233. Tech Tools: Write with Confidence and Impact

Transform how you communicate with tools that make your message stick. Clarity is the cornerstone of great communication—but turning your thoughts into words isn’t always simple. That’s why Grammarly exists: to help you express yourself with confidence and precision, no matter the context. For over a decade, Grammarly has helped millions of people improve their writing, from everyday emails to high-stakes professional communications. In this episode of the Think Fast, Talk Smart https://www.fastersmarter.io/ Tech Tools miniseries, host Matt Abrahams talks with Grammarly co-founder Max Lytvyn https://www.fastersmarter.io/guests/max-lytvyn/ about the origins of the tool, how AI is shaping the future of writing, and why starting with your goal is the key to effective communication. In addition to insight-packed discussions, this miniseries explores innovative tools that enhance the way we communicate and connect. Whether you want to make your presentations more memorable, craft stories that stick, or connect with your audience on a deeper level, these episodes will help you communicate with greater clarity, confidence, and impact. Episode Reference Links: Max Lytvyn https://www.fastersmarter.io/guests/max-lytvyn/Ep.227 Tech Tools: Move Your Audience By Moving Through Your Presentation https://www.fastersmarter.io/227-tech-tools-move-your-audience-by-moving-through-your-presentation/ Ep.230 Tech Tools: Use Visuals to Your Advantage https://www.fastersmarter.io/230-tech-tools-use-visuals-to-your-advantage/ Connect: Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium https://www.fastersmarter.io/premium/Email Questions & Feedback >>> [email protected] Transcripts >>>Think Fast Talk Smart Website https://www.fastersmarter.io/233-tech-tools-write-with-confidence-and-impact/Newsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>>FasterSmarter.io http://fastersmarter.io/Think Fast Talk Smart >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/think-fast-talk-smart/,Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thinkfasttalksmart/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6caGRBUYZCmgDGM2RK6mxKB9jG_ccmm3Matt Abrahams >>>LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams/ Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction (01:14) - The Origins of Grammarly (02:50) - Grammarly Elevator Structure (04:54) - Lessons on Improving Writing (06:14) - Favorite Communicator (07:11) - Communication Hack or Tool (10:05) - Conclusion ******* Thank you to our sponsors. These partnerships support the ongoing production of the podcast, allowing us to bring it to you at no cost. Try Prezi today and get 25% off exclusively at prezi.com/thinkfast http://prezi.com/thinkfast.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Matt Abrahams?

  This Tech Tools mini-series is brought to you by Prezi, the presentation tool that makes your ideas easy to follow, hard to forget, and faster than ever to create with Prezi AI. The best investment is in the tools of one's own trade. At Think Fast, Talk Smart, we're taking this quote by Benjamin Franklin, the famous US inventor and founding father, very seriously. As you know, our show strives to share tips and techniques to help you hone and improve your communication and careers. These practices and approaches can be augmented with tools and technology. I'm Matt Abrahams. I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Tech Tools mini-series of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast.

• 0:46Matt Abrahams?

  In this multi-part mini-series, we'll introduce you to tools we use at Think Fast, Talk Smart to help us be better at our spoken and written communication. And you'll learn best practices from the founders who created them. Taken together, we hope these communication tools will help you find new ways to think fast and talk smart. I am excited today to speak with Max Lytvyn, who is one of the co-founders of Grammarly. Max, welcome. Thanks for being here. I always love to learn, what was the origin of Grammarly? What led you to create it?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  First, my co-founder Alex and I previously ran a company that did plagiarism detection. And we often had to answer a question, why so many people plagiarize? And actually staggering number of people plagiarize. In our user interviews, we learned that actually the biggest reason for plagiarism is the difficulty and even perceived difficulty of just taking thoughts from your head and putting them in writing. So many people, most people who plagiarize, they actually knew what they want to say. And it just putting it in writing was the barrier that they couldn't overcome because of lack of time or lack of confidence or a combination of things. And they resorted to plagiarism. So that gives an idea, why don't, instead of policing plagiarism,

• 2:03Speaker 01

  we just create a tool that makes it much easier to take your thoughts and put them in writing. But in addition to that, we looked at where humanity and technology were going. And we saw that People make fewer and fewer things and more and more knowledge. What's knowledge? Knowledge is essentially communication. When you write a book, you're communicating. When you make a video, you're communicating. Pretty much any knowledge we create is communication. And how do we create knowledge? In process of creating knowledge, we collaborate through communicating as well. So communication is both the process and the result. If we can improve that by even a fraction of a percent for a couple billion people, it's tremendous impact on humanity level.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  And that seemed like a very compelling idea.

• 2:50Matt Abrahams?

  It is incredibly compelling and so important. I find it really exciting that you're doing the work that you're doing to help people in this information-based world to communicate better. Personally, I think it's great that rather than just building a better plagiarism detection tool, you actually said, "What's causing all this plagiarism?" Turns out, people aren't comfortable writing or feeling competent in doing it, so you work to help them. Some of our listeners might not know yet what Grammarly is. Can you share what your product is using the elevator pitch structure I teach my MBA students? What if you could sew that, for example, and that's not all?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. What if you could transform every email, document, and post that you write into an effective, polished, professional piece of communication without spending hours editing? So that you could focus on what truly matters. Sharing your ideas with confidence, building trust with your audience, achieving your career and professional goals through clear and effective communication. With Grammarly, over 50,000 teams and millions of individual users save time and mental effort by instantly catching any challenges with their writing, improving their tone, addressing their audience in a more effective way. And that's not all. Grammarly continues to evolve. Soon, you'll see even more support from real-time suggestions tailored to your unique

• 4:16Speaker 01

  personal style, to the standards and norms and benchmarks of your industry, your company culture and company style. Even compliance.

• 4:25Matt Abrahams?

  Wow. So you get an A plus on using the structure. And it sounds like you actually used your tool to help you with that answer. Can you share more about that?

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. I used some of the new AI based features of Grammarly and essentially I pointed it to the structure that you suggested. And I pointed it to some of the pitches I made earlier, but also to make it a little bit more forward looking, I pointed it to our roadmap. And that's what it produced. It took me about two minutes to accomplish it.

• 4:54Matt Abrahams?

  Now you've spent a lot of time thinking about how to help people write better. What have you learned that really seems to make a difference?

• 5:03Speaker 01

  I spent literally years racking my brain on this very question because Grammarly helps people to communicate better. And what is better? It's critical for our company's existence to be able to answer that question. The answer we came to is it depends. The definition of better or what makes writing better is very situational. I think what really makes difference is starting with the goal. Understanding what you want to accomplish with your communication. And it can take a moment, just like, what do I want to do? Do I want somebody to act or do I want somebody to know something? Or do I want somebody to change their opinion? Or do I just want to entertain people? Having clarity on that before you start communicating, it helps to communicate better and faster.

• 5:48Matt Abrahams?

  I 100% agree. And one of the foundational principles in all of the work that I do and many of our guests have shared on the podcast is this notion of you have to understand your audience and you have to have a clear vision of your goal. And once you have those two things, then you can craft meaningful communication for them. And you're just echoing that. So thank you. Now we're going to take a quick break. Thanks for supporting the partners who help us share smart communication with the world. Here's a quick message.

• 6:17Matt Abrahams?

  The hardest part of presenting isn't knowing what to say. It's keeping people with you so they leave convinced. That's why I've been a longtime Prezi user and love it. It's my favorite tool for giving memorable talks and it can help you do the same. Prezi is a presentation tool that makes your ideas easy to follow and hard to forget, not just slide after slide. With Prezi AI, you can turn any idea into a presentation that's clear, engaging, and ready to share with no design skills needed. So you can focus on delivering it with confidence. Try it now with 25% off exclusively at prezi.com/thinkfast.

• 6:58Matt Abrahams?

  That's prezi.com/thinkfast or check the link in the show notes while the offer lasts.

• 7:05Matt Abrahams?

  Before we end, I'd like to ask you two questions that I'm asking everybody who is part of this mini-series. Are you ready for that?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:12Matt Abrahams?

  Great. I would love to know, who is a communicator that you admire and why?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  This is a difficult question for me because my just personal philosophy is I can learn from everyone and I pick specific pieces that a person does really well or differently from everyone and learn these pieces. But one name that comes to mind is Adam Grant. What I like in his communication and what I want to do better myself is explain complex things simply in a way that makes it easier to apply to practical situations, but without obscuring the nuances, without obscuring the depths of complexity. Because it's easy to simplify things, but that sometimes does a disservice to your

• 7:59Speaker 01

  audience because we just don't get the lead into the nuance. But the way Adam does it is making it simple, but without hiding that there is more.

• 8:08Matt Abrahams?

  The notion of making things accessible is really critical. So it's not about dumbing it down or oversimplifying it. As you said, that can be risky. In fact, what it's all about is finding ways to make it accessible so people can appreciate the depth and the nuance. And Adam Grant does a great job with that. Thank you. Question, question two. Beyond your tool, beyond Grammarly, what is one communication hack or tool or shortcut that you use to be more effective in your communication?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Oh, I love this. One thing that dramatically changed my communication for the better is whenever I'm in a contentious situation, an argument or just a tie stakes discussion, and I have an instinct to attack somebody's point or start focusing on differences in opinions, I just start my response with yes. And not yes, but, but genuine yes. And it's mostly for me, it's not for the other person. What it does, it switches my brain into collaborative communication mode, where I focus first on things where there are commonalities, where there is mutual understanding, and then develop into things that we see differently. And that is a simple thing,

• 9:20Speaker 01

  but it has such a dramatic effect in the results. I'm sure you've dealt with collaborative versus competitive communication a lot. In competitive communication, it's usually a zero sum game at best, and in many cases, it just destroys value. In collaborative communication, it's one plus one equals three. To explain it, I often use analogy of Legos, that I have my Legos, you have your Legos. Instead of arguing whose Lego pieces are better, we just put them in one pile and build something together. That's how I can explain collaborative communication to people who are new to this concept. But that starting answer with yes is a great tool to first switch your brain into collaborative communication mode, but then it also switches your audience's brain into that collaborative communication mode,

• 10:04Speaker 01

  and leads to better results.

• 10:06Matt Abrahams?

  People can't see this, but I'm smiling from ear to ear. We have talked a lot on this podcast about the principle from improvisation of yes and, and how it really brings you into collaboration. And I love that you have found somebody in your role as a senior leader of a company that's doing really cool stuff, that you start from the yes and mentality, and you personally see your benefit. And I just want to highlight for everyone listening that what Max did was he actually followed some of the things he's talked about. He repeated himself. In a couple of different ways, he made something that's very complex, the notion of collaborative communication. People have spent their academic careers studying this and through an analogy of Legos, made it more accessible. So Max, thank you so much for the tool that you've created.

• 10:51Matt Abrahams?

  Thank you for taking the time to share with us key takeaways that can make us all better communicators. I appreciate your time.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  And thank you, man. That was a very enjoyable conversation.

• 11:03Matt Abrahams?

  Thank you for joining us for one of our Communication Tools episodes of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. Please be sure to listen to all of the episodes in this mini-series. We appreciate Prezi's sponsorship of these episodes. This episode was produced by Catherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Ibrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder, with special thanks to Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to subscribe and rate us. Follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram, and check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter. Please consider our premium offering for extended Deep Thinks episodes, Ask Matt Anythings,

• 11:47Matt Abrahams?

  and much more at fastersmarter.io/premium.

• 11:53Matt Abrahams?

  Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you for listening. It really means a lot to hear how people all over the world are using these ideas in their own lives. It inspires me and the whole team that brings you this show. If you want more episodes and resources, feel free to follow, subscribe, and explore past conversations. We're grateful for your support of Think Fast, Talk Smart.