TED Talkin’: Why simple messaging is stronger, with Niro Sivanathan

Mikey: [00:00:00] Like sharpened knives through chicken McNuggets, welcome back to presentation thinking, a. k. a. the storyteller's study club, side effects, maybe better presentations, more influential communication, dry mouth, itchy feet, constipation, vertigo, insomnia, uncontrollable body shaking, and maybe a positive attitude, Molly Gagan, straight out of Inglewood, Colorado.

How's it going?

Molly: Pretty good. I'm, we've got a lot to consider here with those factors you listed. But. I can't wait to share with listeners why we're listing possible side effects. Presentation Nation, if you're just tuning in for the first time, Mikey and I love presenting. We love [00:01:00] speakers. We love great storytelling.

And something we do every few episodes is take a TED Talk that we love or that we watch and just examine what goes well about it, what the person's timing is like, what their storytelling skills are like, and it's very helpful to both learn from. And get inspired by it. So we're doing that today. If you're excited about this, keep on listening.

If you're at all interested in the influences and factors of decision making, human psychology in, you know, whether it's shopping or making a decision about anything, weighing different arguments. Um, we're talking about a very cool talk today. We are. We're TED

Mikey: talking. We're dissecting. Like, one of the most presentation thinkiest, uh, little compact nuggets of a TED Talk.

10 minutes, maybe 45 seconds worth of gold. I loved this one. I think we just stumbled onto it, Molly, but for those of you [00:02:00] listening, if you want to tune in and tune along, we'll give you 10 minutes and 45 seconds. If they can go Google the counterintuitive way to be more persuasive by Nero Shivanathan, S I V A N A T H A N.

This one is pretty sweet. It was at a TEDx London Business School. Is that right, Molly? I don't remember seeing the day. When did this occur?

Molly: This was a May 2019, Mikey. So we've got pre COVID. No one's traumatized by that yet. And it seems to be a small gathering, but cool, cool setup. And. Our guy Nero here is an organizational psychologist is his professorial title.

He has amazing research on how people truly make judgments and decisions based on human behavior. It's a bit of psychology. His work's been featured in tons of press, both scientific journals and business journals as well. And it's a really cool take on, yeah, how to be More [00:03:00] influential with your arguments.

So if you're a speaker of any kind or creating presentations to push people anyway, sales decks, product launches, his talk is really helpful. Again, you don't have to Google actually, you can go ahead and click the show notes, the counterintuitive Mikey. Yeah. Super easy. The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive.

Go check it out.

Mikey: And we're back. Thanks editor. Will Molly, let's break this bad boy open. I was a huge fan. I think one of the three classic Ted. Intro hooks to getting into a Ted talk. There's the, there's the question. There's the, what's the other one? Like sort of like just a quick little story. I like this one.

Imagine you're on a shopping trip. So paints a picture, paints a picture, puts you in the story. Right. And which is a wonderful. Presentation tactic.

Molly: So his opening line goes, yeah, imagine you're on a shopping trip and you're looking for luxury dinnerware. I was like, I don't know if I relate to this, but, but, [00:04:00] you know, I just got some plates hanging around, but, but, but it's a good exercise in introducing his decision making process.

And the options are, you know, you get to this option to buy a perfect 24 piece dinnerware set Everything's intact, it looks really nice, and it's exactly what you want. Then, you also see a 40 piece set. Unfortunately, there's, you know, seven saucers that are broken, and two cups that are also broken. So instead of the 40 piece set, you're missing kind of nine good pieces, and, you know, you'd get everything you got in the first one, but you've got this broken stuff.

But Molly,

Mikey: wait, wait, in case I'm math challenged, the first set is, it's like brand new, 24 pieces,

Molly: 24 good pieces,

Mikey: eight dinner plates, eight soup bowls, eight salad bowls, right? Yep,

Molly: yep. And the other one has the

Mikey: same exact perfect condition, eight, 24 pieces, but then. What, like seven more perfectly fine pieces, but a few, and then eight, like, or [00:05:00] nine broken pieces.

Molly: Yes, exactly. So you've got more good stuff and some bad stuff that you probably just have to get rid of.

Mikey: Yeah, yeah.

Molly: And the exercise with this is presented by some researcher. I forget, of course, the name.

Mikey: Christopher C. Thank you. From the University of Chicago. Yeah.

Molly: Perfect. Yeah. Christopher C. from the University of Chicago.

And Nero tells us that he asks students in his class how much they would spend on each of these. And I think he asks, Mike, you don't, it's before, you know, the second option that you're asked, how much would you spend on this first perfect set of dinnerware? And the average person says, this is crazy. 390 pounds, UK, UK pounds.

You guys, that is a big, big ticket.

Mikey: Almost 400 bucks for a brand new, like set of luxury dinnerware.

Molly: Couldn't be me, but. But, and then when asked how much you would spend on the second set, people say 192, which is almost half of what you would pay, even though you're getting more good pieces and you know, everything you would get in that first set.

He shows, [00:06:00] he proves that this is called the dilution effect. Because the broken pieces affect your overall perceived value of the broken, the set. Mikey, I told you, I was a little skeptical about this. I was like, I don't know. I think, you know, I think I could see through that, maybe. But this is just one example of many that he goes through where he says, quote, their message was sound, but the delivery proof faulty.

And this is a good cognitive bias tool to recognize about how we can all be more persuasive and influential. And And that first exercise takes about two or three minutes before his, you know, second exercise he brings in. He continues to show how this shows up in ways where we make decisions based on perceived value and how things get diluted when there's too much going on.

So what's, what's next, Mikey?

Mikey: Yeah. So like blemishes, tiny little blemishes can impact the greater perceived value of an entire Set. And yeah, I did like how he kind of spun it then. Cause at first I was like, where's he going with [00:07:00] this? And then I do like how he, he does kind of spin us into seeing this as applicable to our day to day lives and the importance of like, of speaking and sharing our ideas and that, that dilution effect can actually occur and often does with our, with our speaking.

Like, because like, yeah. He'll get into it later. The big idea here that I think you and I saw eventually come out is like a quantity versus quantity kind of play, but, but yeah, where he goes next, he says, let's exit the aisles of the shopping center and enter a context in which we practice almost automatically every day.

The judgment of others. Yeah, which was pretty funny. So then, yeah. So I think, you know, given Dr. S is a, he's a professor, he had these like really cool slides by the way, like he had the visuals of the plates up, which I liked.

Molly: Yeah, nice style. And then he has this

Mikey: like really simple slide with, um, two profiles, a guy named Tim and a guy named Tom.

And on the left [00:08:00] below Tim's, you know, sort of avatar, it just says, studies 31 hours a week outside of class. And on the right side under Tom, it says studies 31 hours. A week outside of class, has a brother and two sisters, often visits grandparents, went once on a blind date, shoots pool once every two months.

And it's kind of funny. So then he, I guess they gave that slide or those descriptions to participants in a study who were asked to evaluate. Like whether Tim or Tom has a higher GPA and Molly, like, I guess out of context, like, did you, did you, does your mind go anywhere with these two dudes?

Molly: Yeah, I didn't really quite, I mean, yeah, with the same number of hours that they spend outside of class, 31 hours, they spend studying outside of class.

For both of them, I was like, well, how are you supposed to make that decision? But when forced to make a decision, the average person, people will rate the person with less information, that less activities and all the extra fluff [00:09:00] around Tom, who had like the blind date, the brothers and sisters, kind of the hobbies listed.

With the higher GPA and that's because of this phenomenon with the dilution effect because there's so much muddying the message of what Tom actually does with his spare time that you don't see exactly what you're being asked. The diagnostic information is what Nero describes it as. It's information of relevance.

Like GPA is how much time they spend studying. Even though it's the same, the non diagnostic information, the one, the information that is irrelevant or inconsequential to what that person is being asked is diluting the ask. And so people are like, if you really had to skim and if you were forced, the average person will pick Tim, the one with just the information about the study time.

Mikey: Yeah, that's crazy.

Molly: Yeah, and I don't know what I would have picked if forced to do it. I was probably, I don't know if I would have been random or maybe been like the average person. Yeah. And just said, yeah, maybe it's just him because Tom is [00:10:00] clearly too busy to maybe be taking in all the study time. I don't know.

But this diagnostic versus non diagnostic information is important to categorize when creating a message or a story or a presentation. Ding, ding, ding. Because all of that stuff, when you're first presenting it to someone, Who may or may not be familiar with your market, your industry, your whatever, your, your background.

I love that irrelevant, inconsequential information. Will. Dilute your message if it doesn't matter to the audience. And if it doesn't matter to the through line or the commander's intent, we sometimes say, yeah, this has a lot

Mikey: to do. I like that made to stick has a lot

Molly: to do with sticky messaging. So this is when it started to come out for me.

I told you I didn't relate to the dish thing, but I do relate to this. And I start to see that. Yeah. What Nira was trying to say is. Less is more kind of right. Like when you want a strong argument, it's better to just have one strong argument instead of a strong argument. [00:11:00] Plus a couple of weak arguments.

Mikey: Exactly. Weak arguments reduce the weight of the overall argument. Yeah. And then I like how he flipped it again. Another good story he tells here about, you know, a trip he took, uh, across the pond to Philly from London for a conference. And he was like, trying to shake off the jet lag, turns on the TV. And see something that we've all seen before, which was a pharmaceutical ad, and he thought it was almost just kind of like calls out almost the ridiculousness of, you know, toward the end of those commercials where they do rattle off those side effects, but he's displaying how the dilution effect can be actually implemented to actually reduce our, our hang up on the really more important sides, like things being listed off.

So. When we say, like, side effects may include uncontrollable shaking of a body part and mental problems with attention and stop versus side effects may include dry [00:12:00] mouth of throat, headache, uncontrollable shaking of the body and mental problems, like, so when they add in some of those, like, um, less concerning ones.

Studies show that people are less concerned with the drug or the side effects. So

Molly: yeah,

Mikey: you can see how it's used either way.

Molly: Yeah. Something like itchy feet following a heart attack and stroke. Really brings down that risk assessment. You're like, Oh, okay. It's probably not that big of a deal, but just to have heart attack and stroke, you're like, okay, I might seriously consider, I might have to talk to my doctor before I go get this, you know, or something.

Yeah. And as Mikey was listing the possible side effects of listening to our podcast, you know, better presenting skills and hopefully just higher cognitive ability. Maybe some, I don't know, restless leg if you're sitting down, but what, what's the risk assessment there is like, the more you list, the more diluted it gets.

And I think this is obviously an interesting example, because of course, with the FDA, you have to list all these things, [00:13:00] like there's no, they don't get a lot of choice in that messaging, whereas marketers do, marketers and presenters really do.

Music: But

Molly: it's interesting that it might help them sell the drug more in that, like, all of them listed becomes less.

Mikey: Oh, totally. You kind of bury the, bury the lead.

Molly: Exactly. And often you'll hear death, like, in those side effects, Mikey, and, but then if you hear death next to itchy feet, you're like, oh, it's, it's probably, I'm feeling like, I might have a runny nose or something. Yeah, exactly. And they did a couple, he had another study he listed where like individuals exposed to both the major and minor side effects were always, always less intimidated by the risk assessment and said they would take the drug versus the individuals exposed to only major side effects.

Yeah. So like when you list them all, they become less potent. And that brings him to his like big final thesis with like, yeah, what some of the few words on the slide says, real big red letters. Quality trumps quantity. This is at like nine and a half minutes in. He only has one more minute at the talk, but this [00:14:00] is really what he's been saying with the dilution effect the whole time to be more persuasive.

You need to just have less. And Mike, you said something good before we pressed record. What's the proverb around sales? Oh, yeah.

Mikey: I guess as soon as you hear the yes, like just shut up basically, right?

Molly: If you hear yes, stop talking.

Mikey: Yeah. And I think we, we've heard that in, you know, the creative services realm too.

If the client's like, great, I love it. You know, we, uh, gurus have told us like designers can keep going. They're like, Oh, well, if you notice, like we current this, we check this in and this is. Like this is such and such font and we, we chose this hex value for the color and then soon, pretty soon, if you keep going now, you're like diluting the greatness that you just presented, which was that holistic big idea.

So yeah, again, stick to the condensed, the super potent core of your argument. And you don't need to layer on and I think this is, I'm fabulously guilty of this is like adding way too much to my [00:15:00] presentations because I would, I'm like, you know, I think I want to, while I've got everybody, oh, and by the way, this, this, that, but what it sounds like is anybody trying to communicate for the purposes of influence, yeah, to strengthen your case, don't keep piling shit on basically.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely. I am. One of the most rambly people I've met, and it's always a work in progress throughout this podcast, throughout my life to just say less, do less with more. And, um, it is not always the case, I guess, but in persuading someone to buy something in making impactful messaging, adding stuff to your case can actually weaken your argument.

And I mean, even with like writing, with blog posts and SEO, basic principles, Mikey, like we have to choose. One key takeaway, a couple, like, you know, it's like the top three things to remember the top five things to do here. When starting a presentation, like you don't list 20 things, you list just a [00:16:00] few so that people can remember it.

And certainly, certainly when we've talked about creating presentations and getting that core messaging down, we talk about one key takeaway. What's the one thing you want the audience to remember? When we talk to presenters and we think about like creating impactful presentations at Ghost Ranch.

Mikey: So it maps so well to what Dr.

Carmen Simon says that people are going to forget 99 percent of what you told them. Yeah, distill, distill, distill, go for the poetry, not the novel, you know, like cut it down. And it doesn't point to your commander's intent, no star concept. If it doesn't, probably consider leaving it for another time.

Molly: And I loved this last closing kind of quote Nero says at the end before we get into his like breakdown.

Yeah. Storytelling and visuals. He says that the delivery of your message is every bit as important as its content stick to your strong arguments because they don't Add up they average out to the listener So instead of adding like more more more more more [00:17:00] and you have a ton of bullet bullet points to add here like perfectly curated Argument, they're not gonna add up for listeners.

They're actually just gonna average out So even if so, if they're not all super strong Then it's not gonna hit as well as if you had just a few two or three You Strong pieces. It's also kind of points to some death by PowerPoint principles and not adding too much to slides and just having enough so that people can digest it as well.

Mikey: Yeah. Molly, let's break open the transcript analyzer 3000.

Molly: Love it. So this one,

Mikey: 10 minutes, 45 seconds. Gosh, we love a nice focused Ted talk. Molly, like we just tried this out in Utah at our story camp retreat. We

Molly: sure did

Mikey: asking several other and chose to do like a 8 to 12 minute talk and it is such a good length.

It's really hard to add too much. You have to really whittle, whittle down and focus on one singular idea. And I think Dr Nero did that so well. Anyway, like, I think he walked the walk [00:18:00] really well, Molly, because his. In that 10 minutes, 45 seconds, only 1390 words. So just under 1400 words,

Music: just

Mikey: that's under 130 words per minute, which is really like on the low, it's one of the slower deliveries we've ever seen.

It's methodical and so intentional. And like, isn't that the point of what he's saying?

Molly: Yeah, absolutely. The whole thesis is quality Trump's quantity. So he's doesn't even fill that full like 18 minutes head talk time that we sometimes see. He has minimal visuals, for sure. I want to talk about the visuals, but good ones.

When they show up, they're really powerful. And the words on them are obviously minimal. The visuals are truly just there to support what he's saying. And even though his pacing is so slow, he's very compelling and he's very, you know, measured and you're still like, he tells like, even though these are such simple anecdotes and stories and examples, he, he tells them in such a compelling way with his pacing that it, you're, you're hanging on, [00:19:00] you're, I'm, I'm, I'm listening, you know?

He's a commanding presence. I would say.

Mikey: Yeah.

Molly: Practice is what he

Mikey: preaches. And his, as far as like the keyword density, you know, so like there again, he doesn't overly repeat certain words too much, like quantity to dilution, dilute to cognitive three influence, influential three times. Average five, I guess dilute dilution would have been like seven.

So that's probably the second highest. And then effect or effects was 16. So I think that's kind of interesting too, because it gets to the nature that there's a causality, you know, like sort of what you put in there's, there's inputs and then there's outputs. And so like, are the, is the script is the message is the content and the delivery.

There, because like what comes out of that is the effect on your audience. And that's what this is all about. Like we're speaking and we're trying to make presentations that have an effect on people and we want to control that effect to the best of our ability. Right. With, [00:20:00] with better inputs.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely.

I think the key takeaway is really what I would walk away from this Mikey with is like, I'd be thinking about dilution effect, maybe the phrase, like. Quality trumps quantity and how can I implement that and whatever. So these are, these are really simple. They're not totally brand new concepts for people.

Maybe the dilution effect is. And so it's like, that's what I would remember from him, but I wouldn't necessarily need like a full phrase or like keyword with it. So it's interesting that he has, because we often hear repetition is super important. So it's interesting his is a little bit less so, but it also supports his thesis of like less is more.

Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. Cool. I like it. And, and again, the title of this, Mikey, sometimes the TED talk titles don't quite fit. Match the exact keywords, right? We've talked about this before. The title is the counterintuitive way to be more persuasive. Counterintuitive because normally people are like, Oh, you got to say a lot to convince someone, maybe.

And he doesn't really use the word persuasive that much, not once even. And so it's interesting. He says influential, impactful, maybe [00:21:00] powerful, but there's not persuasive, but that's just an interesting, you know, I wonder. Who titles the TED Talks? I'm not sure if that is it. Is it Nero or is it someone else later on?

But, um, but very interesting and still a very clicky headline, though. The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive. Sure. I'd love to know. Here's the dilution effect. Fact, effect, fact, brain decision making, you know, cognitive. That's probably, probably how

Mikey: the pathway goes. And a couple million views, you know, on the website, Dr.

Nero, holy smokes, really smart.

Music: And

Mikey: I like his delivery. We can talk about content delivery and visuals. I think Molly, like as far as his delivery, I felt like it was very, um, almost like a academic, like I said, like methodical, like he's bringing us along and almost like, because it is like some of those case studies he was talking about.

You know, I had to like wrap my head around, there's 24 here, there's 40 here. And so I think I appreciated the time to think and like that he was [00:22:00] almost sort of like lecture mode. But, you know, because he works with students all the time, I think he knows, he knows the cadence at which to best deliver this stuff.

Molly: Yeah, totally. I think his, um, yeah, you can tell he's a professor, like his professorial. stance and cadence was so, so calm and he wasn't overly emotive about any of this, uh, which I thought was interesting and, but it was very still captivating. So

Mikey: it's still a couple of laughs, right? Molly, like a nice dry British humor.

Molly: Yeah, totally. Yeah. Especially like kind of making fun of the FDA drug side effects, like something very relevant that we all can relate to and know about where you're like, you know what I'm about to say with these side effects. And Especially delivered in his scientific way. It was almost kind of funny to hear.

So yeah, the delivery I thought was really, really strong. What do you think about storytelling?

Mikey: Oh, it's great. Yeah. I think he employed a lot of the sort of like Chip and Dan Heath made to stick kind of stuff, like the concrete visuals in your head, even the transitions to set up like framing, you [00:23:00] know, the story helped you.

Oh, so I like, I took a trip and, uh, or like, like, let's leave the aisles of the grocery store and, you know, blah, blah, blah. I think, um, Yeah, even the Tim and Tom, like just, um, everything seemed to be like each section sort of had a story to ground it.

Molly: Yeah, absolutely. And the visuals as well, I mentioned this earlier, but just minimal, less is more, but impactful, supported what he was saying without too much text.

They were all kind of branded in this nice, similar, Use the Ted red and some gray and black and

Music: really simple

Molly: and strong. Yeah. So I thought those were, yeah, just enough, you know,

Mikey: which gosh, makes me kind of want to break into the spice cabinet.

Molly: Yeah, exactly. That's what I was thinking. Nero, we really enjoyed your talk.

We'll be linking this in the spice cabinet. We'll link his site. You can see some of the like places he's been featured. I'm sure he's on a few other podcasts, so hopefully we can have you on Mikey. What do you think? I finally have an idea.

Music: Yeah. [00:24:00] What

Molly: do you think Nero's walkout song was with this? The stoic guy.

Mikey: Doctor, if you do ever listen, we'd love to know your walkout music. We have a few ideas. So my first one was Alison Krauss. When you say nothing at all.

Molly: Oh, that's beautiful.

Mikey: Now the lovely. The more expletive version of that, I would say, Cake. Nugget.

And why that, Mikey? Well, first of all, he's got a groovy bassline to walk in. I could see him, like, getting into that. And then, You know, shut the F up is sort of the hook there, which is kind of what he's saying. It's sort of back to that sales mantra, like, if you, as soon as you get the nod, you just be quiet.

Yes, yes. Less, less is more.

Molly: I'm going to throw out one, a little more conceptual. I was thinking of something really kind of [00:25:00] like low key, he has such a measured, calm pacing. And also really minimal lyrics and very repetitive lyrics. Just a couple of different lines that go throughout the song. By Krungbin.

Very chill, um, Texas based, bass heavy alt indie band. And it's called Evan Finds the Third Room.

Very calming, moving. You're gonna like it, Mikey.

Mikey: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I like it already.

Molly: Enjoy.

Mikey: Gosh. What else? London. Molly, have you been? We're going.

Molly: We're going. Yeah. Oh, if anyone's going to the product marketing Alliance summit, December

Mikey: 4th

Molly: and 5th or something 4th and 5th. Let me confirm 4th and yeah, Wednesday and Thursday.

We're going to be there. Mikey and I come say hi. We're excited to kind of meet some more presenting product marketer.

Mikey: We'll be with the one and only Steve Earl too, yeah, [00:26:00] gosh, maybe we could like audit a class at the London Business School. How cool would that be? Oh my gosh,

Molly: yeah.

Mikey: Yeah.

Molly: We'd love to get in touch.

Let's hang out. If anyone listening to this TED Talk in series has a TED Talk that we have not covered yet, this is, we got to count how many we've done, Mikey, it's quite a few now, but. We love to get listener input and we'd love to see here if you have a favorite one or one that really intrigues you, you want to hear broken down with Mikey and I's super scientific breakdown.

Yeah, send it our way.

Mikey: Well, I think this one, the counterintuitive talk, I think it needs to be on like, um, like a top 10 list. One of your best of. Yeah, I think it should be like, if someone was like, Hey, I want to be a better speaker. I'm going to add this one to a top five list. I think it's like,

Molly: I love that it's

Mikey: that good, you know, just like you need to think about this stuff.

It's awesome.

Molly: All right. Well, we're going to make that playlist for everybody. We got it. If you haven't checked it out yet, go strange PPT on YouTube. We do have a TED Talk [00:27:00] and playlist of all the TED Talks we've covered, so you can see them on YouTube and just peruse. Very easy to find.

Mikey: Nice. Okay.

Molly: Be sure

Mikey: to give us a follow.

Yeah. Well, presenting matters. Communicating your ideas matters.

Molly: And side effects. The delivery

Mikey: matters. And side effects. Totally worth it. Anyway, Molly, what do you say? Should we write out?

Molly: Let's write it out.

Mikey: Thanks for listening. Everyone, until next time. Keep on Pitching