When I step on stage to speak, I get 8 seconds before the listener decides how to categorize me:
worth attention, or
time to check my mobile email
What are your first words?
When I meet someone at a conference, a party, an event… again – we have 8 seconds. Catch attention, or the other person is starting to scan the room for a more interesting conversation partner and beginning to plan her escape: “oh I must get a new drink”, “Is the toilet over there?”, “Oh I must say hello to Anna”…
In those 8 seconds, your whole life is judged on the power of your first words. What are they? There are 7 billion humans… how do you stand out as different? (you are different… but how to sum up a whole life in several words?)…
So often a speaker begins with:
“Hi”
“Good morning”
“What’s up?”
How does that help differentiate from 3 billion?
In-different = Boring
What does stop us for a moment? What delays the escape routine of the listener?
There are 7 triggers of fascination. Brands, people, even you use these triggers every day. You have one that is your “primary” trigger. What is your “primary” trigger?
Power – Take command of the environment
Pasion – Attract with emotion, irrational, irresistible charm
Mystique – Arousing curiosity
Prestige – Increase respect, aspiration
Alarm – Driving urgency
Vice – Creativity, Deviation from the norm, See things differently
Trust – Connection through consistency and predictability
Sally Hogshead explains the 7 triggers in her TEDx talk:
These are 7 challenges that can be overcome if you take the time to improve your communication skills. Some have very quick fixes, others require considerable practice to turn into strengths.
I lose people’s attention easily
People agree, but then do nothing
People avoid my phone calls (… at least I think so!)
People avoid giving me feedback (or only “sugarcoated”)
I have difficulty listening to others
People never agree with me
People “hijack” my meetings, my presentations, my conversation
Daniel Shi gives a simple but profound answer to “How can I learn to be more Influential?” over on Quora:
I think that you can certainly become influential without having to do something “extraordinary.”
7 Steps to become more Influential
Connect with many people. Learn that just because someone may not be important today, it doesn’t mean that he or she won’t be in the future. And even better if it is with your help.
Remember people’s names and what you talked about. Have a repository in memory of what you talked about. Everybody you know has some request for help that you may be able to help them with. Have it cycling in your head as you go about meeting more people and encountering new things. When something clicks, act upon it. And that brings me to:
Follow up. Find reasons to talk to people. Do this out of genuine desire to build relationships and to help people. Learn to tell the difference between being genuine and when you are being too forward.
Develop a love of helping other people. See the success of other people as being your success, rather than a lost opportunity for you. If you help someone else out, they will remember you down the road.
Don’t think of interactions with people as a one shot deal. You will no doubt meet that person again some day. You will have another interaction with them as well.
Learn to communicate well. None of the above is really applicable if you find it difficult to craft a message.
Be likeable, but not to everybody.
And of course, this is the most important lesson that I ever learned from my college accounting professor:
“Social Media is not about technology, it is about the relationships you can form” Charlene Li, author of Groundswell.
I had the privilege of having coffee with Charlene Li before she spoke to 400 people in IESE Business School’s Aula Magna in Barcelona at the HSM Social Media event. Watch the video of our interview on the blog.
“I don’t want to be ‘messaged’, engage with me”
We spoke about her book, examples of companies who use social media effectively, and how she, as a parent, manages her family’s exposure to social media.
“It’s not just about listening, it’s about learning and changing… to consumers marketing often feels like someone shouting at them. That is not a dialogue. You need to join the conversation but you have to have the conversation with your customers that they want to have.”
Does your company use facebook, twitter, google+ effectively?
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”Lao Tzu
Soft Power is part of Leadership
Soft Power is necessary to get things done
Leaders have soft power
People with soft power skills become leaders
Soft Power decides how disagreements about what to do and how to do it get resolved
Soft Power is given based on other’s perception of us
If you look like a leader, if you act like a leader: people will treat you like a leader. If you look like a follower, if you act like a victim, if you are perceived as weak: people will ignore your input.
Joseph Nye, a professor at Harvard who coined the term “soft power”, speaks about the shift in the source of power over the last 100 years. In the industrial age power was defined by “who’s army wins”. In the information age power is defined by “who’s story wins”.
Hard power: Get others to do what they otherwise wouldn’t want to do (“My army is bigger than yours”, “I am the boss”)
Soft power: Get others to want what I want (“Here is a future I can help you create”)
8 Behaviors of Powerful People
What are the behaviors of people who wield soft power? What can you do to model leading with soft power? Jeffrey Pfeffer offers this list of 8 behaviors in his book “Power”:
Make eye contact
Looking down or away conveys evasiveness
Not making eye contact is perceived as untrustworthy
Take up space and adopt an expansive posture
If you adopt a “power” pose, you will not only feel more powerful, your actual blood chemistry (cortisol, a stress hormone, and testosterone) will change
Don’t hunch, fold your arms in front of your chest, or do other things that signal defensiveness
Use forceful gestures—avoid waving your arms; use compact gestures such as pointing or moving your hands in a powerful fashion
Don’t raise your inflection at the end of a sentence, making statements seem like questions
Don’t umm and ehh, speak without filler words
Manage the setting to the extent possible
Use symbols of power—dress, uniforms
Control seating, ask people to move if it would be better to ensure eye contact
If the room is cold, ask somebody to put the heat on
Don’t use notes
Notes convey that you are “mouthing” someone else’s message
Notes imply you are not in command and are uncertain
Notes require you to look down, breaking eye contact
Have meetings on your territory, if possible
Display Anger rather than Sadness or Remorse
Those with power have permission to be angry, so the expression of anger has become associated with power
Research shows that others convey more status to someone who expresses anger rather than sadness or guilt
In many instances, situations are ambiguous—if you are ashamed and embarrassed by your behavior, others will follow your lead
Acting Powerfully is a learnable skill
You can learn the practice of soft power. Studies of “genius”—outstanding performance in fields ranging from athletics, to art, to math and science—consistently find that raw, innate talent is overrated. What matters is Deliberate Practice and coaching. Malcolm Gladwell tells us that it takes 10,000 hours to become world class.
8 Behaviors of Speaking with Power
“Communication persuades others largely through how we look and present ourselves; second, by how we sound, and of least importance, by the content of what we say. Therefore, how we “show up” is important in our ability to attract support for efforts to lead change.” Jeffrey Pfeffer
Use clear, simple, declarative sentences
Use lists of 3 or more items
Use contrasts, framed to make your position seem reasonable by comparison
“Do you want to retreat or persevere to achieve victory”
Show similarity to audience. Because we tend to support those to whom we are similar, use “us” versus “them” references to develop an association with your audience and seem like one of them
Use humor— No one ever left a speech saying “I hated the way she made me laugh out loud”. Laughter unites a group. It is a shared experience. Powerful leaders create shared experiences that bring people together.
Grow your army or tell better stories
Are you spending your time and effort developing a better, stronger army or are you developing the ability to attract people towards your vision through looking like a leader and sharing your stories in ways that those stories become the reality for others? A coup can take the army away from you. No coup can destroy the stories.
If you want to be a better leader, start by acting like the best leaders. What is soft is strong.
I have prepared a series of short videos for my IESE courses this year. This is a 3 minute video outlining the 4 attitudes that an audience will have towards you as a speaker and how to approach each of these 4 types of audience. (The video is here on my blog).
I wrote about the four types of audience back in December on this blog. There is a greater discussion of the approach to dealing with a hostile audience in that post that the material covered in the video.
The four types of audience attitude are:
Friendly
Apathetic
Uninformed
Hostile
Over to you Do you think about the attitude of people that you communicate with on a regular basis? What category are employees in when you speak to them as a manager? What category are teenagers in? How do you deal with apathy in an audience?
I have prepared a series of short videos for my IESE courses this year. This is a 3 minute video describing Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triad, the 3 pillars of persuasion. You need to connect with an audience on each of these three levels if you wish to move them to action. (The video is here on my blog).
The basic principles of persuasion were developed over hundreds of years in Ancient Greece and Rome by philosophers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian. At the very heart of this development was Aristotle’s triad of logos, ethos and pathos. Aristotle’s innovation was to include “ethos”, or credibility, into the accepted approach to persuasion.
Over to you Do you consider these three elements in your communication? Do you use them in emails, letters, presentations, negotiations and prepared speeches? What ways do you demonstrate credibility?
I have prepared a series of short videos for my IESE courses this year. This is a 3 minute video describing the 5 aspects of a powerful speaking voice. A powerful voice will transmit authority to your audience and allow them to engage with you as a credible leader.
The five aspects of a powerful speaking voice
The five aspects of a powerful speaking voice are:
How do you warm up your voice before speaking? Do you have any exercises that work for you? What would you most like to change about your voice?
Would you like to see more videos on this blog? Is this a helpful format? What questions would you like me to address via videos?
Have a great day.
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