← The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
The Brainy Business | Understanding the Psychology of Why People Buy | Behavioral Economics
561. Building Trust Through Vulnerability w/ Leslie John
00:40:57
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- [00:00]
Melina Palmer
Welcome to episode 561 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Dr. Leslie John, author of Revealing the Underrated Power of Oversharing. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:23]
Podcast Announcer
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast, where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [00:39]
Melina Palmer
Hello. Hello everyone.
- [00:40]
My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. When you hear the word oversharing, what comes to mind? A cringy social media post? That coworker who always tells you too much about their weekend? We've all been conditioned to think that the real risk is saying too much. But what if the bigger danger comes with saying too little? That is the provocative argument from today's guest, Dr. Leslie John, a behavioral scientist at Harvard Business School and the author of the new book the Underrated Power of Oversharing. Her research turns the typical advice on its head, showing that while oversharing might get the headlines, the real issue for most of us is undersharing and the missed opportunities that come with it. So often we hold back out of fear of embarrassment or rejection. But what Leslie has found is that thoughtfully revealing more than we think we should can actually build stronger connections, increase trust, and even improve decision making in work and life. As you listen today, I encourage you to consider where might you be holding back a little too much and what could shift if you shared just a little more really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com561. Now let's jump right in. Dr. Leslie John, welcome to the Brainy Business Podcast.
- [02:20]
Dr. Leslie John
Hi Melina, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
- [02:22]
Melina Palmer
Oh, absolutely. I am so excited to have you here to have our nice chat today. For everyone who doesn't yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [02:35]
Dr. Leslie John
Sure. I am a behavioral scientist. I work at Harvard Business School. I would call myself somewhat of a recovering privacy expert because I for many years, the first half of my career so far, I still studied people's decisions to share or not share. Largely online and largely documented in true Behavioral economics form, the errors that we make with our privacy, how we give marketers all this information without thinking about it and we sign things carte blanche privacy policies. And that's not wrong, but it's also, I think, very narrow and not right. And so over time, what I realized about my research was that the same single most consistent thing was how much people revealed to me how willing they were to be forthcoming. And that suggested to me, I don't think people are stupid. I think there must be something really right about what they're doing. Sure, we get make mistakes and we get tricked, but it led me to be really fascinated in the question of why do we reveal and what does it get us. So that's a little bit about me.
- [03:42]
Melina Palmer
Yeah. And so, you know, as you started kind of like digging into why do we reveal things, I, I do have ask knowing that I, you know, saw some of this in your book. But how much of that choice to like really dig in on that came down from that very first, you know, sort of prisoner's dilemma experience that you had on like first day? That's cool.
- [04:04]
Dr. Leslie John
A hundred percent. I mean, I am trained. I am a hardcore decision scientist, behavioral economics gal. It's like in all the, even in my DNA, I would say, because I come from a long line of very indecisive and very quirky decision makers. So I don't think it was, it was ever possible for me to not become a decision scientist. So yeah, it was very much in this what are the decision making errors that we make box.
- [04:33]
Melina Palmer
Yeah. And so I know you had mentioned, just for people that haven't read the book yet as far as. So you go in to school. Can you tell a little bit about that story?
- [04:41]
Dr. Leslie John
Yes, of course. So on my, it was the first week of grad school and of course I'm on my best behavior. We all. Intelligence competence is king in grad school. You want to send a signal that you're smart. And like most people, I had an imposter syndrome, but of course did not want to reveal that. And so I'm trying to impress people. And we had, in one of our first exercises, we did the new, there was only like six of us or so in this cohort. And the professor, who's a very famous professor, fancy professor of experimental, experimental economics, he comes in and he, he has us do this exercise and he smacks down 20 bucks on the table and he puts us into pairs and he said, everyone's going to make a decision in your pair on the count of Three, you're going to simultaneously reveal whether you decide to split or steal. And if you. If both people decide to split, then you each get 10 bucks. If one of you chooses steal and the other chooses split, the one who chooses steal gets all $20. And if both of you succumb to temptation, and he didn't say it like that. I'm dramatizing. And if both of you put. He actually said it in a very rigorous way, which was like, you know, you don't want to show your cards. If both of you put steel, then nobody gets anything. Burn it down. And this is, of course, a prisoner's dilemma, where if you both cooperate, you get a really good outcome, but there's always this temptation to defect because you can get the best outcome by betraying the other. And so the standard results in this paradigm is that the game essentially devolves into both people playing steel and nobody getting anything. But what I did, because I was like, peace and love, happiness coming in, and we're supposed to cooperate and love each other, and we're going to be a cohort and snuggly wuggly rapport. I decided to play split. And I, of course, was the only one that played split, because that is an error in the sense that you're supposed to do what the standard economics would predict in this case. And I did not do that. And so I basically revealed myself to be an idiot to the people I was most wanting to impress. And my partner was the only one who walked away with money. The whole $20. And that, of course, I ruminated about it. I was like, how do I come back from this? But in hindsight, you know, I'm glad I did that, because that's who I am. And I wanted to show a signal of welcomingness. And I ended up forging really strong relationships with my cohort. I don't know that that was the sole cause. Maybe they came, they befriended me in spite of it. Maybe they're like, she needs help. We need to be nice to her. But at any rate, hashtag, no regrets.
- [07:52]
Melina Palmer
Well, 100%, I. I would have also been. I would have gone split, which it's like, now everybody knows. I guess everyone should play Prisoner's Dilemma with us, because.
- [08:02]
Dr. Leslie John
Yeah, I know. No, but maybe we'll mix it up.
- [08:06]
Melina Palmer
Sometimes you don't know, it feels like friends, right? They're like, they don't know we know they know we know. That overthinking like you're talking about, which really ties in so much to this idea of Whether or not we should share information about ourselves. Right. I know that I personally have had so many times how often you have that, like some sort of conversation in your head of like, I know what I'm gonna say when I tell someone this story. And I think this might be what I would say when it comes down to it. But you just like wrestle with the idea of whether or not you should share something. And it could be anything from like what I ate for breakfast today to, you know, some big dramatic item that you know, and that's like personal work, what have you. And so we're going to definitely get into, you know, when to reveal things and like, how to decide whether or not we should and how people struggle with that before we get into that quandary that people find themselves in and kind of getting into how we can make those decisions. Yeah. Can you define a little bit? Because I know for like, we humans like the idea of sharing. Like, I know what that means. I know what it means to share or overshare under share to me. But academically, I'm guessing you have some, like, ideas of what it means to share information or, you know, aspects of yourself. So, like, how do you define, you know, some of these kind of key terms as we think about this idea of what to share?
- [09:49]
Dr. Leslie John
Yes. I think of this question of what to reveal and what to not reveal as a question of how much of myself, my thoughts and my feelings should I share. So it's revealing personal things. Yeah, it's quite simple, actually. I've tried to make it pared down and then over sharing would be sharing too much and under is sharing too little. But those are a little bit loose, admittedly, because, you know, we use the term oversharing. We, I think we need to use the term undersharing a lot more. It's part of the problem. We, we worry a lot about tmi. Too much information. That gut wrenching, oh, I said too much and that's valid. But we don't even have a term. Well, I just made one up. TLI too little information. That's the other side. But in fact, it's hard to be black and white about it. I don't think this is a black and white thing. Like, it's hard to say that was. That was over, that was under in a narrow sense. Because the reality is there's so many goals we're trying to pursue at once when we're thinking about revealing, you know, it could be, I want to become close to this person. I want to be heard I want to make a change. I want to motivate, I want to influence, I want to persuade. I want to have fun. You may have all those things at one time. And so that's part of what makes these decisions hard is you have multiple goals. They often conflict. And you also the vividness of the TMI when, you know, I talk about many in the book of my own, you're welcome. And so that's really vivid to us when we do cross that line. But even when we cross that line, there is often redemption, as I also discovered as I was writing the book.
- [11:38]
Melina Palmer
Right.
- [11:39]
Dr. Leslie John
Yeah.
- [11:39]
Melina Palmer
And so in that way, it would be nice to say, like, you know, if you share about money, like, that's over sharing, but, you know, like, whatever. There aren't necessarily categories because, like, where I might be very comfortable talking about money, but I'm not comfortable talking about health, and someone else loves talking about health, and I'm not. And so, like me, revealing something about my health could be feeling like it's getting into oversharing territory because it's uncomfortable for me. So that, like, how much does context, I guess, play into that?
- [12:14]
Dr. Leslie John
Yeah, great question. So context, in my view and experience, is at least half of the. What dictates what's going on here? Right? Like context. Think about it like sharing that, revealing that you have an STD in a doctor's office. I mean, it's hard. It's. It's. We feel shame either. There may be a lot of things associated with how we feel, but it's not weird. It's not oversharing. It's appropriate there. But in many, most other contexts, it would be inappropriate. So that's just the same thing can be vastly different, depending on who's in the room, what the goals are, what, how you're feeling, all of these things. But there are also things, this is quite intuitive, that generally are more sensitive than other things. But does that mean it's a overshare to share them? That's. I wouldn't make that blanket. And I know you're not saying that either, Melina, but we've done studies where we get people. So as part of my job for years and years, I have been asking people very sensitive questions. And so I run analyses on these questions every few years. I re. Recheck them and see how do people rate them in terms of how sensitive they are? Do the topics. Do the things that are sensitive change over time? They haven't really. And I've been doing this for almost 20 years now, and they're also. So the most sensitive things, the consistently most sensitive things are questions about sex. Right. Those are the most intimate, sensitive things, again and again, rated. Those ways Finances are second, are also sensitive. Not quite as sensitive as sex stuff. And these. The sensitivity is also quite consistent across cultures, too. So sex is sensitive here. Sex is sensitive in Japan. You know, it's. There are huge different contextual differences and norms, cultural norms, in what's appropriate, what's inappropriate and so on. But in terms of, like, what is. What is deep, what is sensitive. That. That's pretty intuitive, Effy.
- [14:18]
Melina Palmer
Definitely.
- [14:19]
Well, good to know. And I love, you know, that context matters. I'd love to transition and talk about this as it goes. Applies to work.
- [14:28]
Right.
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So as we think about sharing information at work, you know, for what are some initial things that you think are important? I have so many thoughts and questions for you, but how would you want to kick that off?
- [14:43]
Dr. Leslie John
So the workplace is a unique context, and that's a context where your perceived competence, your credibility matters a heck of a lot oftentimes. And so I think a lot of times people have the instinct of, oh, it's oversharing is way more dangerous at work. I wouldn't say that. I would say, just like in romance, just like in friendship, we have so many opportunities to share more and get more benefits. Of course, there are real dangers, unique dangers of sharing a lot. And we have to kind of juggle these dangers as we make these decisions. One way that I have found it helpful to think about this is to distinguish between transparency and vulnerability. So you can think of transparency as cognitive openness. So letting someone into your thought process describing how you think about things. Vulnerability, on the other hand, is more sensitive, a lot more sensitive. And that entails revealing sensitive thoughts and feelings. It's often feelings. Feelings tend to be more sensitive to talk about. And in general, if you want kind of a general rule of thumb, what I use, transparency is usually very safe, and it's lower, a lot lower risk. Vulnerability is higher risk, higher reward. So if you're getting into vulnerability territory, I think we have to be very, very mindful because, of course, once we reveal something, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. It's kind of. There's a finality to it. So that's one way that you may find it helpful to think. Think about these decisions.
- [16:41]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, well, and I know in the book you give some really great examples, like verbiage wise in what it looks like when it's being transparent versus vulnerable. And always love getting into some application. Can you share? You know, obviously they don't have to be exactly what it says in the book if you don't have those verbatim. But can you share?
- [17:00]
Dr. Leslie John
You mean I haven't memorized? Yes. So transparency is telling people about the process of how you think. So it would be saying something, for example, like, if you said it without transparency, you might say, I read your draft and it needs to be a lot tighter the writing. If you're being more transparent, you could say, as I was reading your draft, what I was thinking about was, what would the reader. How would the reader understand this? Because I'm acting as a reader and. Right. It's more verbose, clearly. But you're. You're kind of thinking through, like, hey, I'm. This is how I thought about it as I read it. I thought about it with. From the reader's perspective. And for me, that wasn't clear. So you're giving more kind of, you're lifting, you're going under the hood, and you're giving someone insight into your brain, how you processed it, your experience of reading it. And so does that help? Under. Does that help explain transparency? That was a very boring example, but.
- [18:02]
Melina Palmer
I don't think so. I love that example because one, that's a very clear thing that happens all the time, right. Where if you're giving that sort of feedback, and I think people do feel stress about giving feedback. I don't just think that. I know that 100. Not everyone and not all the time. Right. But.
- [18:22]
Dr. Leslie John
And we avoid it then, right? We under. Share tough things. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.
- [18:25]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, absolutely. And so then it may feel like, well, I just have to, like, give the quick, confident answer. Right? And to be able to say, you know, be more firm. Just like, what? Okay, thank you. I don't know what that means. Right? Like firm in what way? Like and. Right. I don't know what that is. Tighter writing is what, again, I know.
- [18:49]
Dr. Leslie John
Completely what is tighter writing mean? Like, I'm an alien. I'm an alien from outer space. Tell me, what is that? That's what I sometimes do to my colleagues. You know, we. We academics are not the best at speaking human.
- [19:01]
Melina Palmer
So and so to show that aspect, like you said, of that being transparent, right? To say, like, as I was reading it, I was thinking about this, right. Which is, I think, such a great prompt that anybody can use in most context to be able to have that, like, I'm a little more open. You feel like you know me a little bit. But it's not that you're saying. So if we were going to get into vulnerable territory, right. Would be like, oh, well, maybe that's like. While I was reading, I was, like, feeling very emotional because you used the word juxtaposition and that was my aunt's favorite word. And, like, I remembered when I was a child or like, something. Right. Is there a better example of actually, like, reasonable, vulnerable?
- [19:50]
Dr. Leslie John
I was. I was gonna. Where I was gonna go was I was gonna tease my doctoral advisor, who I love, of course, because he. I wouldn't be where I am without him. So now I get to tease him too, because I just said that, which is that. So for me, I. Like when I was right, when I was reading this, I was thinking back to when I was getting my PhD and how my advisor sat me. I was writing these drafts, and it was terrible. And he. And I was not getting better. And so he called me into his office, he sat me down in front of his computer, and he opened the document, and we went through the first paragraph, and he said, had me just about every single word.
- [20:30]
Melina Palmer
And that's.
- [20:30]
Dr. Leslie John
I hated it. Right. But. And it was. Yeah, it was like, very. It was very uncomfortable, the experience. But now I'm getting it. That. So that would be of all the vulnerability thing I was thinking about in the spirit of transparency and vulnerability. I. But that actually was a gift because it. It was a paradigm shift for me in thinking about writing it. It helped me have this outside view, get out of my own head in writing. And then once I real. I realized, oh, my gosh, this is so not clear. And it made me realize how much words matter. It's not blah, blah, blah, like, every single word. Yes, I'm a little neurotic about writing. He did instill that in me, but he. That was such a gift to me. And I do think that the point about feedback, it's so important the way we learn, really the only way to learn is to get feedback. It's so important. It really is a gift. It's cheesy to say, but it's such a gift, and yet we shy away from giving it. Understandably. But. But actually, a very close friend of mine, Allison Brooks, we ran a bunch of studies where we were trying to see what is. What is a good way to make the medicine go down, to give feedback. And we were actually a little bit. It was a little snarky, the project, because this idea of a feedback sandwich, that you should start with the positive, then put it in the middle, and then we're like that's so lame. And we were like, this isn't right. And so we did tests to see is there merit to the feedback sandwich. And what we kept finding was that there is merit. We're like, this is actually, this is actually quite effective. And the reason it's effective to start with the positive, it's disarming, right? Because it's so threatening. It's so threatening to get negative feedback. It activates like our reptilian brain. I think there's probably studies on that. But it's very threatening even to the most self assured people. And so getting something positive to start is just, it's disarming and you are less defensive. It's easier to give feedback that way. So I always start with effusiveness before I give feedback. And there's lots of ways of framing feedback to make it. There's lots of great science on this too, that's, that's being undertaken right now. But I digress. Oh, the other thing I wanted, can I say there was another thing I wanted to say about this idea of like, what does it mean to be transparent? And so we talked about how giving, opening, you can think of it as opening the hood on what's going on in your brain, your thinking processes. That's how thinking processes work like that. But there's also semantically, there's a colleague of mine, Dan Cable, at London Business School, he's done amazing work on this where he and his colleagues have looked at, they've audio recorded people in interviews, job interviews for example, and they've tried to analyze what does it sound like to be authentic, to sound real. And it turns out that people who are more real, who are more transparent, they have more glue words. And glue words are connecting words like and such as they like. It's these small connecting glue words that technically aren't required. So if you were to just write the most concise script ever, you wouldn't have as many of these glue words. And so having these glue words is what we naturally do in a conversation and you just become more real as opposed to. We all know the situation of where a candidate sounds canned. They sound like a script. The reason they sound that way is because they probably have memorized a script because you can tell it doesn't have the glue words. So literally authenticity sounds different.
- [24:19]
Melina Palmer
Hmm, that's perfect. Actually, I was gonna ask you about job interviews. That was the, the next question that I had. So it's like perfect timing and so you do have more, you know, good tips and Applicable advice here. So as we think about, we talked a little bit about wanting to come off as confident. You're trying to convince the people that they should hire you. Right. And you wanna be your best self, which of course makes you extra stressed. And you're so worried, like focusing illusion everywhere. As far as like, did I blink? Is there something on my shirt? Like, oh, I can't believe I did that.
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Right.
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And we're so worried about saying something. So how do we know that like sweet spot of what to share or not share when it comes to a job interview.
- [25:08]
Dr. Leslie John
Great. So again, I would go to transparency. I think you want to do that. It even lends credence to what you're saying. It's more credible, right. When you say the thought process, it's more believable, it's more real and not, not being out script. So one thing to do if you're, if you are preparing for an interview, which I'm always, you gotta prepare, I would not recommend writing out answers to questions. What I would recommend is obviously think about the questions, think about the toughest questions. You always want to try to think, what is my most dreaded question I could be asked? And spend five minutes in your pajamas when you're comfortable thinking about possible answers and write down bullet point. So you don't want to write a script because then you're going to feel like it's a script and then in the interview you're going to sound scripted. And then if you go off script, if like, if you can't think of the next word, that's a big, it's a nightmare. So you want to just focus on the, the idea, the content of what you want to say. And, and that's how I would recommend that. Um, the other thing. So the big question of what to say, what to share, when to not share, what to reveal and what to not reveal. This is a high stakes situation, an interview. It's a very competitive situation, it's evaluative. So this is a situation where we need to be quite careful about what we reveal. But even still, studies have shown that revealing a little bit more than you think you should or that you might be inclined to or narrowly can get you a lot of good in this situation. So for example, more Dan Cable's research where they found that when interviewees were more authentic. So for example did all those things we've already talked about, but also even said some vulnerable stuff like answering the question what are your weaknesses? With a somewhat real, real weakness instead of the I Work too hard. Something that is, you know, sometimes time management is a bit of an issue for me and I'm, I'm really aware of it and I'm, I'm, I've got some great coaching on it, right? So saying something like that, like a real weakness, I don't know that I would say it exactly the way I just said it, but something that is real and framing it as you're self aware and, and you are you, like you've sought, you're, you're, you're on it, right, that sends so many positive signals. And so it can actually be a virtue. It also makes you more likable, more real. It can even make you come across as more competent because the person who is actually willing to say something real is more confident, they're more competent, they've got things under control. What they have found in these studies is that if you are someone who is a qualified candidate for the job, when you are a little real like this, you actually are more likely to get the job and you are more likely to match in a job that is a good fit for you. Which also makes sense when you think about it, because when you think like, you're also interviewing them and so you want to see how do they respond to you and they're seeing if you're a fit. So if you let them see a little bit of you, then it really helps, helps make that match. I will share a story of my own, which is to wit, so when I learned about dance research, I immediately went back to this scenario that happened to me, which was I was in a job interview, I was a baby academic for a very fancy university and I was sitting in the room in the first round interview in a hotel suite at a conference and bunch of faculty there interviewing me. I walk in, I'm super nervous. And one of the faculty members there said, he looked at my CV and he said, oh, you used to be a ballet dancer? And he said I was too. And I should say that he is a. He is not. He doesn't have a ballet dancer's physique. And in that moment, what I did was I. With one word, one word. I felt like my job prospects had gone poof with one word, one unfiltered blurt, because when I'm nervous, I tend to blurt things out. So he said I was a dancer and what I did was I impulsively looked him up and down and I cocked my head and I said clearly, like in this super sassy sarcastic tone. And I'm like, oh, my God, my face turned. It's like I poured gasoline on me and I lit a match. Like, there it goes, gone. Oh, my gosh. But the crazy thing is that I got the job and it was at Harvard. And, and, and the guy I insulted, he is a beloved. He just retired and he, you know, he was such a close mentor and he loved telling that story to new candidates. He'd say, you know, when she said that, we thought, she's a jerk too. She'll fit right in here. And. And what he meant was like, you know, it takes. You have to project confidence even when you don't feel so confident to succeed in the classroom here. And so I think he was tapping into that kind of. The sass can be very helpful. And I do have some sass. I just try to set. Use it in a respect. Like I try not to sass people that I'm trying to impress.
- [30:34]
Melina Palmer
Have hire you.
- [30:35]
Dr. Leslie John
But. But then I read Dan's research and I thought, oh, wow, that's. There maybe is redemption in that. Maybe that is partly why I got the job.
- [30:43]
Melina Palmer
Yeah, I love that. And it was such a fun story to read in the book too. So as we go to close out, which I hate this idea, but as we're getting, you know, close to the end of our time, when we think about again with this at work and if it's going to be. So we've talked the interview. Right. But as we think about revealing, I think there's a bit about thinking about power dynamics. Right. So is there anything different to keep in mind of like employee sharing up versus managers sharing down and like across team members? You know, things to keep in mind there.
- [31:18]
Dr. Leslie John
Great question. So, of course we have a status hierarchy in the world. I was listening to Toby's interview recently and of course, in the workplace, it's often very hierarchical and very salient. What I would say is, so, yes, this is a very important variable. And the way I think about it, as when you move up the status totem pole in the workplace, you gain competence, credibility. You have a bank of credibility that increases. And so if you reveal something that may be a little bit undermining, strictly speaking, in a narrow sense of your competence, like sometimes I get nervous public speaking that that's like a grain of salt. It's a drop in the bucket. It does not decrease your perceived competence because you've got so much already. And the benefit is that when you. We've done many studies with leaders in firms when they reveal a little more than they Think they should like a mild weakness like that. It makes their employees more motivated to work for them, more trusting of them. In fact, there's even research by Constantine Kuda Faris and Adam Grant. The Adam Grant at Wharton, where what they did was they. They assessed different ways that leaders could ask for feedback. Ding, ding, ding. There's that magical thing again. Right? We need feedback. We need honest feedback to get better. But leaders have a hard time getting honest feedback to in the 360 review from their employees. Right. Because the boss can't handle it is what we all think. And a lot of times we're right. But I digress. So the tricky thing is, as a leader, how do you get this input and oftentimes what the leader, the instinct is just to say, I can take it. Please tell me your honest thoughts. To kind of implore and assure. And what Adam and Konstantin did is they randomized leaders to either do that the Sandra thing or elicit feedback by saying, hey, I'm aware that one of the things I'm not so great at is time management. And I'm working on it. When they model that they can take, when they show they can take it by revealing something, that is what makes people comfortable giving their honest feedback, which in turn is a virtuous cycle. Right. Because then they, the leaders can become even more competent because they have that feedback.
- [33:35]
Melina Palmer
Oh, yeah, definitely. And at the risk of confusing more to the audience, in this case of the idea of a vulnerability loop, which I was thinking about a lot in the book, but because you're defining vulnerability and transparency differently. But like, I want to make sure that we know. So like, I was thinking about vulnerability loops so much while I was listening or reading the book, and then I think I have a whole episode on vulnerability loops because I love them. And then getting like team, your team to buy in is so important. Whether it's like, as a leader, like, I think behavioral economics, when it comes to the business aspect of using this in a company, you need to get people to buy in on your ideas. Right. That influence matters so much. And opening that vulnerability loop is such a great way to build that trust, make that happen. I would say, based on what you're talking about here, like, you may open the vulnerability loop by being vulnerable. You may also open up a vulnerability loop with some transparency. Like, would you agree?
- [34:37]
Dr. Leslie John
Yes, for sure. And. And it's the kind of thing that it's, you know, you may want to start with transparency.
- [34:45]
Melina Palmer
Yeah.
- [34:45]
Dr. Leslie John
Because it's safer. See how it goes, experiment. And that's part of this is, is these decisions. It's, it's a, it's a skill. We can learn it. We can. And what we need to do to learn it and get better though is practice. So we're going to make mistakes. We should keep, keep experimenting, do little mini experiments with yourself. Try transparency. If it's not really. If you think people, they're reacting well to it, but they're hungry for more, then give them a little bit of vulnerability.
- [35:13]
Melina Palmer
Right. And I think the key with that vulnerability loop idea too is just being willing, especially I think when you're the leader to go first right where it feels a little bit off. And if it is with a group of peers, like anybody can kind of be the one to do the thing first. Right. But if you don't model that by starting to give better feedback. Right. Where instead of just saying make that writing tighter, you say like, while I was reading, I thought, right. I love that as such an exam. An easy example. Like when you, when you are presenting. Like I was wondering about. Right though just like some easy prompts that we can.
- [35:51]
Dr. Leslie John
Yeah.
- [35:51]
Melina Palmer
Like, and, and like you said even to say, I know I've always struggled with finding that right word to like open up a presentation. I worked on that by doing this. Like, is there anything else that you noticed in my presentation?
- [36:07]
Dr. Leslie John
This is great because a hundred percent what you're saying, plus yes. And pairing it with question asking. We do not ask nearly enough questions. And when you. Yeah, yeah, right. And I know you've talked about this too. Questions are so important. They do so much for us. They, of course we learn more. That's maybe the most obvious thing about them. But they build rapport. People like. There have been amazing studies by Alison Brooks, one of my besties, again, where like they randomize people to ask more questions or fewer questions. The more questions you ask, the more liked you are. The more questions salespeople ask in a sales core, the more likely they are to close the sale. Which is. Blows my mind because when you think about sales, we often think of like persuade, persuade. And no, it's about ask, ask, ask, learn, learn, learn. Let them do the talking. And so pairing a little bit of vulnerability with. And how do you experience that or how do you feel about that? Even that can, that can really be a great one, two punch.
- [37:12]
Melina Palmer
I love it.
- [37:13]
And such a wonderful point. I guess that we can kind of close up on here knowing, um, I could talk to you for 150 years and still have more thoughts and questions and things uh, so as we do close out this conversation here today, any, you know, last thoughts you have as well as for everyone who I know is so excited now to learn more, get their copy of Revealing, follow you all the things.
- [37:37]
Dr. Leslie John
Yay.
- [37:38]
Melina Palmer
Where, where's the best place for them to go to do that?
- [37:41]
Dr. Leslie John
Um, yeah, they can go to my website, Prof. Lesliejohn.com I guess on LinkedIn too. Yeah, I have to rehearse this more. LinkedIn Prof. Leslie John Perfect.
- [37:55]
Melina Palmer
And we will of course have links in the show notes for everyone to make it easy so they can go and check that out and move forward with a life where they are more likely to overshare and avoid that risk of undersharing. There was one quote that I had seen and something you had written that I really liked saying that we live in fear of saying too much, but it's usually saying too little that costs us the most.
- [38:21]
Such a great point.
- [38:23]
So we end with a thought from you said by me, which I'm sure doesn't have the same impact, but it really resonated with me. So thank you again, Leslie for joining me on the show. It was really delightful to share and learn from you today.
- [38:36]
Dr. Leslie John
Thanks so much.
- [38:38]
Melina Palmer
Thank you again to Dr. Leslie John for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today's conversation? For me, I loved hearing that most of us are not sharing enough. It's so easy to worry about saying too much and being accused of TMI that we overlook how powerful it can be to be a little more open. As Leslie shared, TLI or too little information is real and can actually be an even more dangerous problem. Whether you're a leader, a team member, or someone navigating a job interview, this insight matters. People can't connect with you or trust you if they don't know you. And as Leslie's research shows, disclosure builds warmth and trust, especially when leaders go first. That openness creates the psychological safety teams need to thrive, which is one of the most essential ingredients for getting buy in and leading effective changes. If you want to learn more about that, I recommend checking out my book, what your employees need and can't tell you. And as we close out the show, here's my question for you. What's something you've been holding back that might actually be worth revealing? Start by sharing it with me on social media. You'll find us as the brainy biz pretty much everywhere. And you'll find me as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, as well as links to my top related past episodes and videos, books, including revealing ways to get in touch and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and atthebrainybusiness.com 561 and thank you again to Dr. Leslie John for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't you don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.
- [40:37]
Podcast Announcer
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops, and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.