least three Run through that presentation at least three times, maybe for low to medium stakes. And then can you do it in double time? Can you really internalize the material so deeply that you can do it in double time?

[Frances Frey]

That's great.

[Anne Morris]

All right, so our message on this is aim for in terms of content and message, you want to understand so deeply. You can describe it simply, and then you really want to set yourself up for success with repetition and preparation. Is there anything you want to say about messaging content? Anything else before we move on?

[Frances Frey]

I know.

[Anne Morris]

I think that's it. Okay, so our next point is around structure, and we've done a whole episode on the power of putting your message into narrative or story form. And we have a structure that we love around leadership storytelling, which is about honoring the past, giving people a compelling change mandate, and then providing a rigorous and optimistic view of the future.

[Frances Frey]

And the benefit of this particular story form is that it has a past, present, and future. And you want to take people from the past into the future, particularly if you want them to do something differently than they did on the way into the room. So the past was how they used to do it. The future is how they're going to do it, and you bridge that with the present.

[Anne Morris]

So the metric you are focused on here is behavior change.

[Frances Frey]

It is indeed. I would characterize this as a change leadership story format. Yep.

[Anne Morris]

Anything else you want to say on structure?

[Frances Frey]

Yeah, I want to just say a word about honor, which is that the

[Anne Morris]

honor and honor the past.

[Frances Frey]

Yes, the honor and honor the past. When we're thinking about the future being changed, it's really tempting to put down the past. And as we discussed in that episode, and I encourage people to go back and listen to it. If you put down the past and you don't prop up the past, people are gonna be in a defensive crouch, and they're not gonna be receptive to your message. So honor the past, Particularly when you think you're improving, it means tell us everything about the past you're not gonna change. In addition to the few things you are. I just want to use that underscore that as a reminder.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I think that's critical. As we've said before, people are not afraid of change. They are afraid of things getting worse.

[Frances Frey]

Hear, hear.

[Anne Morris]

And so when you honor the past, you are often being very clear about the things you are not going to change. You're also giving people generous credit for the foundation that they have built upon which you are going to build your future success. And there is a lot of fear often in these moments of change and without those two signals, we can get very protective and defensive and are far less willing to be guided by you, the leader in that moment.

[Frances Frey]

I find there is fear about change when people have been through a lot of bad change, a lot of, oh, it's getting worse change, and I'm going to try to put lipstick on it. And I find there is excitement about change when it's constantly getting better. And that's where we want to go to.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love that. As a component of honor the past. And your colleague Nithan Noria did a scathing paper at one point about something like 80% of change initiatives failing inside large organizations. And that's the context most people in the room have.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah, that if I honor the past, the good and bad of it, I'm now going to relax a little bit. That you're not going to throw out the good stuff, which happens all the time.

[Anne Morris]

Yep,

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[Anne Morris]

All right, we're moving on to part three. Francis, let's go. Verbal delivery.

[Frances Frey]

This is important, and this is often

[Anne Morris]

where people focus the most when they're thinking about talking like a leader. But what should I care about in this moment?

[Frances Frey]

I think we can characterize most of it as tone, pace, and pitch. So those are the three subheadings that I would put on verbal delivery.

[Anne Morris]

All right, let's do them one at a time. So what should I keep in mind when it comes to tone?

[Frances Frey]

Variety is the spice of life that an audience, whether it's one person or 1,000 people, they need variety to have it seep into them. Even if you're the most brilliant speaker in the world, if you come in with no variety, the whole message isn't going to get there. And you need variation. And you want variation so that it will emotionally penetrate and it just has a chance of getting through.

[Anne Morris]

Throughout the talk, there's variation in your own emotional frequency and the emotions that you are bringing into the language.

[Frances Frey]

You know, my favorite performance measure of a talk is whether or not people laughed. Like, that's my. And I think your favorite measure is whether or not people cried, I think

[Anne Morris]

is the part of it. I have two favorites. I like to combine those two.

[Frances Frey]

But if they laughed the whole time, it wouldn't work. And if they cried the whole time, it wouldn't work. We need variety.

[Anne Morris]

Yep. I love that. I like to just use the phrase or the metaphor of skillfully playing the instrument of your emotions. And I think it's critical to do it throughout this, the practice of leadership, because it is like when you are, if not the highest status person in the room, a high status person in the room, your emotions get totally amplified. What you are feeling is wildly contagious for the rest of the room. And so bringing some Intention to that can really be a powerful leadership unlock. And I think one place that we can practice and use that is in these communications moments.

[Frances Frey]

In fact, young leaders often don't bring intention and they think, I'll just do it natural. And the chance of your organically hitting just what is needed for the moment, I want people to experience as a needle in the haystack.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. But also this idea that whatever I'm feeling is going to be useful and relevant to the people around me.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

You know, you're going to feel what you're feeling and then you have a second decision to make, which is, you know, what is the emotion that I'm going to share with the people around me? You know, this goes back to our conversation about authenticity. What you are feeling isn't always useful to the people around you. It doesn't mean that you are showing up pretending to feel something that you're not feeling. It may mean that you need to take a beat before you walk into that room. And a beat can be seconds. A beat can mean, you know what, I'm going to stop. I'm angry. But angry is not. Anger is not gonna serve me or the people around me right now. So I'm gonna take 30 seconds, delay the start of this meeting, metabolize this emotion, walk in, and then share frustration. I'm gonna share a variation on this that is going to be more helpful.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah, you know, it is.

[Anne Morris]

It doesn't mean you're not creating friction, but you're doing it in a way that is serving whatever you're trying to achieve in that meeting. And oh, oh no, the leader is angry. You know, what do I need to do to protect myself? Is probably not where you want people to be. And so take that beat. But your frustration might be useful. The other thing that I have seen people do really effectively in those moments is if you don't have 30 seconds, although it's rare that you can't create a 30 second moment to gather yourself. But you can narrate.

[Frances Frey]

This is great.

[Anne Morris]

So you can get up in the front of the room and you can say, listen, what I'm feeling right now is anger. And you can say, it's not helpful to me or anyone else, but let me tell you how I got here. And then let's decide together where we go next. Because we set this expectation, we set this deadline, we made this commitment to customers, and we didn't meet it again. So come with me on the journey right now to figure out how we got here and how we're not gonna get here ever again.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah. What I love about that is that you are angry, but if you came in and just unbridled, splattered the whole room with your anger, the chance of it being productive in the end is zero. I mean, people are just gonna, like, protect themselves. But by that really powerful narration, everyone will be breathing the same air. Everyone will be on the same page. So that is a. That's a magnificent pro tip.

[Anne Morris]

And then back to where we started on variation in tone. So you start there, and then where you land the plane, tonally, by the end of the meeting is, we're going to go take this hill together.

[Frances Frey]

With rigor and optimism.

[Anne Morris]

With rigor and optimism. And you take everybody on that ride. So then the other one on your list here, where I think variation is helpful to us is pace. So talk to us about pace.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah. So I think that in the course of whatever important thing that you're doing, speeding up, slowing down, repeating, these should be in everyone's arsenal. When are you going to speed up? I'm going to make three quick points, and then I make the three quick points, and then I slow down to say, here's the takeaway of it. And so speeding up and slowing down, it also, you know, if you let people sit back too much, they're going to start wandering. If you vary your pace, they're leaning back, they're leaning in, they're staying attentive. And so I. I would definitely layer on top of whatever beautiful story that you have, I would layer on top of it. Where are the peaks? Where are the valleys? Where's the 1.5x? Where's the 0.5x aspect of it?

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love slowing yourself down also as a signal that you are willing to take up space, you are willing to take risks. As a speaker, you are willing to absorb the. The attention and anticipation of other people. You can take seconds to gather your thoughts. And if anything, it is a signal of strength, not weakness. In my experience, the ultimate flex, when

[Frances Frey]

you want to talk like a leader and you're varying pace is bring the pace to zero. A pause is the ultimate flex. Why? Because most people panic when within nanoseconds of a pause, strong leaders, oh, you might even see a smile creeping in because you're resetting the entire room for what's about to come next. Young faculty at HBS compete on energy, and older faculty at HBS compete on wisdom. And the way they communicate that is with pace.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, it's beautiful. I mean, I just watch this in Myself in rooms where I am feeling less secure rather than more secure, I speed up.

[Frances Frey]

We always do. Yeah, we always do.

[Anne Morris]

Beautiful. Okay, talk to us about pitch, Francis.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah. So pitch. I will say this, that if your pitch is a little lower than the average pitch in the room, people take it a little bit more seriously. So I think that's one thing is to think about it. There's. And then variety in pitch isn't as important as punctuation in pitch. And what I mean by punctuation in pitch is that if you end a sentence a little lower than you began it, we stay with you and let it wash over us. If you end a sentence at a higher pitch than you ended it, we have been trained our whole lives to match that with a question.

[Anne Morris]

So is this upspeak and downspeak? Is that what you're talking about?

[Frances Frey]

Up speak and downspeak? So upspeak. We have been trained to think that's a question. And if you listen to how people ask questions, they use upspeak, and people make profound points with downspeak. Okay. And so we should just be careful when we violate those norms, because we gotta undo a whole bunch of decades of training, and usually we don't win in that. And so when you're making that profound point, perhaps even when you slowed down, think downspeak. And when you want the audience to ponder a question, upspeak, and then be careful of upspeaking at other times and be conscious of downspeaking at other times. So, Anne, when we think about upspeak and downspeak, can you give us a way to capture what that means?

[Anne Morris]

So, Frances, I was thinking maybe for dinner tonight we could try Howard Johnson's versus Frances. I was thinking maybe for dinner tonight, we could try Howard Johnson's.

[Frances Frey]

Those are two entirely different sentiments, and you used exactly the same words.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, this one is a very powerful pivot.

[Frances Frey]

Does Howard Johnson still exist, by the way?

[Anne Morris]

Well, I'm living in 1968 Mad Men, so that was the last episode I've been dreaming about.

[Frances Frey]

Don Draper does not upspeak ever.

[Anne Morris]

No, no, he would never. Francis, you know, this is something that I have had to work on. I do think it's generational. I think it's gendered. I think there is some socialization around. It seems like a threatening appearing to be not threatening as part of communication. That's probably a whole other episode. But if you can keep an eye on this and have some control over the lever, add some variation, and not always defer to that. Up speak Ending of sentences. I think it's a big step forward in terms of the power of your communication.

[Frances Frey]

And this ties back to your original point of authenticity, which is, let's say I would authentically upspeak. Well, once I learn how everyone else interprets an upspeak as either lower status or it's a form of a question. But I like to upspeak all the time. Well, now I have an important decision to make. And here's what we would say at the be intentional. Make it a decision about how you want to go forward.

[Anne Morris]

Totally. And these habits that we are coding as authentic because we do them all the time, are not necessarily the more real versions of ourselves. You know, we're not necessarily communicating these essential parts of ourselves. We're just doing what we always do, which is our habits that we have built over time that have kept us safe or helped us navigate the world. And when you bring this kind of self awareness and intention, then you get to craft the experience you want the people around you to have in your presence.

[Frances Frey]

You know, one of the wonderful advantages I get with living with you every day is, is that I learn something every day. I have never heard you say before and it has hit me between the eyes. Habits are not authentic. They are habits.

[Anne Morris]

The other thing about habits is they're often old. You know, these are habits that we've been dragging around. Where we've been dragging around.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

You know, for decades sometimes. And so part of this conversation, and you and I love this conversation because we love this challenge. How can we use language? Language is the currency of leadership. And so the entire point of this conversation is how can we bring awareness and intention to the challenge of having the impact we want to have as leaders? And so if we can bring a sense of craft and, yes, performance to our use of language, we believe that you can make tremendous progress very quickly.

[Frances Frey]

I love it.

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[Anne Morris]

Finally, Visual Delivery what should we be thinking about when it comes to the visual signals we're sending in addition to all of these gorgeous audio signals?

[Frances Frey]

Well, I would say the core one is posture and that posture matters. I know you just rolled your eyes

[Anne Morris]

well and my shoulders back, this is not my strength.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah. So if when I think about posture and you can be doing all the things you're doing offline, but when you're online and you want to think of posture, I think if you focus on three or four things, you just have three or four cues, your posture will be plenty good enough in the moment. And so this is the in the moment part of it and I think and you can think about your core and that you're engaging your core when you're doing it. So it's sitting up versus touching that. So just engage your core. You're sitting up. You will talk more like a leader. Shoulders back, which just means your shoulder blades are slightly trying to touch each other. So that's all it is. You're sitting up, your shoulder blades are slightly trying to touch each other and chin up. If you just do that you're doing plenty for posture.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah. And what's the payoff? This is hard to keep in. This is another hard one.

[Frances Frey]

It is hard. The payoff is twofold. One, you do not distract the message from landing that it lands. And people aren't wondering if you really believe it, if you become a great vessel for the message. But two, you breathe better, you think tighter, like, you will perform better and people will believe you better.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love that because everyone is looking at all the visual cues and so signaling that you believe it, that your conviction is high. So you want to align yourself physically with your message. And then you get all these beautiful biological payoffs.

[Frances Frey]

And by the way, it's also true online. So I encourage our listeners, the next time you go online into a zoom room, take a snapshot of the whole screen and then print it out and just go through and circle in green. The ones that you just the ones that strike you more. And you will find it's those with the chin up. Their eyes are up, they're straight. And then I'll say circle in red. You don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. The ones who would have a hard time convincing you of anything at the moment. And you will see posture matters online, too. Online, it's called the rule of thirds, very helpfully. Just means your eyes should be within the top third of whatever frame you're in. That's the equivalent of I'm sitting up, my shoulders are back, and my chin is up.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love this. I also think posture is one of those legacy habits that we are maybe that we are dragging around and maybe decades old. And for many people, I think, myself included, part of the shoulders down, head down habit is signaling deference. It's similar to upspeak. It's. There's nothing to see here, folks. I'm not a threat. I'm going to say something, but don't take it too seriously if you don't like it, you know, so committing. Committing to taking up space. Committing to taking up leadership space. It's part of it is the message you're sending, but also it's, it's the full body commitment to. I, I believe 100% in what I'm saying right now.

[Frances Frey]

And we will believe you more when you believe.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love it. Okay. All right, we're going to close this out on the topic of clothing.

[Frances Frey]

Oh, yes. So, I mean, so who among us should be the messenger for clothing if not me?

[Anne Morris]

Obviously, you're the right one for us to go to on this.

[Frances Frey]

Let's go to the expert first. But I actually do think I'm a pretty good messenger. On clothing, I wear the same word, Dr. Pry. I wear the same shirt every day. It's washed. I have stacks and stacks and stacks of the same shirt every day. Because I have found for me the best shirt and why I would ever wear a second best shirt. Makes no sense. If I found a better shirt, I would give away all of my existing ones and I would get new stacks of that one. Right. It's just how my brain works.

[Anne Morris]

But your gorgeous mind. And this is primarily an audio format until we figure out if you're wondering,

[Frances Frey]

folks, do I wear this every day everywhere else in the world? Indeed I do. But I do have a short sleeve version of it.

[Anne Morris]

If I get too hot, describe the shirt.

[Frances Frey]

Okay, so I have.

[Anne Morris]

For our listeners who aren't watching this conversation, who aren't just wrapped, I have

[Frances Frey]

the long sleeve version of the Izod cotton shirt. And it's always black.

[Anne Morris]

Lacoste, if you are listening.

[Frances Frey]

Oh, I don't. Maybe $40, maybe. Yeah, maybe you get it on sale less and you know you gotta replace them because the black, after a bunch of washes, it starts to look gray.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah.

[Frances Frey]

And so one is. It's the right weight, it's the right tone. It doesn't distract me, it doesn't distract the audience, I don't think. But here's what's important about clothing. Because if you ever look at the two of us, I'm always wearing the same thing. And it's always one color. You are always wearing a variety of things. And we're both doing it right. And this is the part I want to say that it isn't that you should follow my lead and optimize and it's not that we should follow your lead and have gorgeous variety. Instead, here's how I think about clothing. We want to solve for making ourselves comfortable, subject to the comfort of everyone else. Sequence matters. Make yourself comfortable first and then narrow the choice set to the set of things that would also be comfortable to others. So a horrible thing I have heard that has recently taken over is that people are starting to be barefoot in the office. They are solving for their own. Yes. Really, it's a thing. I think it's a thing with people coming back. It might be a small form of rebellion. And so the only thing I'm gonna say there that is solving for their comfort, but not subject to everyone else's comfort. And that's the visual, the disturbing Visual I will put in your mind. And so I'm comfortable by optimizing. You are comfortable by variety.

[Anne Morris]

Great.

[Frances Frey]

And then we just have to include the barefoot test. Include the subject to the comfort of others.

[Anne Morris]

Yeah, I love it. I think you are on one end of a spectrum. I'm using small S, but I'm sure it's informed by a big S here.

[Frances Frey]

Oh, well, I am proudly on many ends of the neurospicy spectrum.

[Anne Morris]

You have found your formula.

[Frances Frey]

I sure have.

[Anne Morris]

And you are going to use it in my experience, in almost all cases.

[Frances Frey]

Yeah.

[Anne Morris]

I'm probably on the other end of the spectrum in thinking about clothing as also an expression of where I am in that day and who I want to be in that moment. And so I have found that it is one of the things that helps me get into the zone for a high stakes communication moment. And if I, for me, if I had to look at the pattern, it is the most priest like garments that I have makes me feel the most effective and powerful up on a stage. So. And as you said, I'm solving for laughter, tears, like, I want to blow your mind. And in order for me to blow your mind, I have to feel like I have that kind of power. And I'm more likely to feel like I have that kind of power if I am wearing like a garment, capital

[Frances Frey]

G. You take us to church and you dress appropriately.

[Anne Morris]

I keep wearing the same ones because it's hard to find. Oh, it's hard to source 2026 without me violating the tenets of my profession, showing up as an imposter with some kind of collar. It's hard for me to actually find this stuff, so. So I'm looking. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

[Frances Frey]

Find a good garment store.

[Anne Morris]

Tell them you have to have it made. I have a lot of capes. I have a lot of misses in this category that look more like a character out of Harry Potter than a, you know, a speaker for your conference. Okay. So wear what makes you feel whatever you want to feel up there. Subject to the barefoot test.

[Frances Frey]

Yes.

[Anne Morris]

Which is an unfortunate visual. And people, please put your shoes back on, please. A quick psa. Okay, Frances, we're going to end it there.

[Frances Frey]

Great. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Your participation helps us make great episodes like this one. So please keep reaching out directly. If you want to figure out any questions about your workplace problem together. Send us a message. You can email, call, or text [e-mail] or 234 Fixable that's 234-349-2253.

[Anne Morris]

Fixable is a podcast from ted. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris and me, Francis Fry. This episode was produced by Rahima Nassa from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Chang, Daniela Baloraiso and Roxanne Hylash and our

[Frances Frey]

show was mixed by Louis at Storyyard.

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