Understanding the Neuroscience Behind Effective Communications - with Dr. Laura McHale

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Daniel Nestle: welcome, or
welcome back to the trending
communicator. I'm your host, Dan
Nestle.

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You know, when we think about
how we communicate within an
organization, or team or even
with clients and customers, if
we're not just speaking off the
cuff or naturally, then we tend
to depend on what we learned
through experience or technique
or both. But rarely do we delve
deeper to understand why we

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communicate the way we do. Why
Some things work. And some
things don't, you know, maybe
just maybe some understanding of
psychology and how the brain
works would help us be better at
messaging and storytelling and
employee communications, and
more. I mean, maybe armed with
some understanding of

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neuroscience, we would not only
be better communicators, we'd be
better leaders,

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Unknown: better managers.

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Daniel Nestle: I don't know.
Maybe I'm just making all this
stuff up. But I'm sure my guest
today can shed some light on
this, what I think is an
incredibly interesting and
important topic for the field of
communications, a former head of
executive communications for a
global financial institution in

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Asia. She earned a doctorate in
leadership psychology, and is
now an executive coach,
consultant, lecturer and writer,
a charter member of the British
Psychological Society, and
American Psychological
Association, tongue twisters. An
emcc accredited Coach and an
IABC accredited business

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communicator, she is deep in the
field of communications, and her
recent book neuroscience for
organizational communication is
a must read for both
communicators and the leaders
they counsel, I can't wait to
dig into neuroscience,
communications, and a whole lot
more with a fascinating

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Unknown: Dr. Laura McHale,
Laura,

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Daniel Nestle: how are you doing
is great, see you what's going
on. It's

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Laura McHale: great to see you
too, Dan. And it's a pleasure to
be here to talk about one of my
favorite topics,

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Daniel Nestle: that being
neuroscience, communications,
boasts both of those things, all
the above

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Laura McHale: all of those
things and throw in a little,
you know, little dashing of
psychology as well. But all of
those things were are some some
of my favorite things. You

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Daniel Nestle: know, I mean, I
think when we look at the
communications profession, you
know, and we think about where
we are in the world today, I
mean, not a great place in the
world, and we as communicators
have a important role to play.
And more and more, we're under
scrutiny.

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Unknown: And we, we are,

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Daniel Nestle: we're sort of
subject to the vagaries of, you
know, geopolitics and, and
business issues. And, you know,
let's, let's face it, since the
pandemic, it really hasn't been
the straightest, or most, you
know, most direct ride to
success, it's been bumpy, and
it's been curvy, and turning and

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twisty. And that's just
continuing, we're in this VUCA,
you know, uncertain world that
we're in. But communicators have
a really, I think, important
role to play. And I think we're
under skilled, like, I think
we're under skilled and not
ready for the future, like as a
whole, right? I mean, there are

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people in our field who are
really great at what we do, and,
and they have plenty of
experience in their, their
counseling, their leaders, but
when we think about, you know,
moving forward, there's so much
more that we're going to need to
be doing in order to shepherd
our organizations, you know,

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through these times, and be the
kind of advisors and counselors
that we need to be so my where
I'm getting with this is, you
know, the number of people in
communications, who have
successful careers and
communications and sort of say,
you know, what, I think we need
more, I need more skills. I'm

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gonna go get a doctorate in
psychology. I don't know how
many people I mean, I think I
can count on one hand, how many
people those are, clearly I'm
looking at one. So Laura, can we
start off by sort of, if we can
go through a little bit of what
got you there? Like, how did you
start off as a communicator, you

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know, running a pretty big comms
function across across Asia for
big bank, you know, how did you
go from there to saying, You
know what, I think I want to go
get my doctorate psychology.

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Unknown: What happened? Oh, it's

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Laura McHale: a very good
question. You know, I will
preface this whole kind of
conversation by saying that so
many communicators have actually
contacted me to ask me about my
journey. I think there's a
really core interest in
psychology and human behavior
among communicators more

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generally. Um, but for me, I
really I you know, ever since
I'd gotten my master's degree,
which feels like it was 1000
years ago now, but I had always
been interested in continuing my
academic studies on my master's
was actually an international
affairs. I studied international
finance and business more

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specifically. And it was after
that, that I focused on
communication. As I continued in
my comms career. My last full
time comms role. I was a
speechwriter for a CEO in Asia
Pacific. I adored my boss and it
was really interesting. Being a
full time speech writer, I'd
usually had more of a corporate

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communications hat, but this one
that particular role gave me an
opportunity to do much more of a
deep dive into leadership. And I
realized that leadership itself
was really fascinating. I, in
particular, I was just amazed by
how people's behavior changed
when when my boss entered a
room, whether it was employees

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sometimes doing a little brown
nosing, sometimes not. A
client's also kind of naturally
gravitated toward a leader. And
I became really interested in
what that was all about. It
wasn't just the leadership
piece, but it was also the
followership how follower
behavior actually changes. So I

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started looking at graduate
degrees, I think, initially, I
was gonna get like another
Master's in Applied Psychology
or something like that. And I
was really, I was looking at it,
I was living in Hong Kong at
that point, I had been living in
Hong Kong for a few years, I
inserted my voices. So

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gradually, all of a sudden, let
me just take a sip of tea, no
worries,

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Daniel Nestle: you know, you
speak a lot for your for living,
you know, and, and I should tell
our listeners, you know, this
is, this is like, this is the
world we live in. I'm in New
Jersey, and Laura is in Hong
Kong. So we're on opposite
timezones, it is morning for her
in the mornings, before I have

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my coffee, before I do my, my
tea and my water and everything.
You know, sometimes it's, it's
just you got to get the engine
going to get the voice out
there. So, you know, we're
bearing, we've all been there,
and we've been there earlier. So
we're bearing with you a little
bit.

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Unknown: So I also really
appreciate you doing this in the
evening or at night, your time
Dan. So thank you very much for
accommodating my age on time

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and nightbird it's cool. Yeah.

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Laura McHale: Yeah. So um, I
became interested in looking at
these programs, I didn't really
want to do clinical psychology,
I was interested more on the
organizational side, and that I
didn't quite feel like an IO
Psychology program. Io,
psychology is great, but it's
more of looking at assessment

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centers, and you know, kind of
more industrial aspects of, of,
you know, assessing human
behavior in organizations, I
stumbled upon a program that was
a new doctorate that was being
offered by a small school in
Boston called William James
college. And it was a doctorate
in leadership psychology, which

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is not even a real field of
psychology, there is no APA, you
know, division on leadership,
psychology, it's incredibly
multidisciplinary. And, but I
remember when I, when I saw the
program online, I sort of felt
my energy shift was like, Ooh,
this one is interesting. And the
more I learned about the

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program, the more excited I
became. And it was actually in
doing that program that I took
my first neuroscience class, we
had a required course in the
neuroscience of leadership. And,
you know, I was interested in
neuroscience sounded great, but
when I took the course, it was
just this kind of love affair

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with neuroscience was born. And
I decided to actually do a
concentration in the area. So
before long, you know, I was
taking neuro anatomy and
dissecting sheep's brains and
all sorts of things. But I just
fell for the topic, hook, line,
and sinker. And I felt really
fortunate to be studying at the

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time that I was, because
neurosciences just you know,
with the with the advent of fMRI
machines, and the new access to
brain imaging that we have never
had before. It's just an
incredible time to be in
neuroscience, and the
application of neuroscience to
organizations and different

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aspects of organizational life
is brand new, it's really
pioneering this field. So I
think it's a great time to be
exploring it. Oh,

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Daniel Nestle: yeah, very much.
You know, and I read when I read
the book, I have to admit, you
know, being several decades out
of university, and in grad
school, and, you know, getting
into a text that was not only
highly relevant to my day to day
work, but also academic, that
very, that it's science,

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neuroscience is a real thing,
you know, so going through the
models of, of behavior and going
through the, I guess, some of
the different terminology that
floats through the book, and you
do make it very understandable
for people, which is fantastic.
You know, but I remember like
just just reading, reading the

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book and thinking, you know,
gosh, and by the way, shout out
to Michael Nestle, Dr. Michael
Nestle, who's, who's also in
who's in Singapore, who
introduced me really more to
neuroscience way back in the
early days of my show. And
Michael, you'd be probably
pleased to know that I have

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continued to be very interested
in it, but you'd be disappointed
to know that I haven't really
cracked too many books on the
subject yet, except for Laura's
But I am I'm really, you know,
I'm really fascinated by the
whole thing. So like, you're
when you talk about neuroscience
and you know in psychology is

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can you just back up a little
bit and keep sort of illustrate
where neuroscience where
psychology ends and neuroscience
begins or aside, you know that
what, what is the relationship
between those two? Because not,
it's not the same thing. And I
think people make some mistakes
that way. Definitely

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Laura McHale: there no, there's
definitely some overlap there. I
think it's most helpful to look
at neurosciences really the
physiology of behavior. When we
look at human behavior, and
psychologists have all sorts of
models and frames and ways of
understanding human behavior, it
gets incredibly complex even

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within the field of psychology,
you know, if you look at a
construct such as personality,
for example, you have a million
different ways of looking at it,
you can understand it from more
of a neuroscience lens, you can
take a more kind of
psychodynamic perspective,
looking at the role of the

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unconscious, and particularly in
our group processes, you can
take a look at the social
psychology aspects, more
humanistic psychology aspects,
there's just a lot of a lot of
different ways to slice and dice
it. When we look at the
neuroscience of, of some of
these behavioral phenomenon,

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we're really trying to
understand what it looks like
from a brain perspective on and
neuronal activation. But we're
also because it's such, number
one, these are such complex
ideas, but neuroscience itself
is so complex, there's a lot
going on. And there's also these
are physiological reactions,

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these aren't just taking place
in the brain, these are usually
full body events. And, you know,
even when we look at something
like communication, which would
be just one small aspect of
human behavior, it's
extraordinarily complex. From a
physiological perspective, you
know, we use, we have motor

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control that enables us to move
our tongues and moves move our
our lips and our mouths to
create sound, we have memory
that's involved so that we can
remember the right words to use.
We have all sorts of emotional
processes going on, so that we
can understand the stress, the
stress and intonation in

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people's language, and how to
interpret that, which can
sometimes be a little easier
said than done for sensing a
little bit of tone and what
somebody's saying, and again,
activating memory centers in the
brain so that we know how to
interpret that. So these are
incredibly complex constructs on

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but neuroscience does try to
give a physiology to behavior in
this way. I don't know if that
helps. Or maybe

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Daniel Nestle: it does. I mean,
it certainly does. And, by the
way, if it doesn't, if you need
to, you know, people need to
understand that a little bit
deeper, just rewind, listen,
again, it's just it, believe me,
it takes, it takes a little
while to sink in, because, you
know, we, we can understand, I

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think some physiology because we
see our fingers and we see our
hands and we see our other but
we don't You don't you don't
have a have a special like kind
of lens that shines a light into
your brains that you can see
what's happening in there. And
it's it is extraordinary
complex, as you say. But

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particularly in the field of
communications, you said it
yourself that communications is
an extraordinary complex field.
I'm not going I'm not you know,
not to sort of compare or be
relativistic about other fields
of other professions. But when
we when we talk about comps, you
know, there's this old school

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kind of feeling that it's a soft
or fluffy area and I think
that's because it's been
associated with very difficult
to measure metrics that
sometimes companies doubt
whether or not they're effective
or not, but really when it comes
down to it communications,
itself and I should never say

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when it comes down to it because
it's complex, and then I'm
trying to simplify something
that's impossible simplify. But
when it when you think about it
more deeply. The interaction
from from one person to one
person is hard enough, reading
all the cues that's on that you
see in one person understanding

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you know, whether you're in
person or whether you're you
know, speaking through through
zoom or you know, through a, you
know, a screen or video
conferencing apparatus, which we
all do now, you know, the, the
way you communicate in one
meeting is very, very different
from the way you should be

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communicating in another the,
the cues you pick up from Laura,
on the screen are different from
the cues that you pick up from
Laura, when she's sitting across
the table from you, or you know,
in the read, like, you can see
things differently, you feel
things differently. And you you
talk about this very extensively

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in the book. And you know, I
love your show here a little bit
on Zoom fatigue, by the way,
I've shared that again and
again, and, and to this day, I
try to remember to turn off my
own video when I'm on Zoom, you
know, like, because, because you
taught

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Laura McHale: me and your book
taught me that this
conversation.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, and you
know, it's, it's, you start to
look at yourself and start to
focus in on on all these
elements that your brain isn't
supposed to be processing, when
you're having a conversation
with someone else. It's not
natural, you know, so it's not
so there's no, it's not, it's no

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surprise that there's a
neuroscientific and
psychological breakdown, when
you're speaking to yourself and
to others at the same time, and
it causes all sorts of issues
with your dissonance, that,
yeah, will tire you out,

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Laura McHale: or something like
that, it's so great to have, you
know, to understand that there's
a neuroscientific explanation,
because I think, you know, a lot
of people when, when they're on
zooms, and there's that self
face reflection, they feel like
it's some kind of personal
failing, you know, that they're

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narcissistic, or they're really
self absorbed by focusing on
their own images. But it's not
that at all, it's just hardwired
to focus on our own images. And,
and that's where our eyes are
naturally going to gravitate.
You know, there's some knock on
effects that are a bit more
sociological, like the increase

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in dentistry in plastic surgery.
That's been borne out of the
COVID Zoo, epidemic, oh, for
coming on. But it is
fascinating. Knowing that even
for, you know, for something as
simple as zoom, and having that
self face reflected back to us
naturally draws our attention in
our eyes. I just love stuff like

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that.

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Daniel Nestle: Oh, yeah. And
it's, it's, that's just one
small tidbit. And maybe that
might be the easiest thing to
immediately put into effect from
reading your book. But, but I
want to talk about the some of
the bigger picture items. And
you said a few minutes ago that
the, the physiology of behavior

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is, is the neurosciences, the
physiology of the mind, and then
just the physiology of behavior.
And these are, these are full
bodied events, right, there's a
lot of hat, there's a lot of
stuff that happens to you, you
may or may not notice as you're
communicating with others. And,
you know, some of this, you

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know, does build a result or
kind of lead to anxiety and
stress and a lot of issues that,
that kind of float up between
two people or are on a team or
in an organization. So, and
sometimes it's exacerbated by
being remote and sometimes not.
But what I wanted to kind of
look back at is okay, you

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mentioned earlier that you're
really interested in in what got
you interested was the way that
people will react to the leaders
when they come in the room?
Right, was that it's that
follower? That followership, I
suppose. And it got me thinking
immediately, and I've said this
before, on my, on my, on my

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previous iteration of my show,
and certainly to a lot of my
friends that, you know, I lived
in Japan for 16 years, I came
out of Japan with this kind of
sense of deference for leaders,
right, like, I didn't feel
comfortable speaking to leaders
in a flat or, you know, sort of
egalitarian way, then, you know,

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after a little while of being in
the US, it wasn't getting any
better at that I was still
really uncomfortable talking to
people who were my superiors.
And that ended up kind of
result, again, a little bit of
his trust in me, because the
leaders are like, Well, this guy
is holding back. Whereas I was

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just, I was just sort of, you
know, doing what a follower I
think is supposed to do, or what
I thought a follower is supposed
to. I've gotten a lot better at
this over time. But how like,
what's up, just throw throw this
at you? What is the neuroscience
behind that? Like, how, why does
that happen? And how does it

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change across cultures? Maybe
that's a bad massive question.
But let's, let's hit Look,

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Laura McHale: that's that's a
compliment. This is a juicy one
down. Let me just kind of unpack
this a little bit as I think
about this question. Because,
you know, the first thing that
comes to mind when you describe
that particular dynamic i I'm
thinking of, if we look at this
from a kind of social psychology

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perspective, or sociological
perspective, if we use like
Hofstede as cultural dimensions,
Hofstede identified a number of
dimensions that include things
like power, distance and gender
egalitarianism. For example, the
degree to which men and women
are regarded as equals in
society individually realism

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versus collectivism, etc, these
are all kind of Hofstede
constructs, which are incredibly
helpful. You know, you talk
about a culture like Japan where
there would be a very high power
distance. So that's a lot of
very hierarchical culture, a lot
of deference, for leaders, lots
of rules, and that are written

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or unwritten, about how leaders
are treated and how we regard
them. So there, I love the
story, because you have a little
bit of a culture clash, even
though it is, you know,
returning to your own culture in
the United States, it still
feels a little foreign after
having been in Japan for so

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long. From a neuroscience
perspective, you know, I'd need
to think about this a little
more. But immediately, what
comes to mind is from David
scarfs, that I'm sorry, David
rocks scarf model, where he
looks out, these are kind of the
one of the largest stress and
reward triggers in the brain.

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And I should mention, David Rock
was very kind to me, because he
let me use his trademarked model
in my book. So thank you, David
Rock. Thanks, David. But when we
look at status, is a very big
one status triggers both threats
and reward, when we are high
status, we tend to releases a
lot of dopamine, a lot of feel

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good, feel good
neurotransmitters in the brain
neuromodulators. And so that can
end when our status is
threatened when we're regarded
as very low status, that also
can trigger a lot of stress,
full stress cascade in the
brain. But also this sense of
the are in the scarf model is

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stands for relatedness. What
David Rock called relatedness.
And that's the degree to which
we're in group and out group.
With leaders, when we look at
things like leader distance or
power distance, we can talk
about very, you know, physical,
like, how close do we sit to
with a leader? is the leader in

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DDP even in the same town or
country that we live in? But how
close we could be to to that
leader? Do we shake their hand?
Do we interact with them?
There's also a social aspect,
you know, you ran into your
leader, your CEO out on the
street, would you kind of run
away and hide? Or would you go

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up to her or him and say, Hey,
let's grab a beer, if you're not
doing anything want to grab a
cup of coffee, you know, the
degree to which we imagine a
scenario like that with with
cringing or not cringing can
tell us a lot about leader
distance. So there's, there's a
lot going on there. So the

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constructs, again, I keep on
talking about these complex
constructs. But we're, you know,
when we talk about work, we're
just, that's just full of
complex constructs. And the
thing is, we have to remember
that they are complex for
reason, we cannot be overly
reductionist in how we identify

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a lot of these dynamics. A
perfect example, I think, is one
that is is very close to many
corporate communicators hearts,
and that is the ubiquitous term
employee engagement. And, you
know, every employee survey that
has ever existed, always has a
measure or claims to have a
measure of employee engagement.

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But when we think about what we
actually mean, by employee
engagement, and it does mean
different things to different
people, it becomes clear that
this is a very complex
construct, it is not something
that's easy to understand
conceptualize, and it's
definitely not easy to measure.

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So I think, yeah, I think with a
leader, power distance with
leaders wouldn't be an equally
complex construct. And that
poses a real problem with
neuroscience, you know,
mentioned before that, you know,
we can't we're not at the stage
yet where we can kind of open up
somebody's head and see their

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thoughts. But they're, you know,
people used to regard like
genes. You know, before, like
the human genome process into
this discovery of DNA. We knew
genes were a real thing. We
could see hereditary traits that
are passed down in generations,
we could see familial, you know,
similarities of parents send

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their children, but we couldn't
actually see them. With
neurosciences the same way, a
lot of things we are suddenly
able to see, but there's still a
lot more, a lot more mysteries
of the brain and we can't open
up a brain and see thoughts just
yet.

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Daniel Nestle: Yeah, I mean,
it's a it's a fascinating
question. Can you see? I mean,
you know, there's, there's all
the studies about alpha waves
and do the brain waves that
other people talked about, but
it's actually cool. but more
stratified than that. So you can
get impulses and like, you know,

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you could get readings of the
way people are, you know, their
physiology while they're
thinking different things or
saying different things. And you
know, what, we have lie detector
tests for a reason, right? But,
but I was just, I was just
thinking that it would be very
interesting to be able to, like,

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you know, hold up a hold up a,
a, an object or a lens or
something, you know, to yourself
and say, okay, my brain is
feeling this way, today, you
know, that if we can get to that
point, it'll help us to have
those relationships, because, to
me, like, self awareness is a
huge part of the way that we

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communicate with one another,
it's certainly a huge part of
executive communications. And I
think you've touched on this in
your book a little bit too,
like, when you have a leader,
who is addressing their company,
like, what's the right tone to
use? What's the right? What's
the right type of communication

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to use in to engage employees,
for example, which is, as you
just said, difficult to do. When
you think about the variety of
employees and the way that
different people respond to the
to status, or relatedness and so
on, right? What's that? What's
the power distance between me
and the power is interesting to

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me and the, and the CEO is a lot
different than the power
distance between, you know,
somebody working on the line,
you know, in a manufacturing
factory, and the CEO, and
they're going to interpret every
message differently than I will.
So scale that out, you have
1000s of employees, that's

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potentially 1000s of different
interpretations of of a single
word. And then you start to
imagine, you start to understand
how communicators get caught up
in, let's say, the right thing,
and let's kind of get the words
right. And we very rarely get
them exactly right. And in
reality, it's a big win when we

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do. I was just thinking about
those models, though, like the,
you know, that because what you
said about power distance, and
the scarf models, which which
for for our listeners, status,
certainty, autonomy, relatedness
and fairness are the are the
five things in the scarf model,
which I know because of Laura's

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book, these are threatened
reward triggers. And the biggest
thing is this is this pain of
social exclusion that comes from
that. I think that's what you
mentioned in the book is
there's, to me, that's what hit
me hardest, right? That pain of
social exclusion, because I'm a
very, you know, extroverted and,

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like, the relationships with
other people is so, so important
indicator of my own success,
that when that's threatened,
it's a problem for me, and, you
know, the scarf model helped me
kind of understand that a little
bit better.

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Unknown: Yeah. And if we,

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Laura McHale: the relatedness
one is really interesting, this
whole idea of being in group and
out group, it turns out that
when our relatedness is
threatened, it lights up the so
many pain centers of the brain,
it's an extraordinarily painful
phenomenon. And, and that's
important to know at work,

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because even something as
seemingly minor as excluding
someone from a meeting, that
they may feel that they should
attend, or, or, you know,
believe that it was important to
them individually, excluding
them without having a
conversation with them about why
that exclusion is taking place.

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That triggers an enormous threat
response in the brain. It makes
sense if we think about this
through kind of an evolutionary
biological perspective, for our
species to survive, we cannot be
alone, we are required to work
in collectives, that's what
we're designed for in order to
survive and to thrive. So it

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makes sense that this would
exist from an evolutionary
perspective, but it's incredible
how ingrained it is in us and
how important it is at work to
speak to that sense of
relatedness. Yeah,

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Daniel Nestle: I just did a, you
know, it's the end of the year
here, when we're recording right
now, this will be by the time
people hear this, it'll be early
2024.

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Unknown: But right now, we're

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Daniel Nestle: recording still,
it's still the, the closing of
2023. And at the end of the
year, when things slow down at
work, and I'm a corporate
communications person, and I'm
sure that a lot of of my of our
colleagues out there or friends
out there in the same boat will
say yeah, you know, we're sort

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of waiting, making sure that
there's no crisis happening.
We're monitoring things we're,
you know, we're sending out
messages. We're making sure that
things that making sure that
that the lights stay on, you
know, but this is a good time to
do all your corporate training,
right, that's been piling up

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have you sit down and you're
like, hey, nobody's going to
call me right now. So I will
take the next two hours and go
through, you know, the, the 2023
thing that I forgot to do, which
was, you know, fraught, anti
fraud training or whatever it
is. So, so I just, you know, I
caught up on all my training in

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the last couple of days. And in
the light of like, the scarf
model, for example, and in the
light of these threatened reward
triggers, they make a lot more
sense like it, you, you look at
big issues that we face in
corporations and in society as a
whole, like bullying,
harassment, you look at just

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discrimination and so on. And
the, what you often find is that
people who are, you know, people
who are guilty of harassment in
from the, in the old days, it'd
be like, Did you touch the
person or, you know, did is
there like, something had to
happen. But as our understanding
of people kind of has become

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refined, for sure. It it's not,
it's, it's all about how the
message is received, it's not on
the, it's not necessarily
whether you've intended to do
something or not, if the
recipient of the of your message
of your action of what you do,
feels that you're you've done
something that's unwelcome or,

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you know, or, or has caused some
sort of harm to them in some
way, you know, what, no matter
what your intent was, that's,
that could be harassment. So it
seems to me that a lot of that
is right here, this is that it
is exactly that threatened
reward, trigger the pain that
comes from that social

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exclusion. And in this case, not
necessarily social exclusion,
but, you know, you, you may say
something to somebody on your
team AND, OR, or NOT let them in
a meeting and they're gonna feel
like you're bullying them, you
know, and you have to be aware

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Laura McHale: of that, Dan,
you're, you're touching on
something that is so important
because and one of my kind of
big interest areas, both from
kind of a more academic kind of
scholar practitioner way, but
also in really providing
concrete recommendations to
comms teams and also for leaders

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and how they communicate. There
are very subtle ways that we are
not even consciously aware of
that can actually lead to some
of this social exclusion. One
thing that I actually devoted
two chapters to in the book
because I think it's so
fascinating and so important, is
pronoun use the use of AI and we

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pronouns now, and I'm not Yeah,
the whole gender pronoun issues
as a separate conference
separate thing. Yeah, he, she,
and they, but this is just
specifically using ion we
pronouns. It was interesting to
me with my pronoun hat on and
just even how you set up this
question you talked about, I

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have this experience, and we we
do this at the end of the year,
we many of us do that. Those
are, you know, pronouns are
awesome part of life. And
they're a great way of creating
affiliation and a sense of
community, which is, you know,
really what they're designed to
do. The pronoun use particularly

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we gets very tricky, because
there's actually two different
kinds of we so this is this
concept, you know, what
linguists call it cluesive
ality. But whether it's an
inclusive or an exclusive we an
exclusive, we means that we're
talking about a group of we that
is set apart or a difference. So

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for example, if we are talking
about Americans in the world,
you know, we say we Americans,
we're talking about all
Americans. And sometimes we use
this inclusive way, which, you
know, if we're saying all human
beings in the world need to do
something about climate change,
climate changes, is impacting

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everyone. So sometimes they're
very grand, inclusive ways.
Where the X XClusive ways get
problematic in organizations is
how leaders often deploy them.
And sometimes it's not clear
sometimes it's a little
ambiguous on on purpose.
Politicians do this all the
time. We who is the we that we

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are talking about, is it a
political party? Is it a
particular group of people, but
in organizations, many leaders
will use we sometimes talking
about everyone and sometimes
talking about, for example, only
front office, or the executive
team. This consent send a very
subtle but very potent messages

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about who has a legitimate stake
in an organization's success,
who the power brokers are in an
organization who are the
influencers, who are the people
that really care once. And so
something just as slight as that
of not having awareness over
whether a leader is using an
inclusive or exclusive, we can

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really send powerful messages
around social exclusion in
organizations. So that's, that's
one example. Another example is
work that I've done a little bit
more recently, um, so actually
isn't in the book, but it will
be a section if I ever do a
second edition of the book,
which I feel like I need to

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because so much of the book, the
you know, the research keeps
coming in. And, of course, the
massive changes from chat GPT,
the latest iterations GPT, for
latest iterations of these
generative language models. But
an area I'm really interested in
is both with my leadership
psychology hat on and

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neuroscience hat on is absentee
leadership. And that is also a
form of social exclusion. Now,
it may not be as overt as things
like bullying and harassment,
I'm having your boss scream at
you or give you a terrible, you
know, dressing down in front of
others, etc. Absentee leadership
is something that works more by

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stealth it is occurs when
leaders occupy leadership
positions and and enjoy all of
their privileges. But they do
not for one reason or another,
they are not able to fulfill the
core functions of leadership.
And this ends up being something
that's characterized more or
more by neglect, than it is by

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overt overtly hostile or
negative behaviors. But that
also leads to a strong sense of
social exclusion as well.
employees do have legitimate
needs around leader presence.
And those needs are often
marginalized, many leaders are
too busy to spend adequate time
with their teams or to you know,

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help them resolve problems and
conflicts, help prove you know,
give proper role orientation,
set performance expectations,
etc. Absentee leadership is
reported seven times more than
any other destructive leadership
behavior seven times more, it is
absolutely epidemic in our
organizations. And a big

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problem, Mom,

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Daniel Nestle: I'm nodding my
head and and also sort of
metaphorically flagellating
myself at the same time, because
I mean, I've done that, you
know, I've been there I can, I
can think of concrete examples
of where I've been absent, like,
literally absent or where I
haven't fulfilled what my team

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needs for me. And, and, you
know, I've learned to see the
signs, but I've also, you know,
learned of some of the kind of,
I guess, words and phrases that
you start to hear when, when
it's becoming an issue. I mean,
there's always a straight up,
you're never here, that's one
star sign. If somebody said,

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Hey, you're never here, believe
them. You know, well, I mean,
you travel a lot, you got stuff
to do. It's, there's sometimes
the business requires what the
business requires. But you need
to figure out a way to make that
up to your team, then, or
include them in your journey in
some way, you know, like, figure

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out what, what's going to happen
while you're away and plan for
that. And I'm not, I've never
been fantastic at that. I will
tell you that right now. And the
other the other thing that I
hear, and then I've heard
sometimes is, is, you know,
well, that's just not that hands
on. Right? Oh, you know, person,

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so and so is not that hands on.
And that's I, I kind of
interpret that in several ways.
But one charitable way of
thinking about that is really
nice guy, but not doing the work
for us. Right? One uncharitable
way is is, is lazy, not doing
anything, right. There's,
there's a whole range, but none

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of it's really great. And
sometimes it just, it just means
that as a leader, you know, I'm
not doing a good enough job of
showing the team what's at what
I'm doing, or explaining to the
team what's happening so that
they understand why I'm unable
to participate in a particular
activity or, you know, get down

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into the, into the weeds or roll
up my sleeves or do whatever it
needs to be done. So there's
there's not it's not just one
straight, one size fits all
thing, but when you hear that,
not hands on. I used to think
that was a little more
accusatory, but now, you know,
now, it's makes a lot more sense

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in this kind of it thinking
under through the lens of
absentee leadership. I haven't
really thought of it that way.
But I hear that sometimes from
not just about myself, but about
others as well. So I think

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Unknown: it's a big complaint.
It's,

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Laura McHale: it's an
interesting phenomenon and you
know, by drawing attention to do
things like absentee leadership?
I think, you know, we have to,
one of the things we need to do
is not not so much condemn
absentee leadership, but
understand why it's happening
and also enable conversations

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between leaders and their teams
about what's going on. Different
employees have different needs
with regard to leadership
presence. And it also it depends
on what's going on as well. It
can also depend on you know, are
they a new employee? Are they
you know, are they just starting
a job? Are they people who are

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just starting jobs and new to
organizations need a lot more
leader presence? The really
important aspect of it is to
actually engage in dialogue
around it, you know, how much
presence do you need? How much
am I able to give you, leaders
are not babysitters they are not
they do sole purpose is not to

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be to all of the needs of
everybody in their team, that's
impossible, but being able to
engage in a dialogue. And I
would say to I always, you know,
the psychologist in me gets
interested when I hear things
like, you know, if a leader gets
a bit of feedback like that he's
not hands on. I'm like, Okay,

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that's a little passive
aggressive to my ear. It's like,
what's the real ask here? Was,
Is there some way that I can
make a request or that somebody
else can make a request of the
leader? That's a little less
passive aggressive, a little
less covert opposition? That's
actually like, Hey, Dan, I would

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really love to see you around
more. This is a project that I
had that I would have loved more
input, I realized that there's
demands on your time, what would
be the best way for us to engage
so that I can get that attention
from you when I need it? Yeah,
great conversation opener that
makes everybody happy and leaves

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all the passive aggressive stuff
to the side. Because you're
right, it makes us very
defensive. Sure. Sounds like you
took it like a champ, but I
wasn't very defensive.

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Daniel Nestle: Oh, no. I mean,
I, I'm saying that now, after
going through the process, and
after going through it, and, you
know, I didn't know, I don't
always take it like a champ,
that's for sure. I'm a human,
you know, I But, and I don't
have a, I'm not a psychologist
nor neuroscientists. So it's

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hard to step back when you're in
the moment. And but even if you
were you, it's still hard step
back, when you're in the moment,
you know, as people, you hear
things. But yeah, well, you
know, when you deal with, when
you deal with teams of people,
there's always going to be a
variety of behaviors in those

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teams. And you know, it's hard
to be the conductor or the, or
the, the, it's, some people call
it say it's like, it's like
being a jazz conductor. Some
people say it's like being a, a
symphonic conductor, or, you
know, just kind of situational
leadership stuff that you see
happening all the time. It's

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just, it's, I just think it's
hard. I mean, it's it, people
are people, everybody's just
different. And, you know,
there's never, I've never seen
anything, where, where one thing
makes everybody happy all the
time, apart from perhaps money.
You know, put that aside, you
know, put that aside, you know,

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but what's interesting

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Laura McHale: limits,

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Daniel Nestle: even as this
limits, I mean, you need in,
that's something we can get into
with the whole idea of, of
purpose as well, because you
cover that your book, but before
we get there, there's, you know,
this whole idea that

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Unknown: when you are,

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Daniel Nestle: I guess, I just
completely lost my train of
train of thought which happens,
which happens to me sometimes,
but we were talking about
drivers being hands on hands
off, hands off, and, and this
kind of an absentee leadership,
you know, I,

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Unknown: I just think that,

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Daniel Nestle: that we need to
be just, we just need to be more
more self aware and more aware
of what's happening around us,
and just just, you know,
understand, now, I know where I
was, now, I've connected the
dots, what I wanted to say, the
train is back on the tracks,
people, all right. When you

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think about this absentee
leadership, right, for those of
us who are really involved with
employee communications, or with
internal communications, you
know, there's a massive
implication here right, because
your, you know, you're leaders
that you know, the the kind of,
I suppose, in a hierarchical

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sense, the higher they are in
the organization, the more
likely it is for there to be
this accusations of absenteeism
from distant parts of the
organization. So, when you have
the opportunity to do an
executive communication or or a
front office communication or
you know, something where, you

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know, the leader of such and
such and such and such from
never gets out to the field is
able to speak to the field, you
know, what, what are the things
that need to be that people need
to take, take under account or
take into account and under
consideration from that, you
know, to ensure that, that

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they're not they're addressing
the absentee leadership issue. I
think it's interestingly what Do
you think communicators would
should do? I? Oh,

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Laura McHale: that was an
interesting question. Because I,
you know, on the one hand I, you
know, communicators are so often
tasked with doing kind of the
magical, you know, it's like as
if they can just kind of wave
their wands and like it, it
really doesn't matter how
perfect communication is, if the

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leadership behavior does it that
back it up. It's, you know, the
whole thing that actions speak
louder than words. We as
communicators can be brilliant
at drafting words, but
ultimately, it needs actions and
behaviors backing it up.
Otherwise, it just becomes an
exercise in cynicism. Yeah. So I

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think the, the absentee
leadership or the leadership
presence conversation, is
actually involves a lot more
than communication, I think it
involves really fulfilling those
core functions of leadership.
Yeah. And, and it doesn't
necessarily mean physical
presence, is it was interesting,

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we're still we're starting to
really get interesting data from
the COVID pandemic, about, you
know, kind of the greatest mouse
experiment and work history,
which is going to almost
entirely at least for knowledge
workers going to almost entirely
remotely, but their, their
leaders do need, it's not just a

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question of getting a free pass,
by having a fantastic
communication, there was a lot
of actual behaviors and ways of
showing up that needs to really
back it up.

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Daniel Nestle: So we can only go
so far as to get people off the
hook, I suppose. You know, but
it's true. The word smithing is
important, of course, and I
always, I always tell people are
getting into the profession. You
know, they if they bother asking
that, first be a writer, you
know, first understand how to

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string sentences and together
and how to put thoughts together
in a, in a way that makes sense.
Because that's really the main
motive of most of the work that
we will do through the course of
our career. You know, but we are
not, it's not a magic wand, just
like you said, it's not it's not
going to change leaders

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behavior, more and more as we
get, as we as communicators play
a much more important role as an
influencer upon the leadership.
And that's been a topic a big
topic recently, well, maybe
forever, but certainly recently,
in places like the Paige
society, and prsa and, you know,
how can we wield more influence?

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How can we as communicators be,
you know, either a taken
seriously by our, by, by the
business side, or, or just
contribute more to the business,
you know, you know, one falls
from the other generally
speaking. And, you know, how can
we grow our influence, build
trust, etcetera? And, you know,

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there's the basic simple answer,
which is, well just do a great
job, and people trust you, but
that's not always true, you
know, but that building trust,
etc. Like, we can only go so far
in helping the leaders, you
know, to frame what they're
gonna say, or to say what
they're gonna say. But

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ultimately, it's going to be
their behaviors. And, you know,
if we know a little bit more
about neuroscience, we can
advise them a little bit better,
maybe, yeah,

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Laura McHale: there's also
because Dan, you're touching on
something that's really
important. There's, you know,
there's really a symbiotic
relationship between leadership
and communication. Now, I just
said, My grand pronouncement
that actions speak louder than
words. And that is, of course,

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critically important, but words
we know are also, you know, of
massive importance in
organizations. I talked before
about the pronouns about using
ironweed pronouns. I'm also very
suspicious of communications, by
the way, but leaders of
communications that do not use
the word I I've done, I've done

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some interesting analysis of
that I always counseled leaders,
and corporate communicators who
are drafting leadership comments
and talking notes. To have a
really nice healthy balance
between AI and we pronouns. I
call that pronoun agility. But
we also need to be aware of how
corporate discourse has become

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riddled with what are known as
weasel words. Yes, or the the
infamous soft modals which are
words like my could baby and
that signal less, less
certainty, which are often used
by corporate comms people,
lawyers and leaders to sort of
wiggle out of difficult
conversations on we also if we,

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you know, the new fields, not
just generative language models,
but also big data analysis and
protect Killer sentiment
analysis in language is
revealing that there's actually
direct relationships between
corporate corporations company's
financial performance and the
use of weasel words. And as well

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as kind of negative sentiment
analysis than numbers, there's a
lot of kind of generic terms
that companies use to describe
difficult financial performance,
you know, that includes like
impairment and loss. A lot of
financial reports don't go into
a huge amount of detail. But
there is a direct relationship

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between the financial
performance of these companies
and this types of language.
There's also I talked about in
the book, one of the most
fascinating things that came out
of the Enron debacle was a big
data analysis of internal
communications at Enron, Enron
in the months leading up to the

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implosion of the company. And it
was very interesting, because it
wasn't just the words
themselves, it was actually the
size and length of emails and
messages and the frequency with
which they were occurring. There
was one, I think it was like a
six week period that email lanes
declined by like 13 characters a

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week, and that was corresponding
to actually the decline in the
stock price. So, so in all of
those ways, the you know, the
words themselves actually are
important. Of course, it's a
symbiotic relationship between
the words and the leadership
behavior, we do want to avoid,
I'm in a very cynical world,

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where we are having multiple
leadership crises, leadership
failures, we're having
shockingly high levels of
corporate scandal and fraud. So
we definitely want to avoid this
giant disconnect between a
leaders language and a leaders
behavior. Yeah. But at the same
time, as good communicators, and

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most of us, I think, hopefully,
work for companies that are not
having massive scandals and
problems, just being really
mindful. And also the need, what
are we mean, what do we mean to
say, Yeah, oftentimes, we get so
couched and we put negative
messages and we pad it with all
of this positive messaging

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around it, that you know, it
just becomes fluff, it becomes
meaningless. We need to ask
ourselves as communicators, why
are we doing that? What are we
afraid of? Would ourselves our
organizations or leaders be
better served by being more
forthright and direct? I think
these are really important

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questions that we need to ask
ourselves,

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Daniel Nestle: sometimes.
Sometimes I think, if what
you're saying is, is really
very, it definitely is
resonating with me and serve it
resonates with a lot of a lot of
our fellow communicators. I
think we as communicators have,
have in some ways ruined the
language, and ruined the, the,

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the kind of understanding of
what's acceptable. And it's not
just us, I mean, there's a lot
of forces out there, but we've
caved to those forces over the
decades, and, and allowed the
weasel words, and the, you know,
these these weak modals is that
they're gonna get weak modal
words, you know, to kind of

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sneak in because, like, a lot of
it, so we avoid the legal
issues, if we use the word
depending, which we've seen very
recently is a very, very, very
terrible thing to do in a public
hearing, right? I mean, you
know, you want to be seen as
weak, you want to be set, see,
as soon as a weasel use

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depending on the context as much
as you like, you know, go ahead.
We should know this, we should
understand, go to Strunk and
White, go back to what makes a
clear communication, you know,
shorter words, fewer words, and
concrete words, active voice,
etc. Now, of course, there are
many situations, countless

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situations where you need to be
passive, where you need to be
kind of, you know, a little
softer around what you say, and
where there might not be the
right answers. But when there's
not a right answer, or when
there's not a solid answer, you
better at the end of your, at
the end of what you're saying

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00:54:16,950 --> 00:54:36,120
saying, You better say something
like, I will get back to you
with a really solid answer
later, you know, you gotta leave
even, nobody's going to be
satisfied, but at least they
leave a commitment to satisfy
them at some point. And, you
know, sometimes you have to, you
know, take the small loss to get

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00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:56,520
the big win in the long run as a
communicator, but But it's
interesting, which the, the this
whole situation with with weasel
words is something that we're
all taught that we forget, you
know, which which is, which sort
of segues a little bit for me
anyway, something you mentioned
earlier. And as we're as we're

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getting towards the close of our
awesome conversation here. I did
want under under Get your
feeling because you mentioned it
earlier about what the biggest
change in our technical lives
these days, and certainly maybe
even in our work life and in the
way of the way that we will, and
we will do things moving

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00:55:19,530 --> 00:55:42,360
forward. And I'm talking about
AI. Right? What? What is the
effect so far? What do you see,
as the you know, that, I guess
the biggest kind of implications
or concerns or you take it
however you want of chat GPT and
have large language models, and
it's just one thing, not to
steer the question. But one

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thing that occurs to me, of
course, from what you're saying
is, you know, this high
propensity for these weasel
words and to rely on on, you
know, on large language models,
or on GPT. In particular, any of
these, these generative AI tools
to craft messaging that is just
weak. Right? Now, I've gone far

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beyond that in my understanding
of AI, so I really feel like I
understand how to get deeper and
deeper and deeper, but I think
most people stop at the first,
the first prompt, and they're
like, Hey, I'm good, you know?
But, but anyway, like, what are
your thoughts on this? And it's,

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00:56:25,080 --> 00:56:44,100
Laura McHale: it's so funny,
because you were mentioning
before about how most people do
kind of their catch up on
courses and stuff at the year
end. And I'm, I'm actually
taking a prompt engineering
course. Oh, excellent. So I can
learn to do better prompts for
AI. I was writing my book in

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mainly the spring and summer of
2021. And at that time, it was
pre chat GPT. It was I was
talking about GPT. Three. And I
it's amazing, just in the in the
space of two years, what's
happened. I did talk in the book
that I felt that these, that
these AI these generative
language models, posed an

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existential threat to the
communications profession. It is
one of one of the reasons that I
think it's so important for
comms people to really up their
game and get much more
knowledgeable about psychology
and neuroscience, hopefully, as
well. And also, just because,
you know, it's not just the AI

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00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:50,310
changes, there are seismic
changes that are happening in
the communications profession
anyway. The remit of comms is
becoming enormous comms people
now have to be experts in
corporate social responsibility,
Public Affairs, corporate
affairs, government affairs,
these are monster roles that had

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00:57:50,310 --> 00:58:12,570
been created, it's really hard
for mere mortals, to kind of be
all things, all things to all
people. Now it does reflect the
power of communication and the
importance of aligned messaging,
but But it's, it's, it's a real
challenge for us as a profession
for those of us in in the
profession. The, you know, we're

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00:58:12,570 --> 00:58:33,060
gonna see, this is it's
changing, it's happening so
fast. There is no doubt, you
know, I plugged in a couple, a
couple of paragraphs from my
book and TPT and asked it to
paraphrase it, and I'm
embarrassed at how much better
brilliant. I've gotten the

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00:58:33,060 --> 00:58:36,330
Daniel Nestle: whole book. It's
very good at some things. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah.

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00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:56,850
Laura McHale: It's in its very
good at like marketing copy and
all sorts of things. On It is
terrible at one of the things
that became clear, evidently
right away is that it's really
effective for generating hate
speech. This, some of the
earliest studies came out and,
and you know, the darkest

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00:58:56,850 --> 00:59:16,590
corners of the internet with
hate speech conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, it is brilliant
at generating. On the
organizational side, since a lot
of organizations have both, you
know, they use, they'll use the
external AI models, but they
also use internal in house
models, especially organizations

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00:59:16,590 --> 00:59:38,100
that have very extensive
libraries of content and data. I
think it's going to be really
interesting to see whether the
AI perpetuates some of the
existing inequalities that exist
in organizations, some of the
difference for leaders, some of
the marginally marginalization
of certain voices within

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organizations. I think those are
going to be very interesting
questions, but you know, we have
to you they're here, we have to
use them. They're brilliant
tools. I'm surprising myself at
how much I am using them. But
the the information I mean, your
guess is as good as mine down of
what's going to happen and yeah,

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00:59:58,290 --> 01:00:00,780
it's going to influence
corporate discourse?

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01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:15,690
Daniel Nestle: I agree with you.
I mean, the whole discourse?
Well, for sure, you know,
political discourse, I was on a
conversation earlier today, it's
exactly about that. And about
not just we're not just talking
about chatty petite, but we're
talking about, you know, video
creation and meme creation and

213
01:00:15,690 --> 01:00:40,890
things that don't fall under the
regulations of political speech.
So that, you know, you can have
these bot farms creating any
number of, you know, have I
spoke last was memes and, and
ads, and so on that don't fall
that don't have to be claimed,
as you know, endorsed by a
candidate or something like

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01:00:40,890 --> 01:00:58,260
this. And therefore, there are
no, no rules about how far these
can go. I mean, it's just one
one aspect. And then of course,
there's all this stuff about
deep fakes and, and faking
voices and scripting, that's
something that we're just going
to have to contend with, there's
no that's not going away. I am

215
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:22,770
extremely bullish on on AI. As
an enabler for, for us to move
up the value chain, you know,
now, there's gonna be plenty of
people, bad actors who are gonna
do bad things as they do with
anything else. But you know,
when you're, as you get into
prompt engineering, especially
it just sort of think about it,

216
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:46,020
in my view, we communicators
have a superpower here, like we
are in a really great place.
Because something that we have
that very few other professions
have, which is an extreme
obsession with words, and with
the way that we string words
together. And that's really the
whole secret to prompting, you

217
01:01:46,020 --> 01:02:05,220
know, is building an out an
argument, essentially, in the
form of a question that you then
turn into a dialogue. Now, of
course, it gets far deeper than
that, there's so many other
things you can do. And there's
so many ways that you can
manipulate the, the, the AI or,
or, or train it better, do

218
01:02:05,220 --> 01:02:29,010
think, but but at the very basic
level, you know, if you are a
decent writer, and you're
curious and have a sort of
propensity to ask a lot of
questions, as I think many of us
do, certainly, I do think you're
in a good place, and then you
can have to really do
interesting things with it. The

219
01:02:29,280 --> 01:02:45,300
issue, I think, is time, you
know, and also, also, what
happens to the younger, to the
younger entrants into the
profession, that people who are
just sort of, like kind of who
had counted on like, when you
were, when you had started out
as a, as a communicator, you
know, you didn't start out as

220
01:02:45,330 --> 01:03:04,590
the leader of, of executive
communications for a large
financial institution in Asia,
you started out, very likely
looking at clippings, and
summarizing things, and doing a
lot of grunt work in writing
press releases, things like
this, you know, we've all gone
through a lot of that, that's

221
01:03:04,590 --> 01:03:22,620
not really that hard, you know,
that's not something people are
gonna need to do anymore. So
what's going to replace that?
Like, what is the thing that
that aspiring communicators are
going to need to do? Or does the
does the profession just changed
dramatically, so that that's not
even a consideration anymore?

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01:03:22,620 --> 01:03:41,310
And there's a whole new set of
tasks and skills that we require
of an entrance? And I think
that's probably the direction is
going to go. But it's going to I
mean, I don't know, to hold my
finger up in the wind. I don't I
think about it a lot. You No,
but I, I really do appreciate
your input on that. And I'd be

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01:03:41,310 --> 01:04:06,240
curious to see how, you know, as
these models evolve, if they
develop their own sort of brain
physiology of their own, you
know, like, if there's a if
there's a neuroscience, a
neuroscientific approach that
can be applied to working within
a large language model, you
know, I, I imagine there is,

224
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:09,660
and, and it must be very
fascinating. Yeah.

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01:04:10,290 --> 01:04:36,390
Laura McHale: I love what you
what you say. And and I love the
optimism around it. I think I'm
more cynical. And I think
because it's the you know,
there's there's sort of the the
transcendent, the heroic aspect
of these technologies and the
shadow aspect. I think that, you
know, it's sort of like social

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01:04:36,390 --> 01:05:01,350
media in general, where you view
it as it can be this incredible
enabler of connection on but at
the end of the day, it is a
profit maximization tool, the
companies that control it, and
that actually, there's an
incentive to create
communications that are highly
manipulative. Yep. And you know,

227
01:05:01,350 --> 01:05:25,380
that can can create a great deal
of both cynicism. And to
gullibility. And I, we really
have to watch out for those
because you know, Hannah aren't
famously said in the Origins of
Totalitarianism that that
combination of cynicism, and
gullibility is is pernicious.
It's a pernicious destroyer of

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01:05:26,700 --> 01:05:30,780
social cohesion and pro social
human behavior.

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01:05:31,650 --> 01:05:50,010
Daniel Nestle: I, I agree with
you, too. I think I feel this,
like I'm optimistic. At the same
time, you gotta be eyes wide
open with any of this and you
know, it's that's why it's
always good. You need to
understand how things behave.
You need understand psychology a
little bit you just in

230
01:05:50,010 --> 01:06:06,630
neuroscience, you need to read
things by Laura McHale. So I am,
we're gonna we're gonna have to
wrap it up there. Laura. I'm so
slick. I'm so appreciative of
your time. If anybody wants to
find out more about Dr. Laura
McHale, go to LinkedIn look for
just search for Dr. Laura
McHale. And they'll spell it

231
01:06:06,630 --> 01:06:24,390
properly in the episode. Title.
Conduit consultants.com. That's
co nd you it consultants.com Dr.
Underbar McHale on Twixtor X,
whatever you want to call it?
Are you Are you active on your
longer I shut it down,

232
01:06:24,630 --> 01:06:25,650
Laura McHale: deleted my
accounts.

233
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:33,150
Daniel Nestle: So so we'll
strike that but are you on
threads are you on anyplace
else? You're just just dealing
with LinkedIn and your website?
I

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01:06:33,150 --> 01:06:42,270
Laura McHale: have a blog on my
website. But that really just
links to kind of my public my
publications elsewhere that are
50 so them all on my website?

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01:06:42,600 --> 01:07:01,110
Daniel Nestle: Do you have it
folks, you can probably find
find some interesting
information on on on on extra
Twitter about neuroscience, but
ignore it because Laura is not
there. Go to conduit
consultants.com. And look up Dr.
Laura McHale on LinkedIn. Laura,
I'm and also by the way, oh,

236
01:07:01,110 --> 01:07:21,030
sorry, one more one last thing.
Purchase neuroscience for
organizational communication, a
guide for communicators and
leaders. It is a fantastic book.
It is not a long book, it's 100
pages 100 pages of extremely,
extremely important and packed
information. You heard the scarf
model. There's other models that

237
01:07:21,060 --> 01:07:38,880
that Laura talks about. You'll
learn about zoom fatigue, in you
know, you'll learn about, about
things like you know, there's
there's some there's some
amazing things I wrote down
cultural neuroscience and we
talked about pronoun agility. I
wanted to really I wanted to
bring up I wanted to actually

238
01:07:38,880 --> 01:07:55,980
use the word eudaimonic. Once,
but, but I didn't get the really
I didn't get the opportunity to
eudaimonic well being sense of
contentment from having a
meaningful purpose in work and
life. These are the things that
are in the book, but I honestly
it's just it's just an important
read, I think for our

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01:07:55,980 --> 01:08:04,320
profession. And you know, Laura,
we reach out to Laura and find
out more. Laura, any last words?

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01:08:05,130 --> 01:08:12,660
Laura McHale: Oh, just thank you
so much for having me on the
program, Dan. It's always such a
pleasure to connect with you.
And I love I love spending this
time with you.

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01:08:12,870 --> 01:08:25,440
Daniel Nestle: Oh, it's a real
honor. And thanks again for for
helping me get get going with my
new iteration of the Dan Nestle
show the which is now called the
trending communicator which you
clearly are. So thanks so much
for joining the show.

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01:08:25,559 --> 01:08:27,389
Laura McHale: Thank you. Thanks,
Dan.

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01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:50,910
Daniel Nestle: Thanks for taking
the time to listen in on today's
conversation. If you enjoyed it,
please be sure to subscribe
through the podcast player of
your choice. Share with your
friends and colleagues and leave
me a review. Five stars would be
preferred. But it's up to you if
you have ideas for future guests

244
01:08:50,910 --> 01:08:58,230
or you want to be on the show.
Let me know at Dan at trending
communicator.com Thanks again
for listening to the trending
communicator.