Why You Need to Practice Forensic Listening in a Crisis - with Adele Gambardella and Chip Massey

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Dan Nestle: Welcome, or welcome back to the trending communicator. I'm your host, Dan Nessel. So I wonder how many of you out there are struggling with proving your value to your company or to your clients? Because I know I do. And I gotta tell you, stress can really get to you. Then there's trouble. There's always trouble. A lawsuit, layoffs, financial shenanigans, a bad tweet, or far worse, tragedies, accidents, even crimes with a human cost. Now, I've been involved in some of these situations and thankfully, never dealt with a crime or injuries or death. And here's the thing. When there's trouble, communicators roll up their sleeves and get to work. We turn trouble around and send it away. Nobody questions our value. Then. I'm talking about crisis communications, of course, and PRos either love it or hate it.

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Dan Nestle: Some have, like, a preternatural skill at dealing with it. But all of us have to do it at one point or another. An experience goes a long way in a crisis. But with the evolving threats and risks we see around us every day. Cyberattacks, misinformation, AI misuse, social upheaval. We can't rely on tried and true crisis plans and methods anymore. We need a lot of help. Well, we're in for a treat today, because my guests are two of the most accomplished and effective crisis communicators I've ever met, albeit from two very different worlds. One is an in demand pr strategist, corporate counsel, crisis management consultant, who has helped Fortune 500 clients and the occasional president of the United States through more than a few dust ups. The other, a former FBI hostage negotiator, spy chaser, criminal investigator, and one time pastor.

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Dan Nestle: Between them, they've taught thousands of students at Princeton, Cornell, West Point, Georgetown, and Columbia. And now they've teamed up as co founders of the convincing company, where they bridge the worlds of PR and crisis negotiation for a wide range of clients. Please welcome to the trending communicator, Adele Gambardella and Chip Massey. Dale and Chip, great to see you.

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Adele Gambardella: Great to see you, too.

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Dan Nestle: You know, I will be completely transparent for our listeners here today. I've only done one other show with two guests, and I'm facing this with a little bit of trepidation and a lot of excitement because, well, I had a little chance to catch up with you guys before we started recording, and I have no fear that I can just sit back and let you guys run. But, you know, there's a lot of things I want to know about what you're doing. I mean, you've just published a book and you have been in business together and counseling Fortune 500 clients and personages of all sorts and teaching.

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Dan Nestle: And I think you have a lot to offer the pr and comms community, especially when it comes to the area of crisis, but a lot more than that, because the one thing that I learned from doing the little bit of scant research that I do is that the skills that you teach and that you practice as the convincing company are, like, all across all of pr and communications and marketing skills, like, you need what you're selling. In a sense, what you guys are experts at. Convincing is central, really, to what we all need to do on a day to day basis. So I do want to get into crisis. I want to talk about things you're doing. I do want to cover, let you guys talk about the book a little bit. But first, tell me how this, like, how did this happen?

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Dan Nestle: You have an FBI, former FBI investigator, you know, crisis hostage negotiator and a publicist become crisis counselor extraordinaire. How did you guys get together? How did this happen?

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Adele Gambardella: Chip, you okay? You go first.

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Chip Massey: All right. So when I retired from the FBI around 2017, and I was still figuring out what my next step was going to be, what the business model, because I knew I wanted to go into business and I was talking to various people about it and some people that said there's a lot of potential here for what, you know, that would be applicable in the world of business. So started putting together some things and went to an entrepreneurial dinner. And at this dinner, small, you know, the kind of things, Dan, where you sitting around, there's about twelve people there. And at some point, you go around the room and you introduce yourself and what it is you do.

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Chip Massey: So Adele's at this dinner, and after we both had a chance to give our brief on who we are and what we did, we started talking after the dinner and said, adele's asking me questions, I'm asking her questions. She said, you know, there's a lot here. I think we have a complementary skill set. I think it would be interesting for us to continue on in the conversation. So that happened. And then in August, we're talking about the business and the kind of things that we wanted to focus in on. And in that time, Dan, Adele starts to interview me. Now, you need to know something about Adele is that she was a reporter for a period of time. You already know this, I'm sure, but for your audience, and she knows how to dig and she knows how to investigate.

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Chip Massey: And I was kind of, I felt like, oh, wait a minute, am I under investigation here? And she was asking me very pointed questions about what I learned at Quantico, what I learned in the field as an FBI agent and what I learned as a hostage negotiator and all the training that involved and how I used it, how was it applicable? What were the strategies, the tactics that were employed? So after several weeks of this, Adele starts to formulate a plan. And this is, you know, Adele does identify as a PR specialist, as a crisis communication expert, as an author. You know, she's spoken at the UN twice. She has worked for heads of state, but also she is a business strategist.

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Chip Massey: And I've seen this again and again in working with her that she, when people come up to us and they describe their business and Adele asks them, well, how are things are going so forth? And they invariably say, well, you know, it's kind of, I'm not doing well in this area. Adele will have a solution for them in under five minutes. I've seen it again.

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Adele Gambardella: That could be obnoxious.

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Chip Massey: Well, it's a help to anybody who's looking for free advice. So anyway, Adele says, you know what? I think we're good to go here. We have some solid ip. This has definitely a target audience. Here's what we're going to do, Chip. In three months, we're going to put together a masterclass. We're going to present it in New York City. And that's what happened, Dan. Three months later, were in New York City in a room full of 250 people who sold out. We had to bring in extra chairs because of Adele's business acumen again. And yet it was a huge success. We did it again in Washington, DC. This was around right before COVID I don't know if you've heard about the pandemic, but the pandemic hit at just as we completed the second one. And so there we are. Right? So we're done.

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Adele Gambardella: I love the inquisitive question by dad. Like, excuse me, sir, I'm adding up the years.

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Dan Nestle: And I take that as a huge compliment, Adele, from a PRo like you and a former reporter, that I do tend to ask a couple questions every now and then. Being in the same biz, although I was never a reporter, I have the utmost respect, of course, for people who do, who practice the art or the crime of journalism depends on who you're talking to. But I feel like our life or our lives as communicators is really about interrogation. Like, a lot of it is about interrogation.

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Adele Gambardella: It is. Yeah.

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Dan Nestle: We can touch on that a little later when I inevitably and eventually bring up AI, because I am a one trick pony in that respect. But the way to, I think, get through any kind of problem, let's call it, or to understand a narrative or to figure out a story is clearly to ask a whole lot of questions in the right way, you know? And I guess, you know, Chip has just introduced you and how you. How you both met, but let me turn it over to you now and ask you then. So from your perspective, a, is all that true? And B, B, what made you think of, like, okay, I'm listening to chip talk and, you know, hostage negotiation. All right, that's going to go really well with what I do. Let's make a company. How did that happen?

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Adele Gambardella: Yeah, so, you know, I had a PR agency and I had like 20 people working for me, and I've got to tell you that I've got, I got really burned out. And right before the pandemic, I don't know, serendipitously decided to not renew my very expensive office lease and just go and do the stuff that I was really passionate about, which is, like, to focus entirely on training and crisis communications. Those were the two areas I have done public relations. I'm really good at it. I love it. However, I just really got burned out from it. And it wasn't my total passion at that point. And when you own a company and you don't want to go to work, I think that's a sign. So I decided, I'm like, you know what?

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Adele Gambardella: I'm going to go do the stuff that I want to focus on. And then I went, actually, it was like one of the first networking events I had gone to after I decided that and I met chip, and I was like, this is like the next iteration of the business because I just thought as a corporate communicator, as a crisis person, what Chip knows, and that's why I was interviewing what he knows about people, what he knows about emotions, how people deal under stress, was not something that I knew a lot about. I mean, I had instincts around it, but I never felt like I was really tuned into it. Like, let me give you an example. I've handled lots of crises for lots of different clients before meeting chip. And people would take my advice.

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Adele Gambardella: They knew it was the right advice, but it was like taking medicine, right? Like they would take it, they wouldn't like, it. You know, they would kind of, you know, maybe even fight me on a couple of things, right? It was. It was difficult to get them to do what I wanted them to do. They would do it, and the result would be good. But at the end, it wasn't as, like, you know, it wasn't as easy. Then chip comes along. I bring him in on a crisis, and one of the first crises we have is, like, is for a nonprofit, and this girl gets mugged, and people hear about her getting mugged, and it's, like, really negative, and it's getting this, like, you know, uptick, and it's a university related thing, and parents are worried, and chip comes in.

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Adele Gambardella: He's like, you know, utterly cool. He's like, okay, nobody died. We just got. He just made the whole room, like, feel really, like, no stress. Here's what we do. Listen to everybody. Made them feel heard. You know, we had this one girl who came in super defensive, and Chip was, like, just practiced his forensic listening de escalated her, made the executives feel really comfortable with the strategy. So while I was in and I knew the right steps to take, he was making people feel better, making people feel comfortable making them, because you cannot. It's really hard to do both. You know, it's very hard to tell someone to someone what to do while comforting them, because, you know, sometimes they don't want to do what you're telling them to do, right? Like, it's like, well, you've got to apologize.

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Adele Gambardella: Well, I don't want to apologize. Well, you need to apologize. That's really the only course of action you have. And Chip's like, talk to me about why you don't want to apologize. I didn't have the time or the inclination to do it like that. And so I think what we can really, what our book is a culmination of is, like, how to be incredibly convincing, but while taking people's feelings into account, while being a good negotiator, while moving them to where you want them to go in a strategic way. And now when we do crisis communications, people are comfortable. They're happy with us. They are excited to work with us afterwards. I mean, not while they're in the crisis. That's still. That's still tricky. And, you know, can be difficult.

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Adele Gambardella: And sometimes people don't want to do what we're telling them, but for the most part, they follow our advice. We listen. It's a much slower process, actually, but, like. But more effective as far as how people feel emotionally. Wouldn't you. Wouldn't you say, Chip?

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Chip Massey: Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

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Dan Nestle: Yeah, I am. Some of the things you said actually resonate so well with experiences that I've had in various crises, you know, and, well, it's never been my strongest suit in communication. I'm better now than I was before. Experience does that, and different situations kind of give you different perspectives. And sometimes just the sheer, I guess, responsibility or accountability for the result is changes the way that you look at things. You know, the higher or the more kind of responsibility I get within organizations, you know, the more keyed in I am to what the outcome needs to be. But I hear what you're saying, Adele. I think in crisis comms, a lot of us go into it with. With that outcome in mind.

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Dan Nestle: Like, okay, look, you need to get to this outcome where your reputation is restored, or it's back to a certain point, or at least it's in going the right trajectory. You know, we've identified all the different reasons why it's possibly happening, and here's. Let's take a look. Let's do some audit of where you are with the company and who should be speaking and blah. So, basically, you become like a field command, like a general or a big project manager right on the spot and take charge and say, this is what needs to happen, et cetera. And hats off to legal. Oftentimes, you're with the legal people, and you're just trying to. Just figuring it all out, arguing with the legal people most of the time. But generally speaking, you know, Chip, did.

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Adele Gambardella: You just hear what he said? Arguing with the leader? I love it. I love it. It's true.

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Dan Nestle: But here's what stuck out to me is this whole idea of time. So, we don't often take our time with crises. Every crisis, to the person who and the company or the people that are in the middle of it seems like it's a now thing. And, you know, the story about Chip, like, coming in and talking about the student, okay, nobody was killed. You know, everybody's okay. You know, let's. Let's. Let's. Let's be calm. Good friend of mine always says it's. It's pr, not er. You know, like, we have to. We have to think. We have to sometimes remind ourselves of the right mindset, but we lack that kind of long view. And sometimes it doesn't matter, really, what our clients or our internal clients are thinking. It's like, let's get to the end of this and fix it.

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Dan Nestle: So, this brings me to Chip's forensic listening skill, because you mentioned forensic listening. Great time to introduce that to our listeners. And why, first of all, what is it, Chip? Can you go through what forensic listening is and why we as communicators, or even the marketers listening to this? Anybody listening really should embed that in their skillset.

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Chip Massey: Sure. Yeah. This really has been one of the most for me personally exciting portions of the work that Adele and I do. This came as a result of my study. Any hostage negotiator is going to have active listening skill sets. We all know what those are, right? And its purpose is to de escalate. Somebody who's in a crisis event, you're going to take them from a ten to a five to a two. And the reason why you want to do that is because you want to get them in their best frame of mind, so that your words and things that you want to have happen are actually touching down in the other person's world when we are under crisis. You know this so well, Dan, is that we're in our worst state and we're in that primitive brain.

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Chip Massey: We have, our analytical abilities go to almost nothing. And that's true when we're under physical threat as aka a hostage situation, or somebody about to jump off a bridge or a barricaded subject. But it's also true in a business context. And let me explain what I mean. So your boss comes out, the client comes out, and they're furious at you. They're yelling, they're threatening to pull out, they're threatening to fire you. All horrible things. And the brain interprets this as the same way, as if you were under physical threat of losing your life. You know this, Dan, so it. Because the brain can't differentiate between a physical threat and a social threat, it experiences the body in the same way.

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Chip Massey: We take on that stressor, we take on that danger element in our mind, and things start to shut down all around us with our primitive brain, just when we need to be analytical, when we need to be fast on our feet, when we need to have a positive mindset, so that we can think our way through the problem, things are shutting down, right? We're losing. Our hearing is diminishing. So is our eyesight, our peripheral visions going. Our body is going to start to shake because of the influx of adrenaline, where even under the ability not to no longer have fine motor skills. So texting is going to be diminished. All bad things, right? So when we talk about forensic listening, we're talking about something else, because not every event is a crisis event.

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Chip Massey: And when we deal mostly in our day to day work world. We're talking to people that are on an even keel, that, you know, there's tension here and there, sure, but it's not to the level of someone's got a gun to your head. So with forensic listening, what we're saying here is that it's the art and science of analyzing a conversation after it's happened. Because we say words, leave clues. And if we take the time and we have a process, and that's what we do, we teach the process. We take our clients through this. What is forensic listening all about? When we take the time and go over an important conversation with a client, with a boss, with a coworker, team leader, whatever that is in our world, and we go back and we think about that conversation in the context of forensic listening.

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Chip Massey: Using the four quadrant method of understanding that other person, we are going to become so much better at understanding where they're coming from, who they are, and how they want us to relate to them. So forensic listening, and I'll just give you the thumbnail sketch, Stan. It's a four quadrant system. And the top left quadrant, let's say one of the things we advise, hey, when you're taking notes, we all need to take notes for next actions, what's important, that kind of thing. We also want you to take notes from forensic listening standpoint, and it's this. So the top left quadrant is going to be about the emotion. What emotion is the client, boss, whoever team leader is in front of you conveying. And when does it change? When do you see a dip? When do you see it rise up?

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Chip Massey: When do you see happiness, joy, excitement, fear? All those things? You want to write that down. Top right is going to be theme development. And what we mean by that is that even though the meeting might have been called, and it's about, hey, we need to increase our client engagement, we're not doing so well. There's really what the meeting is about is that the boss keeps returning to a theme of, you guys aren't reporting into me often enough. I'm not aware of what you're doing. I need to be updated. And it's repeated like two or three times. Now, you know, that's important. You're going to write that down. You're also going to link the emotion that she's conveyed with that. Now, moving on. So the bottom left is going to be body positioning, and we differentiate body positioning from body language.

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Chip Massey: Dan, we've all heard, you know, hey, if they're sitting with their arms crossed and their legs folded. They want to disconnect, they want to move away. Maybe they're upset. They don't like something we said. The fact of the matter is some people just like to sit with their arms folded and their legs crossed, right. It doesn't mean anything necessarily so, but body positioning, what we're saying is that we understand and identify that we are all creatures of movement in our world, how we relate to the world, how we interact with each other. We're constantly moving. And if we pay attention, again, using this quadrant to where and how I'm moving in respect to the points being made or the idea being presented, then I'm also going to increase my understanding of where the value is, where the energy is going to.

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Chip Massey: Now, the last quadrant is the voice, so that your pitch, tone, cadence, all that also grouped together, you're going to see when that person goes up an octave, when they're flat, they don't care when they go down, and they seem to be disappointed. All those things are important. If you link all those things together and let's say you go back two weeks after this or a month, and you employ something that Del and I call targeted validation, and let's say you want to improve your standing with this person. You're trying to make an impact and say, I'm a leader. I want to be seen as such. I want to develop more.

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Chip Massey: So you've identified something in this person that has some aspect of control over your future, and you say to them month later, hey, listen, boss, I just want you to know that when you were talking to us about client engagement, I really heard you say about the need for checking in and how important that is. And I just want you to know that I'm sure you've realized that I have increased my frequency with that and also with the people that report to me. I've asked them to increase their frequency, too, because it helps in accountability, and it's really made a difference in my team. Now, can you imagine that you and I, Adele and I always talk about this?

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Chip Massey: Is that how often in our worlds do people come up to us a month later and say, hey, you know, that thing that you said at that meeting, it really made an impact on me. And I just want you to know that because of that, I've done this, that and the other thing, and I want to thank you. I mean, it's, it's the kind of thing that's just one aspect of what forensic listening can do. But it shows I'm paying attention. I value what you're saying. Not only that, I'm understanding you in a way, perhaps that no one else has taken the time to do that. So that's a long way to go around of what forensic listening is.

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Dan Nestle: Well, I mean, I'm taking furious notes. So I'm, I think it's fascinating. And it's also, I like frameworks. That's another thing. But, but me too. So when you're in a meeting or like, and whether it's a crisis or really, I guess you could, should be using a model like this anytime you're in a, anytime you're into anything critical, especially are you marking all of your observations against time and trying to match it up in some way? And is there like a. I don't know, a certain way that you should be looking at observing in the right. What mindset do you need to be in, et cetera? How can this move into implementation?

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Adele Gambardella: So one of the things we recommend is there's some great AI tools like otter AI. It's a great tool, right? Where at the end, sometimes it will come up with a summary. Like, these are the main tones, these are the, this is where, this is the takeaways. I mean, honor AI does a lot of this for you, but if you just use that and take notes on a sheet and just add some, like, quotes or, you know, understand whether emotion goes up or when they get deflated, that's important, too, right? Like, what are they not buying into? What themes do they consistently repeat as chip was saying? Like, what stories do they keep going back to? A lot of times we miss it. People are telling us exactly who they are, what they want. We just don't want to hear it. Right?

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Adele Gambardella: We're like, well, we came to get this goal of, I don't want to buy into it the way we do. And so being flexible and understanding. Like, you're listening, you're present, and. But you are taking very good notes about the emotions. Chip has this great story, Dan. I've got. He's got to tell it about Vickers and going out and, like, this is kind of how we came up with the framework forensic listening. When Chip told me this story, it was like, I was like, forget it. I'm like, that's so interesting.

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Dan Nestle: I'd love to hear it with that build up.

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Chip Massey: Okay, so this is in our book. Convince me. And it's a tell about myself when I dropped the ball big, right? So it goes like this. As a new agent, at the Washington field office, I was assigned to the fugitive apprehension group, and it was one of those things where every law enforcement entity was present. I mean, if you had a badge, you were going to be there, right? Everybody was involved. And I got. I had the great fortune of being paired with us Marshal Justin Vickers. And this guy, Dan, was par excellence fugitive hunter. He was so smart and so skilled in the craft. I just was so excited to be paired with him. It's not often that I get that you get an opportunity to have a contact with somebody who is at that level at such a young agent.

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Chip Massey: I'm super nervous, right? I'm fresh out of Quantico. I'm paired with this guy. We're hunting fugitives, and there's a whole team out there. One day after we made an arrest, the whole team after that, the kind of pattern that you did was that you started following the leads of some other people that were on your list, other people that were needed to be arrested. Right, fugitives. So, yeah, or in the wind, as we say. So this one particular time that we had a lead on a guy, violent fugitive, gang related, always weapons involved. And he said, you know what? He goes, he's got a grandmother close to here. Why don't we swing by? Said, great. Absolutely. So as we're approaching, he pulls up, we park on the curb.

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Chip Massey: Justin turns to me, he says, chip, I'll tell you what, I'm going to have you take the lead on this. I want you to interview her, see what we can get, and see if we can get any kind of good lead value from this. I said, fantastic. Okay. He goes, so you know what? You know, the questions asked, you're Quantico trained. You're ready to go. And he said, just, you know, just do your thing. He's just so calm, right? So easy going. So as we are approaching the door, climbing the steps, and he just. And he taps me on the shoulder one time, he goes, listen, chip, before you knock, I dont want you to knock like you FBI guys typically do. Boom, boom, boom, FBI, open up. Because I dont want any of that nonsense.

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Chip Massey: He said, I just want you to gently knock, okay? Dont raise the dead here. Just gently knock. I said, okay. Yeah, absolutely. Got it. Got it. Short. Wasn't going to do that anyway, right? No, no, of course not. So just, I just gently wrap that door. Immediately the door flies open. There is an older, stately looking woman in front of me. I assume this is the grandmother. So I introduce myself. Hi, ma'am. My name is Agent Massey. This is United States Marshal Justin Vickers. We have some questions to ask you about your grandson. And I proceed. Now, I've got my questions, right? I was writing furious notes as I was, you know, prepping in my mind, okay, who's gonna ask? So I got it all written down on. On, you know, on my notepad.

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Chip Massey: So I go up and say, so we'll call the guy Richard. So when was the last time you saw Richard? Does he have a girlfriend in the area? Does he have any part time job? Do you know any of his friends, relatives? Do you know where he does his banking? Do you know if he has a cell phone? Do you know when the last time he was at a family gathering? Have you heard anything about him from friends, families, and relatives? I went down the list, right? Writing furiously. She's answering my questions. No, I haven't heard from him. I don't know this. Then that. I don't know. Most of it was, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So I get down my questions. I'm kind of exhausted. She must have been exhausted. So I turned to Justin.

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Chip Massey: I say, hey, Justin, you got anything to add on this? He said, no, ma'am. I think that'll do it. Thank you very much. We appreciate you. And I pull out my card, and I say, here's my information. If you think of anything else, please give us a call. She thanks us, closed the door. We walking down, and I'm. I'm feeling pretty good about myself. All right, Dan. I'm feeling very good, because I got my questions out. I didn't stumble in front of Justin. I just wanted so badly to not embarrass the bureau and to, you know, also present myself well in front of him. And as we're walking, I said, hey, that sucks, you know? Dry hole. No, but he wasn't there. And while I'm talking to Justin, he's on his phone furiously texting. And I said, so where we go next?

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Chip Massey: And who you call? You know, who are you talking to? He goes, well, I'm talking to the team. I said, oh, okay. We're going somewhere. He goes, no, I'm asking them to come here. I said, why? He goes, he's here. I said, come again? He goes, oh, chip. He goes, okay. He goes, we got some time before the team comes. He said, now, I just want to. I'm going to go back and I'm going to talk to her. He said, but before I do that, I just want you to think back in your mind about that interview you just did. He said, did you notice how she presented herself at the door? I said, yeah, she was right there, right when I knocked and answered my question. Goes, what else did you see? I had nothing. He goes, you didn't see anything, did you?

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Chip Massey: Because you were asking all your dang questions. He said, you got to see what the person is in front of you as they're appearing. What are they doing? What are they not doing? He said, that woman, every time you asked her a question, she stepped a little bit further away from you, just a little. And did you notice that when she opened that door, how much distance was between her and the door frame? I had nothing. He goes, zero. That woman did not want to open up that door. That was an indicator for her. I want them out. I don't want them to see in. Okay, and what's the biggest tell here, chip? What's the biggest thing that she didn't ask us? I got nothing. He goes, she didn't ask us one time about her grandson. I said, yeah.

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Chip Massey: He goes, that's a little suspicious, right? That's his grandmother. Now, if she was worried about him, wouldn't she ask? Yeah, and goes, she didn't ask because she knows, because he's there. He said, now I'm going to go back. Just, you know, you take my position, I'll take yours, and I just want you to watch. Okay? Just take it in. So I'm like, I don't know. So he not just. Again, he's not even hitting the door. Door flies open. There's the woman, and I see it. She's got that door tight against her side. There's zero daylight there.

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Adele Gambardella: Body positioning, right?

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Chip Massey: This is it.

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Adele Gambardella: Yep.

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Chip Massey: And he says, ma'am, I'm sorry to bother you again. His voice gets ultra low. He said, here's the thing. I want you to just nod your head yes or no to my questions. Your grandson, he's here, right? She goes, yes. She's nodding her head. Okay. And he points up, he goes upstairs, shakes her head, no. Mid level, no. Basement. Yeah. Shakes her head yes. Okay, the team's pulling up in back of us, right? So, okay, ma'am, I need to ask you another question. Does he have a gun? She goes, yes. Okay. I just want you to step aside, man. We're going to come in, okay? We're going to make sure everybody's safe. Go in. We do the. Sure enough, there's the guy. Rest and pull him out.

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Chip Massey: But it was, you know, that's what I was so focused in on my notes, what I was getting out into, the questions I was asking her and her response, but not seeing the total picture. And that's, that was the critical piece that I was missing in that whole situation.

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Dan Nestle: So that tipped you towards this whole idea of forensic listening or that was your first experience not doing it and understanding that you need to understand more. The idea of just going back and reviewing what you said and the reactions that you see is valuable enough. I mean, clearly you're in a very dangerous situations, very different than like, hey, I was just in a meeting with the marketing team and did you notice what the brand leader said on Bubble? It's a little different, but still, the principles are the same. Right? So when you're doing all the work and you are, you know, you would hope that there is a Marshall Vickers in the room with you that can sort of observe and guide and mentor and do all the right things.

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Dan Nestle: But for those of us who are out there just dealing with whatever situation has dealt us, crisis or not taking this framework into the room and just understanding, and I love the idea of using AI tools. You kind of threw me that softball because it's something that I wanted to ask you about. Anyway, I'm partial to a couple of the transcripting tools myself, and I often go back into transcripts and ask, okay, ask the AI, what are themes here, what's happening here? Because it allows me to be present in the meeting without actually having to worry and Scrabble. But regardless, then you have all this information. If you've done your work, you're looking at emotions, you're hearing the underlying themes.

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Dan Nestle: And when you say theme development, just to go back to that quadrant, you say theme development, you're looking at what's unsaid and what's said at the same time. Right. You're trying to figure these things out, right. That's a whole skill in and of itself, by the way. It's just trying to figure out what's being unsaid. But so you have all this stuff. So let me ask Adele, when you take this approach in a meter with a client or, you know, in general, what is the action you take? What's the next step? You mentioned earlier, targeted validation. So how do we flow into this and how do we then kind of make it part of our crisis process?

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Adele Gambardella: Right? So targeted validation is this idea, and validation in general is something so many of us, especially communicators, sort of miss, right? Because I think it's the type of environment we're all came up in, I think, in corporate communications. Again, I don't know if this is everybody's experience, but it was certainly mine. I never got validated for anything. I mean, I cut my teeth on Madison Avenue in New York, so, like, nobody ever validated anything I did, ever. You know, if I got like a, you know, hey, good job. It was like the end of a multi million dollar campaign. After you.

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Dan Nestle: Oh, for sure.

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Adele Gambardella: How to, you know, 48 hours.

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Dan Nestle: There's a generally generational thing there, too. Like the. The youngins, for lack of a better word, need a lot of. A lot of validation. And we as managers, spend a lot of our time kind of understanding that, you know, hearing that as part of the subtext of what they're saying. But anyway, sorry to interrupt. I think you're right.

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Adele Gambardella: No, no.

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Dan Nestle: You're totally right. That's the way we came up. You know, like, nobody's gonna, you know, it's okay. What have you done for me lately? Is the kind of validation.

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Adele Gambardella: Right, right. And I think that's a lot of corporate communications. It's like, prove your value every single day. You had kind of mentioned that in the beginning of the show, and I think that's really true. And if you can find a way to take those notes and take those interactions that you have with people and validate the thing they care about the most, the thing that they have the most energy around, the thing that would convince them that you are invested in their best possible future, you are going to be someone they trust. You're going to be someone they bring into meetings. You're going to be someone they remember. Because, like Chip said, how many times one hand could you remember somebody going, three weeks ago you said this in a meeting. It really impacted me. It just almost never happens in our career.

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Adele Gambardella: Right? So don't we say that anecdote? And people go, oh, I swear, if you just do that, if you just did that one thing, if you did forensic listening and left this podcast, never did another thing, you would be 100 times more effective than you are right now when you are not doing it. Just coming up and saying to somebody, wow, you really impacted me tremendous. I can remember all the people who said it to me. I remember. And it's a small group, so it's like, I mean, that's super powerful. But then we have other tools and tricks, and I have to say some of this stuff sounds a little manipulative. And some people will say, oh, you're manipulating people, and it's like, okay, as communicators, as persuaders, as influencers, as negotiators. And that's really what we are doing.

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Adele Gambardella: Corporate communications is so many different skills in one. It really is a lot of different things. And what we are doing, if you have a hammer, you could build a house or you could break a window. It just depends on how you use the skills. So, as were writing the book, chip and I were asking each other questions, and were writing the book over Covid, because after we had that really gangbusters, great master classes, were like, okay, we've got something here. It's Covid. Business is slow. Let's write a book. So that's what we did. We got a publisher, and we did it. So, great use of time. And that's what we did. But I was asking chip where. I was like, who are. And I came up with a weird answer.

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Adele Gambardella: I was like, who are some of the most convincing people in the world, right? I don't know. I was like, fortune tellers. I was like, fortune tellers are incredibly convincing. I was like, you give them $50, and in a half an hour, they literally will tell you that they understand you on a magical, mystical level, and they're predicting your future, and you're like, here's another $50, so you can tell me what happens next year. I mean, like, it's crazy, right? We're so easily taken in by these folks.

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Chip Massey: How.

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Adele Gambardella: How do they do it? How do they do it? But I have a jersey related story that is fun. So I went to Middletown North High school, and my teacher was a creative writing teacher, and she just happened to know Madame Marie, who was the subject of Bruce Springsteen song, right? Okay. But anyway, so she invites this fortune teller into our class, and the fortune teller is, like, reading the room, and it was like, this is creative exercise, right? She's reading the room, and she zones in on me. This, like, Adele Gambardella, this, like, little chunky italian girl, right? And she zeros in on me, and she says, you. I think your father. A male figure with the name starting with a J and M. But I'm seeing j. I'm seeing pain around the heart. I'm seeing something. I don't know.

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Adele Gambardella: I just have a. You know, I have this bad feeling, but I'm seeing this pain. Does that. Does that identify. Do you identify with that? It's like, okay, this is not a. This is not a far stretch. I'm italian. My mom makes really fattening fried meatballs. My dad's name is Jack. Like, it's like, these are not hard. Like, you know, Jack, John, Joe. I mean, like, you know, how many people, what does everybody's name in Jersey, right? It's like, this is not a forfeit. So basically what she was doing was she was just asking me questions. She was asking me good, poignant questions and pulling information out. But what she wasn't doing was it wasn't actually questions. And that's what I was talking to Tiberius. It wasn't questions, it was statements. She was making these predictive statements about me.

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Adele Gambardella: And all I was doing was filling in the blanks. I kept filling in the blanks. I kept giving her more information. She was guessing about some things. Some things are easily guessed that we all could guess about people, right? And so using that and understanding that as the framework, I thought she was super convincing. And I walked away feeling like she knew something about my future. Now she didn't. And obviously, right. But she used something called the four year effect and what we call predictive statements. Now, here's what we mean by that, and here's how you could use them in business. Now, we're not saying you guys should go be fortune tellers. No. But what you need to do when you are trying to convince someone of something is you can use this method. This methodology is incredibly effective.

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Adele Gambardella: Something like this, Jan, you have an enormous amount of untapped potential. And I just see that you don't utilize it for these reasons. And I stop. Now, what I did was I made a statement. I said something positive about you, but I also said something sort of negative, and I stopped. What are you going to do when I say that about you?

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Dan Nestle: You're either going to make an excuse or fill in the rest of the thing. Or you're going to say, I can see that. Or you might ask, well, why do you feel that way? One of those three, I think.

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Adele Gambardella: Either way, all of those things open up more conversation and you start to begin to tell me about what your untapped potential is. And then I get a really good sense of what's super important to you. Within, like, one statement, I get a sense of what you think other people don't know about your potential.

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Dan Nestle: Yeah, there is that whole. I don't know. It's called, I'm sure that you do. Maybe this is the foyer thing where you leave an open question. You just wait patiently until the first person speaks. I mean, you know, you would hope that the other person isn't trained in the waiting game because it could turn into that's, you know, turn into that in negotiation, for sure. But oftentimes, you know, when you're in a, certainly in a stressful situation, an employee review situation, but in a crisis, you know, this is the kind of thing that you'd want to do to really get the real story from the crisis actors or from the people who are suffering from the world, whoever you're representing, let's face it, that way. Right. So have you found that to be really effective in your crisis work and in your negotiationship?

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Dan Nestle: And Adele, a few open questions.

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Adele Gambardella: It does work. And I would like, Chip, could you jump in about how you used predictive statements? And I know it wasn't exactly like the four year, but on interrogations or interviews, because you did sort of do these kinds of things with folks. Right. I mean, you did use some of these techniques.

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Chip Massey: Yeah. So, you know, part of the skill set is given for house negotiating is also given for interviewing. Right. Purposes. So you're sitting across from somebody, you've got a suspect, just think of a violation. And so you're asking them to tell the story. And you're going to, at some point, you're going to say, just like any good interviewer, you're going to say, I said, I wonder why you did that particular thing. You just told me that you said x or that you did y. Can you unpack that for me? What else happened? And you let that hang, and then you can say to this person, say, you know, if, like, say, you know where this is going, you know, in general, this is the person, and, you know, they're holding back on you.

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Chip Massey: So you will take a beat and you'll say something like, listen, I just want you to know I've obviously interviewed thousands of people, talked to a lot of criminals, and I just want you to know that you're not a bad guy. And I let that hang. So what's that do? Well, he's got to now come up with something which affirms what I just said because it's a positive attribute to him. So he would say something. Right, exactly. I'm not a bad guy. This is not, I don't, you know, I'm not involved in stuff like this. Well, any, just like what you guys were saying as interviewers, all information is good information. I don't care what you say, as long as you're talking. As long as you're talking, I know there's a good chance I'm going to get some information.

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Chip Massey: And information is what I need. Cas, is negotiation. My job was to shut up. My job was to elicit, begin the conversation, get that person talking, and shut the hell up, because they're gonna say something that's going to be important, that I'll be able to attach to that. I'll connect an emotion, an experience, a theme. There'll be something there, and I'll return to it, and I'll use that as a means of breaking through into the world that they're in right now, just like with. Just like with interviewing. So, yeah.

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Dan Nestle: That could describe almost any. Any hard conversation with any leader who's a little recalcitrant, doesn't want to talk about things. I wanted to ask you, because this is something that we all experience in our worlds for different ways, chip, certainly, and in extreme ways. But you talked about emotion as one of the governing factors of forensic listening. But also, clearly, we all are governed by emotion in crisis response mode. And being able to step out of that and be cool and collected and rational and reasonable and everything is a skill or it's a difficult step to make. But what I wanted to ask you was, when you're dealing with somebody where fear is the motivator, whether it's a criminal or a.

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Dan Nestle: A CFO who has just learned that the stock reports were fudged, or whatever the case may be, a president whose policy just went over like a lead balloon, something like this, there's a fear motivator there. I would imagine breaking through fear is harder than other things. How do you deal with that? Because in a crisis, et cetera, this is something that I think everybody needs to be extremely mindful of. And what's a good approach when, you know, fear is the motivator? Chip, that's you.

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Adele Gambardella: That's not you. Come on. That's totally all you. Yeah.

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Chip Massey: So when you're dealing with people in fear, what is it that we value when we're afraid?

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Dan Nestle: Safety.

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Chip Massey: Well, we value things like comfort, certainty, experience in another individual that's been through it, somebody that is trusted, somebody that can. Can say to us, hey, listen, we've all been there. We've done this. And that's really what the crisis work. That when I see Adele work in this area, is that one of the things that we always say to clients is that, listen, you're making a lot of these decisions for the first time. We've made these decisions hundreds of times, and we have a tested way of doing it. Right now, that person is thinking, oh, my gosh, there's a million things that could go wrong, and there are right. And it depends on the timing of what you say, how you say it. When is something introduced? When do you put that message out? When do you pull it back?

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Chip Massey: Who is it that you need to involve at this juncture in the crisis? Who is it that you don't need to listen to? Right. And who. And do we have an idea of the stakeholder? I mean, it goes on and on, but that's the idea here is that when we are afraid, we want people that have that mindset of, hey, I'm here with you. I'm collaborating with you. This is something we are doing together that appeals again to those. To those emotions in us that say, yes, okay, my reptilian brain gets it. You're going to offer me help. And that brings us closer together as a result of that.

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Adele Gambardella: Yeah, yeah. And, Dan, the other thing, too, is, like, crisis management is a muscle. It's really a muscle, right. And it's one of those things that, like, I love it because I think really fast and on my feet, and that's probably got to do something with my ADHD, but whatever, right. Whatever. It's hyper focus. Right. So when I'm in really tough situations, I can usually hyper focus and think five steps ahead when everybody else is still just where they are. Right. It's a muscle, though. And so we have this. We have crisis training so good, it's criminal, right? It's a workshop that we do, and we do it for communicators. We do it for VR people. We do it for people who are in leadership positions.

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Adele Gambardella: And essentially, Chip takes them through a hostage negotiation role play where people sit around and actually, we have an actor who's a friend of mine from college. He's any award winning actor, Hollywood like, you know, screenwriter. Cool guy, right? And he's the actor on the other line, and he's responding to how, whether or not they're actually using our skill set. And everybody walks away and is like, oh, my God, that was transformative. I've never handled a high stress situation like that before. It was so exciting. I didn't realize how I was under pressure and what I learned. And Chip becomes like this, like crazy on scene commander. And then also the nice chip that's teaching you the skillset and then the crazy onsen. And we go back and forth, right? And we do this in our workshop.

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Adele Gambardella: People are transformed because you have got to keep doing this. This is not one of those skills where you could just insert yourself in a situation that's super difficult or even something that's minorly difficult and do well if you don't know exactly how to handle it. That's the benefit that we have when we come in with our clients and they're just like, just take it away. It's like, okay, we got this. We know how this is going to come out. And a lot of times you're talking people through counterintuitive measures. Like, we're trying to get them to do the opposite of what their instincts says, right, and the opposite of what their instinct says. Like, they want to withhold. It's like, this is the time to not withhold. They want to not apologize. I'm not, you know, filling the explicit of apologizing.

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Adele Gambardella: They should apologize, right? Like, you know, they don't want to put out information because legal is telling them not to. This is where public relations has a really, corporate communicators have a really interesting role. And Chip and I have had this experience on many crises where legal is saying one thing and it was the wrong thing to do. We have one situation where we had a crisis, and they kept responding with letters. One letter, one legal letter after the next, and one and one. And it was like, all it was doing was just escalating people. And then they called us up and they were like, we need your help to write a letter. We're like, no. And it needs to go through an attorney. No, we're not writing another letter. Like, this is not the right approach.

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Adele Gambardella: And so, like, you know, and we get on the phone with this, you know, crotchety old attorney, and he was pretty argumentative. And he's like, wait, tip. Maybe you could tell the rest of the story so I could be nice.

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Chip Massey: Crush the old attorney. I'll show you. It was one of those things. And he was doing all the wrong things. It was amazing. He was, when we're in this meeting, he was saying, you know, what we just got to do is hold these people's feet to the fire. We've got to threaten lawsuits. We've got to. We've got to tell them that they're wrong and why they're wrong. And Adele and I were going, no, like, none of that ever.

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Dan Nestle: Because that's always when people respond the best, when you tell them they're terrible. Yeah, it's always good.

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Chip Massey: Right? So we love that. I mean, it's kind of also reading what we call the unstated narrative. And the unstated narrative is. It's the tapes. We all have thousands of tapes running in our head. Right. At any one given time about our world, what's in our world, who's in it, who do we interact with on a daily basis? What do we think about that person, what they represent, what they mean to us, how we really feel. And then there's also that. What is it that we're going to say in front of them about them? There's a disconnect there, right? I mean, we can't always go around in the world and say exactly what we mean to the people that we're interacting with. That's a problem. So we have to pull some of that back.

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Chip Massey: If you want to understand why somebody might be reticent to sign on the dotted line or agree with the path, if you can get to that unstated narrative, whatever that hold back is, by, again, what? Advising through what we do, forensic listening, asking those good questions that are going to elicit robust responses in there. There's going to be nuggets. You're going to get an idea, I just need somebody that they may not have said, I need a vendor that I can count on, somebody that I know that no matter what, it's going to be there at a specific time and in the amount I need, period. They might be thinking, I just don't think you're that person. So you hear a little bit about, you know, it's really important for us to get deliveries on time and we're all about price.

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Chip Massey: So, you know, price is so important and we really like things to be there in the warehouse when we have. Right. So they're returning to that theme again. That's their unsated narrative. Now, if you can get close to that, you have a huge advantage as a result of that. Yeah.

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Dan Nestle: So it's. It seems like we should know that. But clearly, I think in the hustle, and I'll go back to what we said before in the hustle to just get to that result that we know. Either we want to be people pleasers and say, okay, we're going to get you out of this crisis, or we're going to get you to that result. And, hey, oh, finally you're paying attention to pr people. Okay, we're going to do what we can and I'm going to show you how valuable I am. There's a lot of dynamics happening there on a psychological level and certainly on a neuroscientific level. And I've had a neuroscientist or two on, and then it's fascinating to think about that. We're going to have to put a pin in that one.

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Dan Nestle: Think about, kind of get back to that another time, because I see that we have been talking for almost an hour and it's been going like so fast for me. But there was one question, although I did want to ask you both, because this is the trending communicator. You're both trending communicators. What do you think the future of crisis is? The future of crisis comms is, what should our listeners be paying attention to now? What should they be learning in your mind? We'll start with Adele.

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Adele Gambardella: Sure. So I think one of the things that's really interesting is you're going to see a lot of companies, you're going to see a lot of individuals who are hard pressed to give their opinions or positioning on controversial matters as they come up, especially with the us election. Right. Which is probably going to be incredibly contentious. You're going to see companies have to take a stand, have to take a position. And what communicators need to do right now is to get to the core issues, get to those core issues super fast and predict what they're going to be, understand what their boundaries are for the company and make sure you stick within them.

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Adele Gambardella: And there we actually offer a program where we take boards and communication teams and marketing teams through exercises to figure out what are their core issues and what is not a core issue. And they should be doing that right now. They should be doing that, like, in the next three to six months before the election happens. Because the last thing you want to do is have someone reach out and be like, what is your stance on this? You're seeing it with universities, you're seeing it with companies, you're seeing it now. It's starting to prop up, but it is just the beginning. And I think if you are not, if you are a communicator and you are not thinking about this, you should be and get a program going, get your boundaries set and make them clear.

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Dan Nestle: Yeah, that's good advice. Before I get to you, Chip, I just, the one thing about that we talked to before, actually, we even started our conversation today, is that in your previous work, Adele, you'd mentioned that people don't want to hear from brands as much as brands think that people want to hear from them. Right. It's very rare, actually, for a brand to have something interesting enough to say for the public to be concerned or for anybody really to be concerned, except when it comes to business in this world now, where there's so many, it's a minefield right. We're seeing more and more businesses pull back from making these kinds of public statements. Like, I don't think that I would advise my company to have a serious position about some very serious issues.

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Dan Nestle: I'd want to focus in on the ones that are important, like the only things that are totally, 100% aligned with our purpose and mission and anything outside of that zone. Sorry, there's nothing really for us to say. And. But my company is fortunate in that we're not making bombs and we're not a financial, we're not moving financial markets. We make kitchen and Bath appliances. So there's a very different kind of approach. But for a lot of companies who are in the spotlight and who certainly are at the cutting edge of technology and are always looking for, they're going to need to say things and they're going to need to have a position for sure. I don't know if you agree with that, but that's.

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Adele Gambardella: Yeah, I do. I do. And what I would say is, the interesting thing about your company, too, and I know that you know this, and good communicators know what those issues are. Here's the thing. If an issue does come up and you are relevant.

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Dan Nestle: Yeah.

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Adele Gambardella: It is truly your duty to respond. If there is something that's, like, right in the middle of your core issue and you don't respond, it's malpractice. Great.

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Dan Nestle: Malpractice.

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Adele Gambardella: It's malpractice. It's malpractice.

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Dan Nestle: Yes, I hear you're on that one. Did you say duty on purpose? I just want to know. We do it all the time internally. Chip, what do you think? What do you think people should be looking out for? What is the future of crisis? What should people be doing?

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Chip Massey: Yeah, this kind of reminds me, kind of like the crux of what we're about is that things are so heightened, you know, it's almost expected. We every, you know, every waking moment, we're confronted with something that is polarizing, something that creates a sense of distrust in the other person. And what we try to do in our, in our convincing workshops is to present scenario planning. And so it's like whatever it is that you're going to be dealing with, we can talk about that here. Let's put it on the table and we'll devise some possible scenarios. We'll have role players. There's an interaction effect there. But the whole idea with that is, why is training so valuable in these kind of times?

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Chip Massey: Well, it's important because one, if you're not in control of your own emotions, how you react to these issues, then you're lost, and you're now a part of the problem. And if you can learn to not only be in control of these emotions, but to also harness your better angels, get in there with a degree of, hey, I am future focused. I want us all to do well, and I want well being for everybody. It's one of the things we say. It's like, for example, dan, as a hostage negotiator, I never negotiated with anybody. It's kind of a misnomer in the title. I was actually convincing that person. I was convincing that person to value what I valued slowly, methodically, you know, going down a continuum. But I wanted him to value life.

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Chip Massey: I wanted him to value, you know, surrendering to me, and I'll make his day safe to release those hostages, to. To put out some good news about that. He's not such a bad guy. That takes time. Right. And it takes control. It takes discipline. And that's what I. Some of the things that I feel is lacking in the. In the world. And the narrative right now is that nobody's displaying that kind of discipline. So if I'm disciplined, I am convincing that person. I'm not going to go back and forth with them about, you want $2 million and a plane and a jet? Okay. Right.

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Dan Nestle: It's on the way.

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Chip Massey: I'm never going to be talking about getting him a plane and $2 million, but I will talk about. Hey, just curious. What would you do with that $2 million? Right. I am going to talk about. Where would you go in that plane?

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Adele Gambardella: She like ten, don't you think, Chip? Ten.

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Chip Massey: Absolutely. Should be ten. You're not getting it. So, so. But what. Because it was. It was never going to be a back and forth like that. Never going to be. Okay, you got seven people in there. Tell you what. You kill three, give me back four, we'll call it a day. That's never going to happen. So convincing is kind of like a higher level thing. When you think about. Then you think about all the major treaties and the accords that have been hammered out by political leaders.

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Dan Nestle: It wasn't.

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Chip Massey: You give me this, I'll give you that. What happens at Camp David is not about. All right, let's get down to brass tacks here on how many people we're going to put it to this effort and what we're willing to do. When leaders get together, they talk about future, and they talk about the kind of future that they want their grandkids to have and that brings it home to them. That's convincing. Those are the kind of conversations that are higher level, convincing. Negotiation is kind of like lower level tertiary stuff. That's things that other people work out after you've done the big picture item. So that's kind of my thinking right now.

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Dan Nestle: So what is the world you want? What is your motivation? What are you really after? What would be that outcome? Not for us, but for those that come after us. These are very high concept ideas, and I love it. I think I need to dig in a little bit more. I definitely am going to read the book. Convince me. Available everywhere, by the way, on Amazon and certainly@convincingcompany.com. Comma, which is where you can find Adele and Chip and all the services and everything that they offer. Check out their bios, everything there. I did want to get into AI with you guys so badly, but you know what?

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Chip Massey: It's okay.

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Dan Nestle: It's really funny because it's something that I talk about here a lot, and it's of concern to all communicators. Read this article before getting on our show today about how, you know, particular professional is using AI to crisis scenarios. And it's really, you know, it's very helpful in that way. Well, again, something that we'll talk about another time or kind of put on hold for now. But I do think that you have so many things to say about that, about just in general, how to better understand what you're contending with and then what your coping mechanisms should be so that you can then turn that to your advantage or to the outcome that you want or that you need. And convince is the right term. I feel, I feel like, I always talk about persuade, but I think convince is probably better.

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Adele Gambardella: Yeah, probably agree. We thought so, too.

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Dan Nestle: I agree. That's why you're coming. It's called convincing company. Again, everybody. Convincingcompany.com on all the socials, it's convincing company. Look for Adele Gambard della at LinkedIn. Everywhere. Look for Chip Massey on LinkedIn. Are you guys on any of the other socials? Are you active anyplace else?

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Adele Gambardella: We are. We have an Instagram account. Convincing co. Underscore convincing co. So check that out. Underscore. Yes. Thank you. I had to abbreviate a little bit, but yeah. And so LinkedIn, Facebook as well. But, yeah, Instagram, we're doing a lot of videos, a lot of short form content. So it's great. Yeah. Yeah.

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Dan Nestle: And listeners can't see Chip and Adele here, but I guarantee you that you'll enjoy the videos. They're just, the way that you guys interact with one another and interplay with one another is just a joy to watch and joy to see. And I will thank you for putting me at ease and interviewing two people at once or having a conversation and any last words, you guys, before.

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Adele Gambardella: We split, just this one thing that I learned as a result of writing the book, which surprised me, which is the idea that never start with your strongest point first. Never start with your strongest point first. Because if you do that, all you do is make everybody in the room dig their heels in. I guarantee there's not one communicator who is on this call. Whoever walked in and gave their greatest idea, and then 10 seconds later, everybody's like, that's it. That's it. That's the idea. We love it. We're leaving now. Everything's done. Genius. Thank you. I mean, in our wildest dreams, when we get off, when we get out of the meeting and we talk to our best friend or our mom, that's how that meeting went. But it's never how it happened, right? So instead, you have to take people through a continuum.

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Adele Gambardella: You have to convince them in the right way. And we depict a lot of that in the book. Talk about how to do that. What's, what's the measure to do that really effectively? And so really good stuff.

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Dan Nestle: Terrific. And, chip, anything for our audiences anymore.

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Chip Massey: I think, is that I just talking about the idea of deep listening. Our own stress improves when we're really listening and trying to help somebody else and we can come up with better solutions. We're so much more creative in our own brain space when that happens.

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Dan Nestle: Excellent. I can think of no better last words. Deep listening. Convince me, everybody. Convince me. The book. Go get it. Thank you, Chip and Adele, for joining me today. And, you know, hope to have you back again to dig into some further topics on the trending communicator. Appreciate your time.

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Adele Gambardella: Thank you.

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Dan 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. Do you have ideas for future guests or you want to be on the show? Let me know@danningcommunicator.com. Thanks again for listening to the trending communicator.