Think Fast, Talk Smart: Communication Techniques

Episode 258 — When Power Talks, People Walk: Why Leaders Don’t Hear What Matters Most
Host: Matt Abrahams
Guest: Megan Reitz, Associate Fellow at the University of Oxford Business School and Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Dialogue at Holt International Business School
Date: January 26, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the ways power and positional authority disrupt open communication, especially in workplace settings. Matt and Megan discuss why people hold back from speaking out, how leaders often are oblivious to the silencing effects of their status, and practical strategies—centered on awareness, habit change, and mindful leadership—to break these patterns. Megan introduces her "TRUTH" framework, exploring what helps or hinders our willingness to speak up and listen up.

Key Discussion Points

The Impact of Conversational Habits

• Conversational Habits Defined:
  Megan highlights that we all have ingrained patterns influencing when we speak or stay silent, and who we listen to or ignore. In organizations, these habits shape success, ethics, innovation, and engagement.

  • “In organizational settings, conversational habits define organizational success and our capacity to flourish.” (03:02)

• Why Silence Happens:
  Megan urges listeners to reflect on issues they hesitate to speak up about, and consider why. Her research quantifies these factors, forming the basis of the TRUTH framework.

The TRUTH Framework (04:31)

• T – Trust: Confidence in the value of your (or others’) opinions.

• R – Risk: Fear of negative consequences and social or professional repercussions.

• U – Understanding (Power & Politics): Recognition of how politics and power influence what gets said and heard.

• T – Titles & Labels: Status determined by position, department, gender, seniority, reputation, etc.

• H – How To: Having the tools, timing, and skills to communicate or draw out others.

  “That’s the truth framework. We really use it to help people to understand why they do what they do and how to disrupt it if they need to.” — Megan Reitz (05:21)

Power, Status, and "Advantage Blindness"

• Labels Shape Voice: Titles and demographic labels (e.g. department, seniority, reputation, gender) constantly shift the power dynamics of who is heard.
• Advantage Blindness: Those with "the right labels" (higher status) rarely see how intimidating or silencing they are.
  • “When we have the… high status labels, we are actually very unlikely to notice the impact that they have on other people.” (07:51)
• The Optimism Bubble: Leaders overestimate how much openness and candor exists around them.

Cultivating Awareness and Breaking Power Traps

• Why Awareness Falters: Power most affects conversations, yet is the topic least openly discussed.
• Three Traps for Leaders:
  1. You’re More Intimidating Than You Realize:
     • “The problem with saying ‘my door is always open’ … is if you think anybody’s actually going to walk into your office and tell you what you need to hear.” (10:46)
     • Leaders must reduce risk and put others at ease.
  2. Echo Chambers:
     • We seek advice only from trusted (similar) voices, missing dissent or marginalized perspectives.
     • Leaders must ask, “Who am I not hearing from right now?”
  3. Shut Up Signals:
     • Nonverbal cues (e.g. “thinking face”, distraction) can stifle candor, especially if someone’s already anxious.
     • “The signals we send in the next couple of seconds determine whether that person’s going to speak up again.” (13:30)
     • Know your face; cultivate self-awareness and solicit feedback.

Practical Strategies for Habit Change

• Train Self-Awareness:
  • Use feedback from trusted others or even video recordings to detect how you show up.
  • “We can train our attention. We can train our levels of self-awareness.” (13:58)
• Mindful Leadership as a Pathway:
  • Mindfulness is focusing attention in the moment to break from autopilot reactions.
  • Habit change requires a “pause” to notice what you’re about to do and consciously choose an alternative.
  • “We know from our research… it is possible with practice to train our brain to be more aware in that present moment…” (15:37)
  • Training attention can stem from activities like martial arts, sports, or creative pursuits, and carries over to improved listening/presence in conversation.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Perils of Unconscious Intimidation:

  “If you are in a position of power… nobody’s going to tell you that you’ve got a thinking face because they’re too intimidated… you can just stay in this beautiful bubble without a clue.”
  — Megan Reitz (20:23)

• On Receiving Honest Feedback:

  “The person that really landed that feedback with me was my husband… I remember my husband just saying, honestly, it’s like a loudspeaker coming from you at the moment. Do you know how much you’re communicating?”
  — Megan Reitz (20:48)

• Practical Advice on Feedback and Grace:

  “Trusted others can give us this feedback and perhaps sometimes we have to solicit it… and give ourselves a little bit of grace that we’re not going to get it right every time.”
  — Matt Abrahams (21:46)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic/Quote | |----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:22 | Defining Conversational Habits and Their Impact | | 04:31 | Introduction of the TRUTH Framework and Overview | | 06:28 | Titles, Labels, and ‘Advantage Blindness’ in Organizations | | 09:56 | Breaking Illusions: Three Traps Leaders Fall Into | | 13:30 | Nonverbal ‘Shut Up Signals’ and Their Impact | | 15:18 | Mindful Leadership: Defining Mindfulness and its Application in Habit Change | | 20:23 | How Megan Discovered Her ‘Thinking Face’—the Value of Trusted Feedback | | 22:30 | Megan’s Most Admired Communicator: John Higgins and the Value of Mutual Attention | | 23:57 | Top Three Ingredients to Successful Communication (Curiosity, Power Awareness, Spaciousness) |

Actionable Insights

• Both leaders and team members need to recognize how their labels (status, expertise, department) unconsciously influence conversations.
• To break advantage blindness, leaders should actively seek dissenting perspectives, create genuine psychological safety, and welcome feedback about their own unintentional ‘shut up’ cues.
• Self-awareness is a skill that can be cultivated both through mindfulness and by seeking honest input from trusted others. This is key to intervening in unhelpful conversational habits.
• Mindfulness—far from being esoteric—simply means noticing your thoughts, feelings, and reactions in the moment, creating the freedom to choose a response rather than operating on autopilot.
• Building a culture where people feel genuinely invited to speak up is as much about what leaders signal and do not do as it is about what they say.

Three Ingredients for Successful Communication

(Megan Reitz’s recipe at 23:57)

1. Genuine Curiosity: Orienting yourself to truly value another’s perspective.
2. A Fascination with Power Dynamics: Understanding how status and authority shape every conversation.
3. Creating Space: Having the courage and intent to enable meaningful dialogue, even in busy or high-pressure environments.

Closing Reflection

Megan and Matt emphasize that being heard (and hearing others) is a habit—subject to training, reflection, and intention. Leaders are particularly prone to overlooking how their power shapes what’s said, so cultivating awareness, seeking direct feedback, and making adjustments with humility and curiosity are essential to fostering truly open, innovative, and ethical workplaces.

Notable Quote to Summarize the Episode:

“The very interesting thing is that we could argue that attention is the most valuable thing that we feasibly have and nearly all of us don’t train. How crazy is that, if you ask me?”
— Megan Reitz (17:10)

For more on the topic, check out Megan’s book “Speak Out, Listen Up,” and related episodes on psychological safety (ep. 132) and leadership (ep. 148) as referenced by Matt at the end.