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Speaking & Presentations Archives - How to be Awesome at Your Job
729: A Veteran Broadcaster's Top Tips for Great Listening and Speaking with Jane Hanson
Emmy-award-winning journalist Jane Hanson shares the secrets of communicating like the pros.
Why we're listening wrong–and how to fix it
How to communicate through body language
The words that undermine your credibility
About Jane
Jane Hanson began as an anchor and correspondent for NBC New York in 1979. In 1988, Jane was named co-anchor of "Today in New York," a position she held until 2003 when she became the station's primary anchor for local programming and the host of "Jane's New York"; She covered events ranging from the tragedy of 9/11 to the joy of Yankees victory parades to Wall Street and Washington; has interviewed presidents, business magnates, prisoners, and celebrities; traveled as far as the Gobi Desert of Mongolia and the great depths miles below New York City for her special reports.
Jane has won 9 Emmy Awards. In addition, she was named Correspondent of the Year by New York's Police Detectives and received a similar honor from New York's Firefighters.
She has also been the recipient of numerous other awards for her service to the community. Jane has served as the March of Dimes Walk-America Chairman, honorary chair for the Susan B. Komen Foundation's Race for the Cure, and as a board member of Graham Windham, Phipps Houses, the Randall's Island Sports Foundation, the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, and Telecare. She has taught courses on communication at Long Island University, Stern College, and the 92nd Street Y. Hanson is a Past President of the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Website: JaneHanson.com
Book: What Every BODY is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People by Joe Navarro
Past episode: 341: Decoding Body Language with ex-FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro
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Jane Hanson Interview Transcript
Jane, thanks for joining us here on How to be Awesome at Your Job.
Jane Hanson
Well, thank you very much for inviting me to be here because, obviously, you're awesome.
Oh, well, thank you. And you have had an awesome career, and I kind of want to start by hearing, perhaps, one of your favorite or most thrilling stories from 30-ish years of being a news correspondent and anchor.
Well, I have to tell you that everybody always says, when you're an anchor or a correspondent, your best story is the last one you did because there are so many you can't even remember them all. But I will tell you one of the most awesome ones ever is the day that, because I worked in New York City for most of my life for NBC. And so the day that was sent down to interview a guy named Desmond Tutu, who worked with the apartheid movement in South Africa.
And he was in town, I think he was going to the UN or something, and so I go down to do this interview, I do my prep work, I start talking, and reporters are always like we always got to move, move, move, move, move, move, move fast. So, I get down and I'm sitting on this bench talking with him, and the people that were with him interrupted and said, "I'm sorry, we have to stop." I'm like, "Oh, come on. I'm almost done. Please, just let me finish." And they said, "No, you really want this to stop."
So, they pulled him aside and they told him that he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. So, he comes back and sits down with me, and tears are streaming down his face. I start to choke up and cry. It was just one of those moments where you're watching this incredible human being, who had just been told that all of the work that he's done for the people that he represents, for the good of the world is being recognized in that way.
And, of course, being the kind of person that he was, the awesome human being, he simply said, "This is all about them. I don't deserve it; they all do." And it's a moment I'll never forget because it was just kind of out of the blue but, there, you're watching this incredible little piece of history being made in front of your eyes.
I saw history all the time but it's the result of that, and the poignancy, and the beauty, and the knowledge of what somebody had accomplished, and me just watching it in that moment was probably one of the greatest things I ever saw.
Well, that is cool. Thank you. Well, now, I want to hear about some of the greatest things you ever learned in terms of anything particularly surprising or fascinating or counterintuitive that you've made about what makes for effective and powerful communication.
Well, one of the things that I'll tell you is I think that great leaders are people who are much kinder and more thoughtful and more approachable than you can imagine. And I think that's what makes them great leaders and great communicators. I also have discovered that people really like to be asked for help. You're always afraid of asking somebody and saying, "Oh, no, they're too big a deal. And what do they want with little old me? And I'm afraid to ask them because they'll say no."
But, again, back to the greatest people and the greatest communicators, if you are very specific in asking them for what you need in that moment, or would like to know from them in that moment, they're extremely gracious about actually helping you and granting you that, and so don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to do that. I think that's one of the best lessons of all. And then I think virtually the most important thing is listening. If you don't listen well, you're never going to get anywhere.
Wait. What did you say, Jane? Sorry.
Maybe if I say it louder. That's the other thing. People think, "Well, if I just talk louder then maybe they'll hear me." It doesn't work, so.
Okay. Well, let's hear about listening first in terms of how does one listen well effectively versus kind of what do we get wrong about listening? Because I think we all say, "Well, of course, I listen." Well, what's missing, Jane?
What's missing is we're too busy thinking about our answer to really listen. So, for example, you have a conversation with somebody, and they're telling you a story, and instead of really taking in that story, thinking about what it means, and maybe just having a little bit of empathy or understanding, we're immediately thinking, "Oh, yeah, that happened to me," or, "Here's what I'm going to say back," and we haven't even heard the full story.
So, listening involves truly caring, truly having that kind of empathy, and truly believing that this person is important. And how many times have you been talking to someone when you can see that their eyes are glancing over your shoulders at somebody else or they're not giving you that great body language that means they're listening? Listening isn't just about what your ears are doing. They're about what you're doing with your eyes and your facial expressions, and maybe you're leaning in or not leaning in. There's so much more to simply listening that has nothing to do with what's coming in your ears.
Okay, that's good. Thank you. And then, so a lot of that really seems to boil down to "Do you actually care? Is that person actually important to you?" And so, well, you tell me, Jane, sometimes you don't care, you're not interested, the person is not yet important to you. Not that you're a sociopath who is like, "Everybody is a means to my end and move on from me." But just sort of like, "I don't know this guy yet. I'm not really captivated yet."
So, how do you recommend we kind of get there because I imagine over the course of 30-ish years of broadcast journalism, there were occasionally times you weren't feeling it. How do you get in the mood? How do you feel it?
Well, that gets back to, then, kind of "Why are you there? And why are you talking to this person? And what's the purpose?" because purpose is a really big deal. I have had some of the best stories come to me because I actually asked someone a question, maybe in an elevator, maybe on a street corner, maybe because they were sitting next to me on an airplane, only because I just, I don't know, I got curious about something weird, like maybe a tie, or a piece of jewelry, or a bag they were carrying, or a book they were reading, and I'd ask them a question.
And, all of a sudden, I'd hear, or they'd tell me this story, and I go, "Oh, that's amazing." So, yeah, there's a lot of times that we really don't care, but if you can find one little common thing, it'll set you down a completely different path, and an interesting one.
Okay. Cool. All right. Well, so that's the listening side of…
So, that's like, look, I'm looking at you now, the audience isn't, but you have an Illinois sweatshirt put on.
Now, I'd say, "Hey, did you go to Illinois?" and maybe you'd say, "Nope."
Oh, there we go. Well, so, obviously, you lived in the Midwest, I lived in the Midwest. Oh, my God, we're Midwesterners, right?
That's true.
And then we could get into a whole long thing about complaining about the winter weather, or we could talk about how people…
New Yorkers.
Yeah, how they ignore us and how they think that the middle of the country is a flyover place, or we could get into a whole conversation because you're wearing that sweatshirt.
That's right, yes. And you have a monkey playing a cello painting behind you, or is it a vase?
Wait. On that side, I have one playing an accordion.
Yeah, so I'm curious about this work of art, and maybe it's famous and I just don't recognize it. But what's the story here?
It's actually a screen so you can take it off the wall.
Use it as a screen. I happen to like monkeys and I have a lot of monkey stuff in my house, and so that's just one of it. But I think it's really funny because, first of all, do you know anybody who likes the accordion?
You know, I knew someone who was into dancing polka, but she didn't explicitly say she liked the accordion. I just inferred that.
So, polka dancing, I mean, look, if you grew up in the Midwest, like I did, there's a lot of polka dancing going on and there's a lot of people that played the accordion. And so, I like having an accordion not because I like music so much but I think it's funny.
Yeah, it is. There's something comical about it. Like, Steve Urkel played the accordion and it just fits. There's just something funny. I don't know. There's something funny about the accordion.
Right. It is.
Weird Al, Steve Urkel.
I mean, it's goofy.
Goofy, yeah.
Plus, you've got to be really talented because you got to pull, you got have the air going so you got to pull it back and forth, and then use the hand to play the notes. It's a lot of work to play an accordion.
It is. Well, Jane, this has been a really cool demo here because here we are, conversing about things, and I'm enjoying myself in terms of covering Illinois, Midwesterners, monkeys, accordions, so it's good stuff just based on what was visually right there in front of us.
Which visual is really important, which gets me to the most, the stuff I like to talk about the most, which is about body language.
Okay, let's hear it.
So, man and woman have been walking on Earth for, depending on who you believe, anywhere from 2 to 14 million years, but we've only had a spoken language for 160,000. So, how did we communicate besides a few grunts here and there? It's all about how we used our bodies. And to this day, we still do it even though it's so innate, nobody actually recognizes how much they're doing it.
So, I challenge you to do, I challenge everybody who's listening, to do, take a little test. Turn on your television set and watch a show but have the sound off, and you're going to be able to figure out the bulk of the story.
Yeah, my wife does this sometimes. Like, "Oh, someone is angry. Someone has discovered something surprising."
But you can do it because it's the body language. And the body language, like the face alone, for something like 10,000 different expressions that we can use, some of them really fleeting, but every single one of them has a meaning, which is the really crappy part every time when we're anywhere we had to wear those masks. You're missing people's smiles. You didn't know what people were really thinking because you couldn't see their mouths.
But, anyway, all I'm saying is that our bodies say so much more. I can tell you stories about which way your feet are pointing when you're sitting in somebody's office. What does that mean? About how you're using your arms, the gestures, there's everything, has got inner meaning to it that we subconsciously read and we don't even know it.
Well, that's juicy, yes. Well, Jane, please lay it on us. We previously had FBI agent Joe Navarro, who wrote a great book about body language, What Every BODY is Saying, which we'll link to, and he had some great nuggets. But you are offering from a different context than law enforcement. So, tell us, what have you found to be the most useful and reliable body language indicators of something useful or good? So, we talked about some feet pointing. Lay them on us. What are your, say, top five favorite indicators that tell you something useful?
Well, I have to say one of the first is exactly what Joe Navarro probably told you about eye contact.
Did he tell you about when people look up to the left that they were lying?
Well, he's very nuanced and careful to not be as black and white about that. But, yes, that could be indicative, if I recall correctly, about, "I am accessing an imagined content in my brain as opposed to remembering factual content in my brain, so I could very well, potentially, be fabricating something." And just to clarify, for listeners, is it their left or the left that we see?
It's usually the left that we see.
The left that we see. So, if it goes left, as though we were looking at a piece of paper, and it's on the left, that means, "Hmm, might be…"
They may not be telling you the truth or the absolute truth.
Okay. So, eye contact is a really big deal because eyes are the gateway into the soul. So, when you're talking to someone, and if you're not looking them directly in the eye, they're not going to trust you, they're not going to believe that you really care, because I do a lot of coaching via Zoom now and via whatever other platform, and it's hard because, in order to have good eye contact, you need to be looking right up into the little lens but your instinct is to be looking at the person that you're talking to.
Now, when you're doing a podcast, it's much easier because you don't have to look at anybody. However, you really need to think about having great eye contact because, if you don't, people just don't trust you. Okay, so eye contact is another thing. Another thing is crossing your arms. So, crossing your arms can mean several things. One of the things that it can mean is you really don't care what somebody is saying, that you're kind of bored, and it's an indication that, "Hmm, okay. Fine. Mm-hmm, okay, whatever."
It also can mean, especially for women, that you're cold, because maybe the air-conditioning is on too much in a room, or maybe you need a sweater outside, so it means you're cold. It can also mean, "Hmm, I want to get out of here. How am I going to do that?" So, there's a lot of things with one gesture that can mean many things.
When you take your hands and hold them, what's called the most visionary look is…you know, playground ball? Do you have kids?
Okay. So, the playground ball, they're not the size of basketball, they're not the size of a baseball, they're kind of in between. Those playground balls, when you hold your hands so it's like you've got that in the middle, that means that you're being extremely visionary, that what you're saying is kind of a very well-rounded thought that we should take in.
Or, you think it is maybe.
Or, you think it is. But it's the way it's interpreted by somebody who's watching you.
Okay, so you're saying that just by doing that, folks can assign more weight to what it is we're saying.
When you hold your hands out and you've got that big wide gesture where your palms are up, kind of like when you see those preachers on TV, it may mean that you're really asking for something, and maybe it's asking for something that you might not want to give.
You're asking for something you don't want to give, like, "Who wants to sign up for this committee? I don't." Like that? "You want to give of your time to this thing that I don't want to give my time to?"
Exactly. Exactly. All right. So, the way your feet are pointing, what I was referring to earlier, if your feet are pointed towards the person you're speaking to, you're being very open and you're clearly listening to them. If your feet are pointed away, it means you're not interested. Are you buying into any of this or do you think I'm just making it up? "I don't know about you."
Well, no, I think the feet are good. I guess I'm just recalling Joe Navarro's rant about opaque tables in interrogation rooms and how that's a travesty and need to be transparent. So, I was like tracking and I was remembering, so I was imagining an interrogation room as you're speaking. But it's clear that you're observing my body language as we're talking.
Well, I'm observing, like, obviously, I can only see a part of you, so it's harder to observe it as such, but you look like you're sitting up pretty straight. That's another big one. It's when people slump, again, that shows a lack of self-confidence. Slumping means you're not very…you're kind of down. You're not enthusiastic, etc. If you think about it, if somebody walks up to you and they've got their shoulders slumped, you're kind of going, "Do I really want to speak to that person? That person looks kind of…like, this is going to be a painful conversation."
They don't seem as open to that idea of talking to you.
Right. Exactly. But when you've got your shoulders back and you've got great posture…I have a wonderful little poster that has somebody standing up straight, and it says, "This is a good person," and then somebody who is really slumped over, and it says, "This is an evil person."
Well, yeah, you think about that. Evil people tend to be slouched over and stroking hairless cats as a general rule of thumb. Like, there's your telltale signs, "Excellent. Excellent."
You're good because I love how you're painting imagery in people's heads because that's a very big deal, too, is that we create the imagery because we may not be able to be showing it to them.
Cool. All right. So, you mentioned there are three core elements of speaking – what you say, how you say it, and body language. So, we talked about some body language pieces. Can we hear a little bit about the what you say and then how you say it?
Well, the how you say it is actually also having to do with body language because that's about delivery, but a lot of that is about how we use our voice.
Voices, we barely use our voice. You have an excellent voice.
Well, thank you.
It's nice and deep and solid, and that's what we like. We like, think of hot chocolate, or bourbon, or things melting. That's how we like voices. That's how people have always done so well with commercials, how all those male voices have a really silky…that's why we like them so much because we like those voices.
Women are usually told to use their lower pitches because lower pitches are considered to be more believable. We hardly ever use the full range of what we have. We need to think about things like pace, how fast are you talking. When you talk fast, or when you go like, "Well, let me tell you about this story because this story is really exciting. You're really, really going to love it," you think one of two things, either, "I'm so excited that I'm almost out of control," or, "I'm so nervous, I don't know what I'm saying."
Then you think about your tone, which is really intended to be the interpretation of something. So, if I speak to you like this, and it's important that you know this fact, you're going to say, "Man, this is important because, listen to the way she's saying it." But if I say, "It is really important that you know this," now I've taken an entirely different tone, and you're going, "Nah, I'm not sure I'm going to care."
Okay. So, volume, softness is being soft. It can be equally as effective as being loud because, in both cases, you're making me pay attention in one way or another. Softness can speak volumes about credibility, about authority, and about leadership.
And as I think about softness, it's not like…I'm thinking about that sketch with Andy Samberg, "Shy Ronnie," where he's just kind of mumbling really quietly, and so that's probably not the softness that you're talking about, Jane, I'm guessing. But, rather, like you're deliberately bringing it softer, like there's something sort of touching or emotional or some gravitas, some seriousness about a thing, and so you're deliberately going there as oppose to you're like scared to own your volume, and so you're mumbling.
Exactly. It is about technique. It's all about technique. You're absolutely right. Because people who are very soft spoken, sometimes that's just their natural way of speaking, and that can be to their own detriment because, then, if you can't hear someone, and it's not a deliberate thing, like they're not trying to get you to pay attention but you can't hear them, you're simply going to dismiss them, because if you can't hear it, it doesn't matter what you said.
Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, so then we talked a bit about body language and then vocal bits, your volume and your pace and your tone. How about in terms of, I guess, the 7% or 8%, the actual word choice? What do you think about that?
Well, I don't want anybody to think that it doesn't matter what you say, because if you don't have anything to say, who cares how you say it? So, content is important, and you're usually speaking to somebody because of the content that you have in work, in a presentation, in a speech, in a video, because everybody's doing videos these days. You're doing it because you are the expert at something, because you have something great to say.
Now, how are you going to say, I don't mean say, how are you going to give your best? So, you have to think about the message. And the message has to be really clear and concise. There's a big movement out there to speak in threes, and I'm sure you've heard of this – three points. Okay, let me ask you a question. What's nine times one?
Nine.
Not in messaging math. In messaging math, that's zero.
Messaging math. Okay, so if I have nine points, zero are going to get through.
That's right. So, you get one. You get one great point. In messaging math, three times three, you'd say it's nine. It's one, maybe two. So, if you have three points, and you say some three times, one or two of them are going to get through. So, the best thing I can say is to have a very clear message. And to make sure you get that message out there frequently by using other kinds of techniques throughout the duration of your presentation, such as telling a story, maybe giving a great fact. Whatever it is, you need to be sure that you don't overwhelm the human brain with a bunch of different messages because it's not going to work. They're never going to remember it.
Okay. So, one key message shared differently. So, maybe, could you give us an example of bad versus good here?
All right. So, it's hard for me to do bad but I'll try. Okay, so I want you to take away from this podcast that you need to make sure that you always use your voice in so many different ways that you never ever tell a story that's more than 30 seconds long, that you always have three main points, that I want you to never forget about looking your audience in the eye, that I think you must always have perfect posture, that I think you must point your feet in the right direction, and I think you've got to make sure that your hair is always combed. All right, I just said like 12 different things that I want you to do. How many of those could you actually remember?
Well, yeah, almost none, kind of the last because it's the last, comb my hair, and then my key, my toes pointed and my posture good. But, yeah, so not much.
Right. But if I said, "To be really an effective speaker, you must focus on how you're delivering your message, and make sure that message has one solid point that's very, very clear and concise."
Okay, there's one point. Thank you. Cool. All right. Well, so that's one key thing is to be concise. Any pro tips on getting to that brevity and trimming things down?
Yeah, I love mapping, like taking a big whiteboard and writing all my thoughts on it, and I'll pile a ton of them on it. And then I'll circle the ones that really connect. Then I'll draw lines between them, and say, "Okay, this, this, this, and this," I shouldn't be pointing like this because this is a podcast. I apologize. Audience, I'm pointing. I'm like going pretending like they're all connecting.
And then I see what's the common thread. And that helps lead me to my kind of bottom line. So, it's really about, "What do I want the audience to walk away with? What's my key point I want them to walk out the door thinking?" And I always have to get back to that. So, it's, today, I want your audience to walk away thinking, "I can be a great speaker."
Now, how do I get them there? We've talked about how to use your voice. We've talked about how to use your body. And, right now, we're talking about how to get to that key point.
Beautiful. Thank you. And so, now I'm wondering, any key things you recommend we stop doing, some communication don'ts?
Oh, yes. How about like, you know, maybe, so.
Vocal pauses, right?
My favorite new one is, "Yeah, no." How many times have you heard people say that recently?
That is another one.
So, those are crutch words. And you ditch crutch words by taking a pause, because crutch words are fillers, and we don't like dead air. We don't like dead air on a podcast, we don't like dead air on television, we don't like dead air on a conversation. We always think we have to fill it up. You don't. And you become more credible when you take a pause. And a pause is the length of time it takes to tap your foot.
Tap it once.
Yup. That's it. It's no big deal but it takes guts because we don't like to do that.
That's true, it does take guts. And I think there's some fear that someone else is going to sort of like steal the stage or the microphone or the air time from you. If I'm saying something to you, Jane, and then I just pause, it's almost like we're worried, like, "Oh, I won't get to say the thing that I want to say if I pause because someone else is going to take it, or people will think I'm dumb if I have silence." So, it's like there's some internal fear or resistance to doing it. So, how would you persuade the reluctant pauser?
By telling them that if they do that, they will be considered a great talker. It will add volumes to their credibility. I dare you to watch any great speaker out there and note their pauses. Barack Obama, considered to be one of the greatest pausers of all time. I'm not kidding.
Oh, no, it's true. I was like, when I hear impressions, that's kind of like what happens, like, "We hear a few words quickly, and then pause." So, that's kind of how it unfolds.
Right. Bill Clinton is a good pauser. He's also a great gesturer. And one of the things that Bill Clinton was told early on was that he had to keep…he liked to take his hands and go…he had lots of gestures and really wild. It's so funny because sometimes I work with people and they'll say, "I have to gesture a lot because I'm Italian." I'm like, "It's okay," but the more you gesture that isn't in sync with what you're saying, then people are distracted and they're no longer listening to you any longer because they're wondering, "What the hell are you doing with your hands?" So, Bill keeps his gestures inside a square box around his torso, and it's made him really effective, and it helped him not do all the distracting gestures.
Beautiful. Well, Jane, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?
Well, I love a Winston Churchill quote, which is, "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." So, always prepare.
Okay. That's a great quote. I was just about to ask. So, how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?
Well, I told you about like watching television with the sound turned off. I always like people to assess themselves before I work with them, and it's really interesting how they are so self-critical far more than they need to be. So, I think if you asked people, when you're there to help them, to give you a really solid decent assessment that it's really good research into them, and it shows they're willing to learn.
Cool. And a favorite book?
I'll tell you an interesting book that I just read was Huma Abedin. She was Secretary of State Clinton's right hand person, and she went through a lot in her personal life. That was pretty good.
And a favorite habit?
A favorite habit of mine is yoga. I do it virtually every day. And every single morning, I listen to some sort of an inspirational thing about gratitude.
And is there a key nugget you tend to share that really connects and resonates with folks; they quote it back to you often?
Yes, a Maya Angelou quote, which is, "People will forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel." And the reason that's so important, getting back to that idea of listening, you make people feel when you listen to them.
Amen. Amen.
And I think it's really, I think that is. And it's never been more important than it's been in the last two years during what we've all been through because we all needed to connect more, we needed to feel more, and being able to help be vulnerable, to help be empathetic, to help show compassion, we've all needed it so much. And that just gets back to that notion of helping each other feel.
They could reach out to me at my website, which is JaneHanson.com, that's H-A-N-S-O-N because, as any good Midwesterner knows, I'm Norwegian. And I'm really easy to reach that way.
And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Yeah, take risks. Dare to speak out. Dare to own your space. Dare to let your ideas come forth. Don't keep them inside. What's the worst that could happen? Somebody says no. But I guarantee you, they won't. And the moment you start doing it, it only grows and you're going to feel so much better about yourself.
And, also, I mean, even as simple as go onto a social media site, especially for business, like LinkedIn, reach out to somebody you don't know and comment on something. Maybe you've seen something wonderful they've written or maybe they've gotten some…they have some huge accomplishment. Congratulate them. You can't believe how many people and how many friends I've made by doing that. Just dare. Take a risk. It's worth it.
Beautiful. Well, Jane, this has been a treat. Thank you. And I wish you lots of luck in your communications.
Thank you. Same to you. And you keep up the good work.
Oh, thank you.
711: Speaking with Calm and Confidence with Patricia Stark
Patricia Stark shares key strategies for developing the calm and confidence to shine under any spotlight.
The critical mindset shift that brings both calm and confidence
The simple rule for looking and sounding like an expert
Just how long you should maintain eye contact
About Patricia
Patricia Stark is owner of Patricia Stark Communications and Calmfidence® Workshops, providing training in personal and professional development. She works with celebrities, corporate executives, authors, news anchors, social media influencers, and others whose careers rely on their ability to communicate confidently. She lives in New York. For more, see patriciastark.com.
Patricia's book: Calmfidence: How to Trust Yourself, Tame Your Inner Critic, and Shine in Any Spotlight
Patricia's website: PatriciaStark.com
Patricia's website: CalmfidenceBook.com
Patricia's LinkedIn: Patricia Stark
Patricia's Twitter: @clickpatricia
Patricia's Facebook: Patricia Stark Communications
Patricia's Instagram: PatriciaStarkCommunications
Book: Rise and Grind: Outperform, Outwork, and Outhustle Your Way to a More Successful and Rewarding Life by Daymond John
Book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Book: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Video: Eye contact practice
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Patricia Stark Interview Transcript
Patricia, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.
Patricia Stark
Pete, it's so great to be here with you. Thanks for inviting me.
Well, I'm excited to talk about your book Calmfidence, and it's spelled C-A-L-M-F-I-D-E-N-C-E. First of all, what does that mean?
Well, thank you for kind of spelling out that first word, because if you say it quickly, everybody's ear hears confidence, which we all hear, but it's Calmfidence. So, basically, I've been coaching and training people for many years, and I realized that all of my clients and students had two things in common. They wanted to be confident speaking in public, or being on stage, or in the media, or asking for a raise, or giving a presentation, or they were also feeling that they needed to find their calm.
So, a lot of people can be confident but they still get stressed out and anxious. So, they were really looking for those two things. And I found that's really a very powerful and magical combination when you can both have calm and confidence simultaneously. So, thus, the term calmfidence.
Very cool. And could you share with us a story of just what's possible in terms of a transformation with regard to starting out neither calm nor confident, and ending a super calmfident?
Sure. Well, I'll give you a personal story where, really, I noticed it in myself for one of the first times. So, I was invited to be on a PBS program in New Jersey for one of the PBS networks here in our area, and it was the first time that I was going to be shown as a "communications expert." So, I was thinking to myself, "Oh, my goodness, what if the so-called communications expert makes a mistake?"
Now, for years leading up to that, I had been the interviewer, I had been the reporter, the anchor, the host doing the interview, and now here I was as the guest expert, and I'm thinking to myself, "Oh, my goodness, like this is really a disaster if I can't communicate well in this situation." And I started to get myself a little worked up, as most of us do when we're out of our comfort zone, and doing something for the first time where we're expanding and we're doing something new.
And, all of a sudden, it hit me that I was confident because I had helped a lot of people, and I knew that my exercises and strategies had really benefited people. And then, suddenly, I got this sense of calm over me where I realized, "You know what, this isn't about me at all. This is about the viewers that are listening that really need some help, and that really need to have some strategies to work through this on their own. And I was there to be of service and to give value."
And once I had that mind-shift change, it really gave me a very different perspective and sense of calm and confidence and control over the situation.
And that's even come up a few times in terms of feeling calm and confident in a speaking situation, it's the realization, "Hey, it's not about you. Get over yourself. Be of service. Focus in on the listeners, what they need and want, and how you can deliver that." So, it sounds like, hey, there's a huge nugget right there in terms of being calm and confident.
So, tell us, how do you think we get there if we're sort in our head and self-conscious and thinking about ourselves, and, "What if I screw up?" How do we make that leap?
Yeah. Well, you just said a really key phrase, "What if I screw up?" and that's what I was doing myself in the example that I gave you, is that I was picturing what could go wrong. And we're so good at that, and it's really a defense mechanism to help us protect ourselves, to think worse-case scenario, to think, "Okay, what if the absolute most horrible thing happens right now? How am I going to defend myself or get out of the situation?" So, that tends to be our default.
So, first and foremost, we need to really realize that the most important thing that we are hearing is, initially, our internal communication before we have external communication. So, we have to do a check-in on, "How am I speaking to myself, first and foremost, about this situation? And what is the story that I'm telling myself? And am I envisioning the way that I want it to go and how I can help others and really visualize and see this going the way that I want it to go? Or, am I going to that primitive default place where I'm in this protective mode of just hoping that I am going to survive this?"
So, I think that, really just by changing your focus and saying, "No, I'm going to have a plan, and I'm going to visualize how I'm going to work that plan in the positive way that I want it to go, and even seeing the outcome that I want to see." And that may be someone coming up to you and saying, "Hey, wow, that speech really helped me, or that really inspired me," or a boss coming up to you and saying, "Wow, you really did your homework for that presentation, and it was a great job. We really appreciate all the work you put in that."
And doing that ahead of time, which is called pre-paving, really then helps our subconscious kick in and follow our positive plan, rather than worrying about all of those horrible images that we've created, that our autopilot is saying, "Well, I thought this is what you wanted me to do because this is the last thing you were thinking before you sent me out there."
That's good. That's good. Well, in your book, you've got a whole chapter on calmfidence boosters. It sounds like we've already maybe hit a couple of them. Can you share what are some of the other most powerful practices that really help people here?
Yeah. Well, I know that people have heard this time and time again, but it really works, and it's really true. And that is having gratitude, being grateful for why you're there, for the opportunity to be there. And it can be small gratitude, it can be large gratitude. So, if someone is asking you to be in a leadership role, or to be the expert on the topic of the moment, that doesn't mean that you're the be-all-end-all best expert there's ever been, but you're going to be the expert at that moment.
So, having gratitude for saying, "Wow, it's really great that someone thinks that I have something to offer or that they've invited me to be here." Instead of, "I have to do this," no, "I get to do this. And how lucky and blessed am I that I'm even in this position to have a platform where I can, hopefully, help others and inspire others."
So, gratitude is really one of the things that study show can completely cancel out anxiety. You literally can't be grateful and anxious simultaneously because you can't be thinking of things that you're grateful for and also have that sense of anxiety.
That's super. How about another calmfidence booster?
Another calmfidence booster would be trusting yourself and liking yourself. So often we worry about what others think, "How do I look? How do I sound?" But getting to the point where you've prepared enough to where it's good enough, and you're not trying so hard for perfection, but just good enough. And I think that sometimes we get so in our way because we think that everything has to be just right, everything has to just be perfect, but when we realize that good enough is good enough, now we have room to be human, we have room to be approachable and endearing.
And other studies that I've read also show that we don't like perfect people anyway. We like people that seem like us, that are vulnerable, that mess up, that say, "Whoops, sorry," and keep going on and let it roll off their back. So, that's definitely another booster is cutting yourself some slack and liking yourself and allowing yourself to be human, and letting that be good enough and not aiming for such perfection because perfection really is a roadblock.
And you've got some particular perspectives on dealing with the inner critic. Can you share a few of those with us?
Yeah, the inner critic goes back to what I was saying earlier about that defense mechanism and that primitive place where we're protecting ourselves. Everybody talks about the inner critic and it sounds like this big monster that has fangs, that is chasing us down in the back of our minds. But what that inner critic really is is it's just you or I like a scared little kid that still lives with us, and we can't ever completely make the inner critic go away.
But we can stop taking direction from it, and we can say, "Oh, you know what? I know why you're here. You're scared or you're worried or something like this is baggage that you've been carrying on that maybe happened to you when you were a kid. Maybe you got laughed at. Maybe you got turned down for a job or for a date or for whatever, fill in the blank, and now that scared little part of us that we still all have like a squatter in the back of our mind, kind of shows its ugly head to warn us and to try to protect us."
And that's when I like to say, "No, we all have an inner critic but we also all have an inner coach." And it's almost like that angel-devil scene that we've all seen in movies or commercials, and we're like, "Okay. Well, who am I going to listen to?" And it really takes practice and a conscious effort to say, "You know what, I'm not going to listen to the inner critic. I'm going to listen to the inner coach."
"And I'm going to talk to myself the way that teachers, or mentors, or people that I've admired, or people that really helped me at certain parts of my life, a dear friend, or a confidante. How did they talk to me? Or how would I talk to a dear friend or someone that I care about if they were struggling with something or having stress or anxiety? And deciding that I'm going to talk to myself as my inner coach and then I can't listen to the inner critic."
Because if you're not talking to yourself, that inner critic voice is going to be really loud. But if you're talking to yourself, then you can't hear that inner critic talking to you.
Well, thank you. And, by contrast, what are some of the calmfidence killers?
Definitely, defining yourself externally. We all worry about what others think and, "What is this person going to think?" Or, I remember my mom always telling me when she grew up with her father, he had emigrated to this country, and he was always, "What will people think?" And, finally, she said to him as she got a little older, she's like, "Who are these people that you've been talking about?"
So, I think that it is defining yourself from externally. I think that all happiness, all calmfidence, all calm and confidence, all starts from within. So, working on things, whatever you can, and knowing that, again, we've all got baggage, we've all got all kinds of things that have influenced us negatively going through our lives, whether it was family, friends, coaches, tough people that we work with. We've all got that. We're all struggling with something.
But realizing that true calm and that confidence and trust in ourselves and belief in ourselves can never come from external sources. It can only come from the inside and doing that inner work. And that might look different for different people. It could be meditation. It could be preparation. It could be their faith. It could be, again, going into that inner coach mode. But knowing that we've got to go internal, and from within, and that's where everything, that's the foundation of everything, not coming from the outside.
And so, you mentioned that can look differently for different people in terms of what is the inner work by which one arrives at, having an internal, I guess, self-worth, self-confidence, self-identity, that is, ideally, kind of unshakeable in terms of someone thinks you're dumb or whatever. And it's funny, in my own life experience, I've had times where I've had criticism, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, you're mistaken. I don't care," and just like has zero impact. And other times, it's like, "Oh, no," and it really hits hard. So, I'd love it if you could dig into some of those different views of inner work that gets us to that place of unshakeable self-confidence?
Sure. Well, I can't get in in other people's heads but when I've had the conversation with clients and students, and even family and friends, and even when I've been discussing when I was writing my book, it's really like, "What's that personal ritual or that thing that you do that makes you feel like, 'You know what, I've got this. I've got my act together. I feel solid. I feel like I'm ready to go'?" And those rituals are different for all of us.
Some people like to work on their outside and feel like everything looks just a certain way and then, hopefully, then they let that go and they can forget about themselves because they've taken care of whatever they needed to externally get their act together, and now, "Okay, I'm in that uniform, I'm in that mode so I can go out into the world and, hopefully, forget about myself." It could be, again, someone that meditates in the morning, or maybe somebody that really does their homework, that really covers all the bases above and beyond so that they can perform to a certain degree and have a little bit extra if they need to whip something out of their hands that they weren't expecting.
It could be someone thinking about, "What's my why? Why am I showing up today? Is it because I feel that I have something that will help people? Is it that I want to do a great job so that I feel like I have something that I'm proud of or that my family will be proud of me? Is it my faith in myself or a faith in a higher power?" It's something that all of us tap into that, again, is an individual thing that makes us each feel, like, "I know I've got this. And even if things don't work out exactly the way I want to, or go south and are not okay, I know I'll, at least, be okay."
Lovely. Thank you. And I'm curious, when it comes to, kind of shifting gears like into the actual presentation/communication zone, you mentioned rituals and preparation. I'm thinking about the actual preparation of your content or presentation. What do you recommend? Is there a particular amount or approach that really works wonders and making us feel confident and ready to go and deliver?
Yeah, over the years when I would work with a different content and copy, whether I was on stage or in front of the camera for a client, I remember someone many, many years ago, it might've been a director or a producer that we were having this conversation. And they made this comment where they said, "You know, it's not about memorization. It's about internalization." So, it's one thing to memorize things, and that's fine and that's good, and some people have better memories than others.
But when you're really invested to the point where you've internalized this stuff, where you just really know your stuff, you eat, sleep, and drink it, you know it like the back of your hand, that's when the magic can happen because you can be so much more free, and flexible, and not worry about, "Oh, I was supposed to say it just this way."
Just like, I'm sure, when you drive to your home from work or wherever you're going, to the food store, whatever it is. There's probably five different ways or routes that you could take to your house, but all of them are going to get you to the place where you need to be, depending on what mood you're in or traffic or detours. So, as long as you know your content inside and out, the best that you can.
And I know sometimes people spring presentations on us and things we don't have as much time to prepare as we would like. However, if you're someone who should know that content, and it is something that you live with and that you work with, and that maybe, and hopefully, is a passion of yours, to be able to have it more something that is just part of you and internalized, again, to where not just memorizing talking points, that's such a beautiful place to be, because then you can have real organic things happen, you can really be in the moment, people can ask you questions and you're not going to get thrown because you can think for a moment and you can be like, "Well, here's my point of view on that."
And, again, we want to be prepared obviously, so the best people will make it look like they're winging it but they still have a skeletal structure. So, a lot of times I'll tell clients, "Okay, if you're not going to go from a verbatim script, have chronological bullet points where you're going to kind of have a skeletal structure in your mind's eye so you'll see that structure of content points or concept points, and then with a more casual conversation, hopefully a little bit more organic, then you could put the flesh and the fat on it in a conversational manner, but you're still following this beautiful skeletal structure so you know where you're starting and where you're ending up.
Well, certainly. And so, that sounds like a great kind of place to end, like, oh, you have that flexibility, you can rock and roll in that way. And I'm curious, and I'm sure it'll vary based on the nature of the communication and the person, but sometimes I think we have it but we don't really have it. In terms of, like, "Okay, yeah, I know what I'm talking about. Uh-uh, sure." So, I guess, how do we really know? How do you really know that you know? Is there sort of an amount of practice or a key acid test that you run folks through?
It is different for everyone. I used to have a terrible fear of public speaking when I was in high school and in college, and I would overprepare and that would make me more nervous. Now that I've gotten over that, and I'm just at a place where I just love communicating with people, and I love talking about all kind of topics, including the ones that are my passion, I tend to just be more relaxed about it, I have a plan, but it's more of a simplified plan, again, that I can kind of let happen organically.
But for people who can't do that and they don't speak enough, and that's usually the problem, when we don't speak all the time and we're not constantly in great shape of organizing our content and presenting our content, what I will tell to people is I'll say, "Let's do it in like a rule of three." So, I had a client recently that she's an expert in her field, and she was going to be interviewed on a morning show about what she did, and it was three minutes.
And we went through it because she's done that before, and we had her content, and the three main takeaways that she wanted to do. And then she came to me the next week and she said, "Oh, my goodness, someone just asked me to do a half an hour of content that they want to have as like a webinar or something that was going to live somewhere on somebody's website." And she said, "How the heck am I going to fill a half an hour?"
So, then I said to her, "All right. Well, what about those three main modules, or those three main takeaways that you normally talk about?" And we flushed that out again. And then I said, "Okay, so 30 minutes is really you've got, what, maybe about a minute, a minute and a half open, and then a minute, a minute and a half close, so now you've got like 27 minutes left, so that's nine, nine, and nine, which makes 27."
"So, let's take three blocks of nine minutes and have that be one of each of your three talking points. And then, under that, let's have a subset of three things under each of those umbrellas that go a little bit deeper, a deeper dive into the topic. So, then that was three minutes, three minutes, three minutes under each of those nine headings."
So, all of a sudden, she's working this all out, and she says to herself, "Wow, if I can include all of this stuff, I hope that I can give all the information I want to give. I hope a half an hour is enough time." So, suddenly, she realized she had more than enough content. She just needed to chunk it down. So, I think that if we can chunk things down, think about what really are the main takeaways that the audience or the viewers, the listeners, really need and simplify that, and then go back and reverse-engineer and dive a little bit deeper into each of them, we'll usually find that we have more content than we need.
All right. Lovely. And you also got some particular perspectives on healthy, engaged eye contact. Lay it on us.
Yes. So, a lot of people don't really feel comfortable with eye contact, and it's particularly odd these days because we're out of practice. We haven't been in person with each other the best that we can and we've all been all over the place with our eye contact on some of these virtual platforms because it's like, "Well, I want to look down at the boxes and see the people that I'm talking to as I'm used to looking at human beings, but I really need to look at that little dot in front of me so that they feel like I'm looking at them, and even feel like I'm listening to them," because when we're looking in other places, we look disengaged.
So, I know, in person, that a lot of people feel like either someone's boring a hole through their head or looking into their skull if they make eye contact for too long. So, a couple of tips on comfortable, confident eye contact, the sweet spot seems to be between like two and five seconds. So, if we look away too fast before that two seconds, it looks like we're nervous and we don't want to make that eye contact or we're hiding something. And if we stay, overstay our welcome a little bit longer than that five seconds, it looks like we're way too interested or we've got that stalker stare.
So, to kind of think to yourself, "All right, just go for that two- to five-second sweet spot, and then look at the other nonverbal communication." We should be looking at lips. We should be looking at eyebrows. We should be looking at facial expressions. And kind of looking up to think about our content, or looking down to ponder what we're thinking about or how we're digesting the information. So, we actually give each other breaks in those moments so that we're not just completely engaged in eye contact all the time to where everybody becomes uncomfortable and awkward.
Well, that's a great perspective in two to five seconds that sounds and feels about right, and often that might be just about a short sentence or a phrase, and then we can look to the next person with the following sentence. And then when we start a new one, we're looking at the next person. So, that just sort of has a nice flow or groove to it.
When you mentioned that we're out of practice and scared, I'm curious, do you have any exercises you recommend? Sometimes I found, like in an airport, or I like to look at people's eyes, and it's funny, I see it in myself in terms like sometimes I'm just like ready. I'm ready to look at them for two seconds and nod, just like, "Hey." And other times, I'm like, "Ooh, you caught me. Ahh."
Oh, I know. Yeah, that's like, "Oh, yeah, I wasn't looking at you. I swear."
And so, are there exercises you think we can conduct safely to get more comfortable with this?
Yes. Well, I'll tell you a quick little funny story. When COVID first happened and we were all in that really first intense quarantine, and I hadn't been used to seeing faces up close other than my immediate family members, I opened the refrigerator one day and there was this huge image of someone's face on the container of milk and it startled me. I was like, "Oh, that feels really weird and really close and a stranger." So, I like felt that effect. And when I was doing a little bit of research on this, I found out that there are actually apps and websites where you can practice and you can go on and you can stare into eyes of people that are looking directly at you on your phone or your computer. So, that's kind of an interesting little trick.
That's fascinating.
Yeah, or you could watch a video.
One little thing that I want to mention when it comes to uncomfortable or prolonged eye contact is that it's also a very effective strategy in holding your ground. If you really want someone to know you mean business, or you're really waiting for an answer, or you are expecting something, you can just really just maintain that eye contact, and look at them and hold your ground, and it really makes people respond or get uncomfortable. And not that we want to make people uncomfortable, but it's very effective in letting people know that you are standing your ground and you're not doing anything until they make the next move.
Oh, it really is. And I remember when I did a lot of keynotes on college campuses, sometimes there'd be some chatterboxes talking to each other in the audience, and I didn't really like that. But it was almost like a magical superpower in terms of, sure enough, when I look right at them, it's like, they say, "Ooh," they kind of like tone it down and got quiet until I looked elsewhere and then they'd start up again, and you look again, and they tone it down.
Yeah, yeah. And we also…you reminded me of something about judging a book by its cover, and I'd mentioned earlier about the eye contact with the other nonverbal facial expressions which have also been tough with us with masks on, so we really rely on the eyes and, hopefully, seeing the crow's feet so we could tell someone is smiling or looking in between their brow to see if they're sad or angry or mad or whatever, but it's really the whole picture.
So, it's not just the eye contact. It's, "What other messages am I receiving? And what are some of those micro expressions, little moments where we think we saw something but then it went away because someone tried to hide it." So, hopefully, it makes us ask more powerful questions and engage verbally with people. But there was one instance where I was giving a seminar or it was a big workshop, I think it was, and there was somebody in front of the room that was staring at me, and she really had this terrible picklepuss kind of poker face look on her face, and I thought she was extremely unhappy every time I had kind of catch eyes with her.
And, lo and behold, at the break, who's the first person that runs up with a big smile on their face telling me how much they're enjoying the session? And I was looking, and I was like, "Are you kidding me?" I said, "You looked like you wanted to beat me up." And she goes, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I've been told I get this look on my face when I'm really into something and really intensely listening and paying attention." I was like, "You've been told this. I think you need to work on that."
But really, it was a good lesson for me to…remember how we talked about that self-talk? That was a story I was telling myself, "Oh, she must be unhappy. Why did I go there first?" So, now, if I see those picklepusses and poker faces, I think, "Oh, they think this is the best thing since sliced bread." I'm making up what I'm telling myself about the situation anyway, so why not make up something positive?
Oh, that's good. And it's true, I think that there are times where my eyes, they might just seem like I'm sort of glazed over, like maybe zombie-sque, but what's really happening is, I'm like, "Whoa, Patricia, what you just said is huge. And so, if that's true, then all these other implications and possibilities might work out. And maybe I should try this over here." And so, it might look like I'm totally zoned out but, in fact, I'm engaging pretty deeply and my mind is really racing with ideas and possibilities associated with the thing that you've spoken about.
Yes, so we shouldn't make assumptions. And if we're going to, let's keep them positive because we're making it up anyway.
Alrighty. Well, tell me, do you have a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
I was thinking that a really great one, especially in business and in the way that we put ourselves out there, or not, in the world is, "God gives birds their food, all birds their food, but He doesn't throw it into their nest."
And I particularly like this quote because I am a bird person. I have a bird feeder out in the back of my yard, and I'm always going out there, and I get a lot of joy feeding the cardinals and the different birds, and even the squirrels, they don't bother me because I think, "You know what, they're coming out when I'm throwing this out there." But they have to come out of their nests to come and get that food.
And when I see them with that motivation and they give me happiness because I see that they're going out there to come and get what I'm giving to them, I want to give them more. I even have one squirrel that will come up to the backdoor and take a big piece of bread out of my hand like it's a drive-thru window. And I love this squirrel because the squirrel is going the extra mile. It's figured out that if it comes out and comes out of its comfort zone, out of its safe space, that I'm here to give it something.
And I think that this is a really great analogy for whether it's a goal or going the extra mile at your job. When people see that you're willing to leave the nest to take a chance to put yourself out there and show some initiative and go out there and get it and be a go-getter, people really respond to that and they want to help you even more. And I think that that is just a great thing to keep in mind, again, for any goal or anything that you're doing in the workplace, that people want to help people who are out there trying to go above and beyond.
All right. Thank you. And how about a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?
I think that anything to do with Positive Psychology, I'm all about that because, for so long, psychology really only focused on dysfunctional things and what was going wrong, and, "How can we help fix those things?" And then, lo and behold, Positive Psychology studies came around and it was all about, "What can be right and what can be done positively from a place of something is not broken or needs to be fixed? But how can we think better and think differently that will help us advance?" So, anything to do with Positive Psychology or emotional intelligence, I really love.
And there was also a body language study done by a woman named Amy Cuddy I have found it to be pretty true to where, when you use your space and you stand up straight and tall, and you feel more powerful, almost like a Superman or Superwoman pose that you might do before you go out to give that presentation or go in front of the camera, it changes your physiology, and your stress hormone, cortisol, drops, and your testosterone can rise.
And in her study, she showed this can literally happen in the way that we use our body in just two minutes. And I've used this with clients and students, and even myself, and I see the difference. For imploding, looking down at our cellphone, or looking at that resume and not getting up and using our body to feel open and more powerful, and using our space. There is definitely an effect on how we show up.
Well, I have so many but one that I just finished recently was called Rise and Grind by Daymond John from Shark Tank.
But I also love Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. I've referred to that many times over the years when I've been looking for a goal, whether it was to achieve goals at work, or write my book, or whatever it may be. Blink by Malcom Gladwell. I can go on because I am very big student of personal and professional development books, so I could probably rattle off more than a few for you right now but I won't take your time.
All right. And how about is there a key nugget you share that people seem to connect and retweet and frequently quote you, a Patricia original?
I've told people, and especially, students and younger people when I go to speak at schools or at some of these Zooms, that I love to remind them that we all have our own personal fingerprint that no one has the same fingerprint that any of us do. So, it doesn't matter if someone is doing something or has done something before. If it's something that's in your heart, and that's a calling for you that you want to do in this world, just focus on putting your own personal fingerprint on it because that means no one has ever touched it just the way that you have or will from your perspective and your personal lifeforce.
All right. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?
Well, you can certainly link with me on LinkedIn, just Patricia Stark; on Facebook, Patricia Stark Communications; Twitter @clickpatricia, like you're clicking Patricia. And then Instagram, patriciastarkcommunications. And then on the web, PatriciaStark.com or CalmfidenceBook.com.
Just know that when you have the plus factor, when you're not just going through the motions, when you're not just following the job description, everyone truly is really self-employed because it's up to you to decide how good you want to be at something, how much effort you want to put forth, how much of a plus factor you want to have, and that's the thing that will make you stand out from the crowd and be different.
And even if it doesn't happen right away, people take notice when we go above and beyond, because, unfortunately, not a lot of people necessarily do that. And when you do that, and you are willing to go the extra mile, people will want to go the extra mile for you.
All right. Patricia, this has been fun. I wish you much luck with your book and other adventures.
Pete, well, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed speaking with you today.
697: How to Make Your Point and Communicate Like a Leader with Joel Schwartzberg
Joel Schwartzberg walks through how to sharpen your communication to maximize your impact.
How to know if you even have a point
The simple phrases that make you more memorable
Word substitutions that increase presence
Currently the Senior Director of Strategic and Executive Communications for a major U.S. nonprofit, Joel Schwartzberg teaches communication and presentation skills to clients including American Express, State Farm Insurance, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Comedy Central, and the Brennan Center for Justice. Joel's books include The Language of Leadership and Get to the Point! and his articles appear in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Toastmaster Magazine. A frequent conference presenter and workshop leader, Joel is also a former national champion public speaker. He can be reached at www.joelschwartzberg.net.
Joel's book: Get to the Point!: Sharpen Your Message and Make Your Words Matter
Joel's book: The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire Your Team
Joel's article: "Present Your Data Like a Pro"
Joel's article: "Find the Right Words to Inspire Your Team"
Joel's website: https://www.joelschwartzberg.net
Software: Grammarly
Video: "WATCH: Michelle Obama's full speech at the Democratic National Convention | 2020 DNC Night 1"
Book: Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Joel Schwartzberg Interview Transcript
Joel, welcome to How to be Awesome at Your Job.
Joel Schwartzberg
Thank you, Pete. It's my pleasure.
Well, I'm excited to hear what you have to say, as well as to hear the tale about your Wheel of Fortune appearance. How did this come about?
Well, when you live in Los Angeles and you don't have a job, you don't go to unemployment, as most people do, more often you go on to a game show. Why not? This was back in the day, we're talking about the '90s. So, I was out of work at the time, living in Los Angeles, and I just took a chance. Even though I was local, I auditioned, they picked me. And a year and a half later, I was on the show. And, Pete, it was one of the most doomed experiences of my life.
Doomed?
I did not fare well. I think they do a week's worth of shows in one day, at least they did, and I was clearly the big loser of the day so much so that they gave me some extra consolation prizes. So, all I took from it was not the $20,000 annuity. I didn't even know what an annuity was at the time. I just took my memories from it, really. And those served me well, but it was not my finest hour in terms of being a successful contestant.
So, there is an episode of you but you didn't do well on it, is that what I'm hearing?
That's basically the bottom line. Right, Pete.
Okay. But I want to know then, so we're talking about The Language of Leadership: How to Engage and Inspire, I'm curious if some of your skills, you think that won you the spot on the audition. What do you think sold them on you?
One of the things I have to say, I'm not often asked that question, but one of the things that helped me is, I think, was eye contact. I maintained eye contact with the other competitors as we did sort of rehearsal rounds, I definitely gave eye contact to the people who were in the decision-making role, and I just sort of flooded them with my engagement through my eyes. Now, as we went through, these are things they're looking for, "Am I going to be mousy or am I going to be confident and assertive? Am I going to ask for vowels in a strong voice or in sort of a small voice?" These are things they're looking for.
So, as you ask that question, it's interesting, a lot of the things I talk to my clients and students about are things I employed there that I think, yes, I think they did make a difference in them, ultimately, picking me.
Decisively buy those vowels, that's a good takeaway right there. So, let's sort of zoom out. In your years of working and research looking into how leaders communicate well, what would you say is one of your most surprising or counterintuitive discoveries?
My biggest discovery, and this is sort of the bread and butter of what I train, is the concept of making a point. Now, obviously, leaders need to make points but, really, everybody needs to make points not only in our professional life but also in your personal life. We make points to our mother's-in-law and our children, and to our neighbors.
And what I discovered, after a few years of training public speakers, was that, while they were doing everything right in terms of their gestures, they're planting their feet, their volume, their articulation, when I asked them, "What point are you trying to make?" they would reply with something that wasn't a point, which forced me to build a definition of what a point is, as well as a simple test that people can use to find out if they're making a point or not.
And to be very clear about this, what they thought was their point was actually a theme, or a topic, a notion, a category, a catchphrase. For example, podcasting is not a point. If you asked me what my point is, and I said podcasting, I'm not telling you the value of podcasting, who I'm trying to reach through podcasting, the future of podcasting, how podcasting impacts culture. None of that. So, I'm giving you a theme but I'm not really making my point.
And once I sort of came to that realization, I turned around my training and I wrote this book called Get to the Point! which really helps people understand, A, what a point is and what it is not; B, how to sharpen that point; and, finally, how to champion that point. And that is an imperative for leaders, but it is certainly a benefit for anybody who needs to make a point, which is all of us.
Okay. Well, that's just a huge learning right there. Let's dig into it. So, some things that are not a point would be a theme, a category. So, then what is the definition and the test for whether a point is a point or not a point?
A strong point is a proposition. I'm sort of putting myself on the line to put something out there and suggest or recommend something to you. And within that, I'm also explicitly conveying the value of it. Now, this gives us sort of an ambiguous idea of what a point is, so let's take the podcasting example. A topic is podcasting, a theme is communication, a catchphrase is "the power of podcasting," but a point is, "I believe that podcasting is the most effective way to reach our millennial audience."
Now, how do we get from one of those to the others? That's a test that I have in my book that's very simple. It's called the "I believe that" test. And I know it's simple because my daughters, when they were in middle school, they used it. And it goes like this. You take what you believe is your point, and you put the words "I believe that" in front of it. Now, it's a mild tweaking, if any. What you want to have is a complete sentence, not a fragment, not a run-on, something that will impress your fourth-grade language arts teacher – a complete sentence.
So, if we put that podcasting example into play, "I believe that podcasting…" not a sentence, even "I believe the importance of podcasting…" not a complete sentence. It forces you to say, "I believe that podcasting will enable us to X," "I believe that podcasting will change the world in these ways." And that's where we talk about having a point and sharpening it.
So, I've ran this test many, many times for people in nonprofits, for people selling a product, for people in PR, for people running for office, for people interviewing for jobs, and it works the same for each person. You want to make the point so you basically want to make a belief statement that says, "If this happens, then this other thing will result," "If you hire me, then your environment and your work product will be improved in this way."
And then, when you use that test, when you have that complete sentence, you're on your way to making a point. But if you fail that test, you need to go back and reimagine your point so that it can pass that test.
Okay. So, can you give us some more examples of things that are not a point? I guess what I'm thinking here is I'm thinking about a lot of slide decks. So, back in consulting, we had our headlines at the top of the slide and that was kind of the idea, it's like, "That headline, it's about two lines maybe, up to a dozen-ish words, and it should say sort of the point of the slide." And that was really instilled into us.
And so, it shouldn't just say, "Revenue over time," or, "Customer breakdown," because that is a label of what is on the slide. And so, fair enough, that is what that is but it doesn't sort of tell you, "What are you trying to tell me about the revenue over time or the customer breakdown?" So, what are some other ways that you see this not working so well in business and professional contexts, like common non-points that come up again and again that need to be improved?
There are a lot of settings for it. One of the ones where you'll see it most obviously is in conferences, "Hey, Pete, what are you talking about today? I'd like to come to your session." "Oh, I'm talking about podcasting," or, "I'm talking about income inequality," or, "I'm talking about Coca-Cola." Well, you're not telling me what point you're going to make. And if you do tell it to me in a form of a point, "I'm going to talk about the ways we can tackle income inequality so that everybody has the same opportunity in America." You see how that's more compelling and resonant?
You mentioned another place, and I'm glad you mentioned because even just PowerPoint, and you can get a million recommendations, but the one I never see, which is key to me, is what you said. In the title of a PowerPoint slide, what we're often seeing is categories: what's next, background, history, statistics. And then in the example you said, "Yeah, PowerPoint slides can say 'Our feedback survey' or it can say, 'Results of our feedback survey,' or it can say, 'Feedback: Our community prefers Coca-Cola.'" Why not put the exact point into the topic or the title page of that PowerPoint?
Another place is in email. People are using subject lines that often read "Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Tuesday" when they're actually trying to convey a very important point or a very important recommendation for a tactic that the team should take, but it's submerged under a subject line that is not expressing that point.
So, really, in all settings, whether you're writing, you're speaking, you're creating a video, you're texting, you're posting, these all benefit from points. And what I often say in my training is, "Tomorrow morning, when your manager says, 'All right, let's go around the room and if you have recommendations or if you have feedback, what happened over the weekend, please share it,' and people will hem and haw, 'Well, I think this happened and I don't know if that should've happened,' why not set yourself up for success by saying, you can say, 'I believe that if we had done this, we would've had more impact on our customers,' or, 'I believe that what happened over the weekend was a great example of what happens when we take this approach to our audience.'"
Now, I want to make something clear, Pete. I'm not saying you always need to use the words "I believe that." It's merely a test to make sure you're making a point. However, if you do say "I believe that" you're putting your reputation behind it so there is value to saying those three words.
All right. Well, so that's a big idea right there in the book Get to the Point! Let's talk about your latest, The Language of Leadership. What's the big idea here?
So, the big idea behind The Language of Leadership, it's really taking the ideas of Get to the Point! and it's asking, "How can leaders use points to do the two most important things they need to do with their teams? Engage their teams and inspire their teams." Now, that may seem obvious. Obviously, leaders want to engage and inspire, but those are the only two words I picked. I would've preferred one word, but for the purposes of broadness, I wanted those two words.
So, what words didn't I pick? I didn't say that leaders want to inform, entertain, impress, graduate. There are a lot of words that some leaders may think they want to do for their audience. But, to me, the two most important are engaging and inspiring, especially inspiring. And one of the biggest places where they don't do that, because we want to talk about examples where people are just missing the mark, is leaders who think that information on its own inspires.
And we often see this in presentations or in PowerPoints, if I tell you the history, "All right, this is what we did in the past, this is what we're doing now, this is how many, this is how many people, this is how much we're going to spend on it. Thank you very much." There is no point there. They merely thought by merely sharing the information, it would sell itself. And what you're really doing is putting the burden on the audience to receive a point that was not conveyed when, really, that burden is on you to inspire and make the point. I call these book reports. You're sharing something but you're not selling something.
Okay. So, then merely information, like, "This is what happened before and what happens now and what happens in the future…"
Right. Details. Data. Right.
So, a point would be like, "We have made tremendous strides and we're so excited about what we're going in the future."
Right. Or, let's say data, we're always sharing data and slides. I wrote an article about this for Harvard Business Review. The data, just like a story, storytelling is a big deal also, they share one attribute, and that is they don't sell themselves. They only sell, and you're only selling them when you say these words. And, in fact, these words are more important than the data and more important than the story. It's the point at which you say, "This story demonstrates why we should," "This story is an example of how we can," "This data proves that we ought to take these steps." And people leave that out.
And I have one really good example, if you don't mind my sharing it. I had a client who created all sorts of collateral material. She created hats and calendars and brochures, and I said, "All right, give me your best pitch. Make your point to me." And she said, "All right. You see these brochures? Well, they are a special material where they won't crumple. And I'll give you your logo in three colors all around it. And you see this hat? This hat, if an elephant stepped on this hat and it won't crush. And this pen, this pen is made of a special nanotechnology. It'll only pierce your shirt. It won't pierce your skin. And I tell you what, I'll give you three colors on the logo of your pen."
And she went on and on describing her inventory, and she finished. And I said, "Do you think you made your point?" And she said, "I did. I described each and every piece of my inventory and why each of those pieces were great." And I said, "That's okay, but you know what I never heard from you? I never heard you say that if I buy your product, I will be more successful." And that's what she was selling, that was her big point but she never said it explicitly. What she was doing was sharing details, giving her inventory.
A good example of this is, also, imagine a book. In the book, there are two things, there's a table of contents and there are blurbs. The blurbs sell the book. The table of contents just shares the inventory. So, what leaders want to do, what anyone giving a presentation or a speech wants to do, is they want to be the blurbist. They want to sell the idea, not just share it as like a table of contents.
Yeah, that's excellent. And it's interesting, in the collateral materials example, like, "This pin is great because of that, and this hat is great for that," I suppose if what the information you wanted was, "Why should I pick you instead of the other penmaker or hatmaker?" then that might be helpful. It's like, "Oh, okay, the hat is more durable than others, or less likely to pierce flesh with a pen." But if your question is more like, "Should I buy this at all?" then that doesn't do the trick, versus if you could say, "We had a client who got these hats, and there are millions of impressions now on Instagram where people are being photographed in these hats which has driven their brand awareness a whole lot." You're like, "Oh, wow, that's cool. I guess people are into hats and photographing themselves."
Exactly. What did the hats enable you to do? What did the service or product, not just what it is, but what it enables you to do? And you talk about, "Sell me this pen," that's really the basis of that exercise. The value of the pen is not that it's blue or has a great cap or has a good design, and we're using it as an example, but it empowers you to express yourself in ways that have impact. And, at the end of the day, what you often want to ask is, "If my audience can only take away one thing, what would that be? What do I want them to leave with?" And if you can answer that question, then you know what you need to do as the speechmaker or as the conveyer or the communicator.
Beautiful. Okay. Well, so that's a great perspective right there in terms of not falling for the trap that information alone inspires, really thinking what's the one key point you want them to be left with and going for it. Can you share with us a couple other key communication best practices and worst practices that really make an impact when we're trying to engage and inspire?
Sure. One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is they think more is better. We know from writing, the writers amongst us, in your audience, we know less is more. But what we need to understand is that, also, more is less. When we add details or words or descriptions to our point or to even a sentence, we are doing a disservice to ourselves because here's what happens. When you or I, he, she or someone, that has a lot of adjectives, a lot of points, all those points compete with each other for your attention. And then that competition, they're diluting the impact of each other.
And we can just say an example. Let's say I was the CEO of our company, and I said, "This new approach is going to make us more successful and experienced and powerful, effective, efficient, memorable, and brilliant." Now, not many people are going to remember all of those words and, even if they could, they wouldn't know which one was more important.
If an executive says, "This approach will make us more effective. Let me show you how," because there's only one idea, it really sinks into our brains. Now, I'm not saying that every presentation can only have one idea, although it'd be a beautiful thing, but if you have multiple ideas, you want to separate them and delineate them, "First thing, I'm going to talk about this idea. Then we're going to move on and talk about this idea. And, finally, we're going to look at how this affects the world around us." So, I've delineated these instead of attaching them all together.
Remember, all we need to do, as speakers and communicators, is say the words that we're familiar with. What does an audience need to do? A lot. They need to hear it. They need to process it. "Is this relevant? Should I write this down? Should I tweak this? Do I need to remember this? Should I share this with my direct reports?" So much needs to happen in their brains, as we say something, that by the time they processed it, we're another six points down the road. So, we need to make it simple. We need to understand that more is less. We need to speak more slowly. We need to introduce pauses so that people have that critical digestion time.
Okay. So, those are some things that are common mistakes. And what do you see as some of the best-in-class examples or things to do to really do a fine job of engaging and inspiring?
Our job, the most important part of a communication is the point because that's where you're doing the hard sell for your product or your service that creates this solution that you've matched in advance to whoever you're speaking to, whether it's potential clients or partners or customers. So, there are ways to reinforce that point in the middle of your presentation. And this is what I counsel leaders to do, and these I call attention magnets.
So, attention magnets include, "I recommend," "I propose," "Here's the thing," "Look, if there's one thing you need to know, it's this," or, "My point is this." And one of my public speaking idols is Michelle Obama. Now, when she spoke at the Virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention, she said these three things, and they seemed repetitive if I just pull them out and say them to you now, but these are direct quotes.
One, she said, "And let me, once again, tell you this." Later, she said, "Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can." And then before she finished, she said, "If you take one thing from my words tonight, it is this." Now, these are attention magnets and anyone can do them, not just Michelle Obama, so I encourage people to use those.
What they are are shortcuts to your point. But in front of any audience, if I said, "Oh, we talked about a lot today, but here's the thing," you could tell by just that example that that sort of drills attention to the point, you've captured it for a moment, and you want to fill that spot with your point, not with some detritus, some detail, something irrelevant. And to do that, you need to know your point.
Yeah, as you say those words, I could just sort of imagine an audience of people looking at phones and then looking up, and sort of like, "Oh, I feel kind of guilty that I've been semi-ignoring you."
Right. That's why I call them attention magnets, not even getters, but magnets.
Very nice. Okay. And I'm also curious if there are any particular words and phrases that you really love or really hate in terms of being extra effective. So, we've had some attention magnet phrases, which are great. Any other key bits that should be on the do's or don'ts list for our own vocabularies?
Right. Well, the first thing I would say is authenticity is critical. Even if you have speechwriters working for you, as many leaders do, you should never say anything, nothing should come out of your mouth that is something you wouldn't ordinarily say because audiences can pick up on that. It's artificial. So, always scrutinize whatever you're saying or reading to make sure it matches who you are and how you normally talk.
In terms of specific words, and, Pete, I really like to give nuts and bolts sort of tactics, not just broad encouragements, so there are things where leaders know that people are saying one word and it actually falls just short of what they intend. I'm talking about when people say allow when they really mean enable. What does it mean when we say allow? Well, we sort of stood aside and we let something happen. We didn't play a part in it, an active part in it, but maybe we did. Maybe we made it happen. Maybe through our lobbying, that law came about. So, then we enabled it, but we often say we allowed this to happen.
Another is avoid versus prevent. If you actively prevented something, don't go smaller and say, "We just avoided it." Another is when we address things, "We addressed this problem." What does that mean? We looked at it, we read it, we talked about it. But did we act on it? So, if you did act on it, if you overcame a problem, that's act versus address. And there are a few of these, I call them strategic word swaps. This is another article I wrote for Harvard Business Review, where you can scrutinize a speech, especially ahead of time, or as you're practicing, to talk about things, like, "We want to overcome goals versus face them," "We want to accomplish a goal versus meet it."
Yeah, those are handy word swaps. And then that's interesting in that those words are all okay, and you took them to great. I'm curious if there are any words that are just kind of terrible For example, one word I frequently coach people to not say in a presentation is "obviously" because it kind of suggests, like, "Hey, if you didn't know this, you're an idiot," and it can sort of be off putting and feel maybe patronizing or arrogant to say obviously, even though sometimes people use it innocently as a vocal pause, or even if they're a little bit bashful, like, "I'm about to say something that you probably already know, and I don't want you to think that I think this is a super insightful thing so I'm going to soften it by saying obviously." I recommend just not doing that.
So, I'm curious, are there any other words, like obviously, that you recommend kind of striking out?
Yeah, one of the words I really don't like is "additionally" or "clearly," not even because of the impression that people make out of them, which may be haughty, but they're generally unnecessary. Remember when I said that more is less, and less is more? We often don't need words like "additionally" or "clearly," or "it need not be said that." Often, "that is" a two-word phrase that can be removed. Remember, people are listening to it for the first time so we want to make that language as simple as possible.
I find a lot of people using synonyms all the time, "We want to make this television advertisement more powerful and resonant," or "reach more people and to be truly resonant." Well, those are virtual synonyms, but your audience, they're deciding between two things. So, really scrutinize, when you give multiple things, for those synonyms so you can get closer and closer to the one thing.
And you probably know, Pete, and many of your audience know, in advertising, they often try to take out as many adjectives as they can, and adverbs, because, let's remember that, adjectives only give the briefest kind of description to something, and it's always going to be a generic one. What does it mean that something is great, awesome, interesting? I call these badjectives because they're easy enough, we love them, "This product is great," but to an audience, what does it mean? Lots of things are great. "I had a great tuna fish this afternoon."
So, to solve that problem, ask yourself, "Well, why is it great?" "Well, this product is great because it allows us to make sure food doesn't go bad in the refrigerator?" Aha, so now you have this product as great because it keeps things fresh in the refrigerator. Now, you don't even need the great word, the badjective, why not just say that this product keeps your food fresh in the refrigerator. So, what we've done is we've spotted the badjective, we've asked why to get to the real outcome, and then we've removed the badjective. It's almost mathematical in the approach.
Yeah, I like that. That reminds me of resumes in terms of if you have a lot of adjectives about yourself, it's sort of like, "Well, okay, says who? And I guess you think you're great but that's…" versus if you have actual sort of results, accomplishments, responsibilities, then they're just facts, and facts don't tend to need a lot of adjectives. And I guess if you do use an adjective, kind of like I'm thinking about sort of like movies that have…or blurbs, again like the books. When movies say, "Hey, we're great," they like to grab it from such and such reviewer from the New York Times that said, "A masterpiece!"
"Go see it."
Then that packs a little bit more weight, so maybe on the resume it might be like, "Received stellar remarks on reviews including…" whatever. That can make more sense
And I'll tell you something really interesting or sort of ironic that struck me when I was looking at a particular word. The word is hope, and leaders use the word hope a lot, and they should. It's their job to have vision and point to a future. But here's the funny thing. Hope works best in leadership as a noun and not as a verb. If we say, "I hope this will happen," "I hope that this product will succeed," you're sort of taking yourself out of the role of making sure it succeeds. You're sort of gambling on the future when you use hope as a verb.
But when you use it as a noun, you're creating a vision and a future and a goal for your audience, "Our hope is that we will reach this level of success," "We have hope that this product will sell," or, "…that will reach this audience," or that, "We have hope now that we'll save the planet," as opposed to, "I hope we can save the planet." There's a subtle difference even though it's the same word. So, as we scrutinize these words, the language of leadership, as I like to say, there are often many ways to look at it but only one way to use it successfully to, like I say, engage and inspire.
And we've sort of been talking, and this is I've been visualizing or even talking about sort of like an in-person face-to-face context. Do you have any thoughts for when it comes to email, Slack, text messaging, how to think about communication that engages and inspires there?
Absolutely, but each one of those is sort of different. I like to focus on email and I like to focus on Zoom or video meetings. In terms of email, a lot of it boils down to the subject line, "Am I making myself clear? And in making myself clear, am I engaging the people I'm trying to reach? In the body of an email, am I writing a novella or am I making it easier for my audience, my reader, to engage with me and understand the points I'm trying to make? Am I using bullets? Am I bolding things or using colors?"
One thing I say about email is it's a hard and fast rule and it shocks people at first, and that is no No paragraph more than three sentences. I often use paragraphs of one sentence. What it does, it allows you to break up your ideas for your own conveyance but it also really helps the audience understand the breakdown of the points you're trying to make, and that builds engagement.
There are also a lot of things we already discussed about hope and vision and authenticity that sort of create that inspiration. Now, on Zoom, there are a lot of other practices that really help what I like to say elevate your presence on Zoom, and much of it is visual. I see a lot of Zoom calls where leaders are way back, or their head is cut off, or they have a messy room behind them that distracts. So, when I train my clients and my leaders is to show your head and your shoulders, to understand that eye contact means looking into the camera not into the Brady Bunch grid as I like to call it, and to really check your environment, because anything in your environment that doesn't support your point steals from your point.
And so, these are ways we can not only elevate our leadership but avoid some of the things that may hurt and injure and sabotage our leadership because they're working against us.
All right. Well, Joel, tell me, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?
Know that the one thing I'd like people to take away, and I'm going to use one of those attention magnets, is that it all boils down to having a point. If you don't have a point, you are literally pointless and you should be nervous, and you should be expecting yourself to ramble because you need to know the one idea you need to get across to make that point, to champion it, so that you can really have an impact on your audience.
All right. Well, now, could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
I'm not sure who said it. It could've been a high school chum, but something that I keep coming back to is "It's not about you being best, it's about being the best you." And, to me, what it means is we are all super qualified, uniquely qualified, in each communication setting to make that point. Even Michelle Obama or a famous CEO cannot do the job we do if we've prepared and practiced and have experienced to make a point to an audience.
And that quote about being the best you, connects a lot to a mistake people make when they give speeches, when I say, "What is your goal in this speech?" They'll say, "My goal is not to screw up. My goal is not to embarrass myself." Well, that really isn't your goal. Your goal is really to move a point from A to B, not to be thought of as brilliant, or as the next Michelle Obama, or the next head of industry unless you want more public speaking gigs.
You're more like a bicycle delivery person moving a package, which is your point from here to there. And guess what, you're the one person in the world most qualified to do it. And that's what it means to be the best you.
Okay. And could you share a favorite study or experiment or bit of research?
My favorite research is probably the research that was done on mindsets, and the difference between having a closed mindset and an open mindset. And the closed mindset means you're not open to learning, and an open mindset means that you're open to experiencing new things and learn from them. And I forget the name of the study. I think it's fixed mindset and I forget the name of the other.
Growth mindset.
Growth mindset. You're exactly right. That sort of blew my world because it goes back to your childhood, the way you were raised. Sometimes kids are very, very smart but what they learn is, "I'm going to stay in my lane because I'm good at this and I'll never be good at that, so I'm never going to try something new." And often, those kids, overall, will not do as well as the kids who were not told they were geniuses but told to learn as much as they can.
My favorite book is Les Miserables probably because I read it in high school. I'm more of an article reader than I am a book reader because of my time. So, the places I like to go to get sort of my research is Harvard Business Review. It's a place where I see a lot of data-driven stories, sometimes I go to Fast Company. But there's a lot out there.
Probably my to-do list. I can't rely on my memory, and most people cannot either, so I'm constantly making to-do lists. And by that, I mean a physical to-do list, the yellow sticky notes, but every computer also has a digital to-do list. And the nice thing about that to-do list is it doesn't go away until you close it. So, even if you put multiple screens, that to-do list, that digital sticky note will always be there. So, I rely on actual sticky notes as well as the digital sticky notes.
All right. And a favorite habit?
I really like editing. I'm not sure if you can call that a habit. I'm really a grammarian at heart, and nothing sort of interest me more than using Grammarly, which is another tool I really enjoy, to look at a document and to discover the ways it can be improved by making it tighter, by making it more focused, and by making it more grammatically correct. I know that's not a habit like cooking or fishing, but I live, eat, and drink, as my wife likes to say, the world of expression and the world of making points. So, everything I find myself doing and interesting are in that universe or in that sort of frequency of thinking.
All right. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?
The idea of less is more, and simpler is better. One thing that CEOs I worked with go back to me is this idea of get in, get out. When you need to make a point, it's easy for leaders to start to elaborate on it, talk about case studies, talk about things they'd read, talk about meetings they have had, because that's where their mind goes. So, I often have to remind them, "Get in, get out. Make your point and get out so the audience has time to receive that and process it."
I would point them to www.JoelSchwartzberg.net. A lot of what I talk about is I like to call it open code. I like to share it. I don't like to keep it to myself. So, that's one place where I put all the articles I've written, the books I've written. I share ideas there, podcasts I've been on. So, if you want to get a deeper dive into all of these ideas about how to engage and inspire, how to make and champion a point, there are a lot of resources there that I prove, because I wrote most of them, that people can utilize right away.
I would tell people to think about what they're going to say before they say it. The worst thing, the biggest mistake you can make is to wing it because you think you know it backwards and forwards, because you've studied it, you researched it, it's your job. A lot of lawyers, nothing against lawyers, but a lot of lawyers I worked with often think they're so knowledgeable about these areas that they are automatically good communicators, and that is not the case.
Communication is using another part of your brain. So, my one takeaway is really, before your next meeting, or your next communication, take a moment to think, "What is my point? Did I make it clearly? Will it have impact? And if there's one thing I want my recipient to do, to think, or to take action on as a result of what I say, what is it? And what can I do to make that possible?"
All right. Thank you, Joel. This has been a pleasure and I wish you many fun encounters of engagement and inspiration.
Thank you, Pete. This has been fun.
676: How to Craft and Deliver Compelling Presentations with Dr. Ethan Becker
Dr. Ethan Becker offers a practical guide to communicating more effectively in the workplace.
The two ways we process information
The four-step structure of compelling communication
The simplest way to sound more engaging
About Ethan
Ethan F. Becker, PhD is president and senior coach/trainer for the Speech Improvement Company, the oldest communication coaching and training firm in America. He has worked with Apple, IBM, Bain Capital, Sony Music, and the New York Giants, the F.B.I., Harvard University, YouTube, and other clients across the globe.
Ethan's book: Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage, and Influence
Ethan's LinkedIn: Dr. Ethan Becker
Ethan's website: SpeechImprovement.com
Book: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
Book: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't by Jim Collins
Book: The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden
Storyworth. Give Dad a super meaningful Father's Day gift this year at StoryWorth.com/awesome.
Ethan Becker Interview Transcript
Ethan, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.
Ethan Becker
All right. I'm psyched to be here. I've been waiting. This is great.
All right. Well, I'm psyched too. And so, I want to hear, so you've spent a long time working with folks, helping them communicate all the better. Is there a particularly surprising or fascinating discovery you've made along the way?
I think what surprised me is the similarities that people have around the world. We travel all over the world. Well, this year, nobody's traveling, but like normally we're on airplanes.
Oh, working buddy.
And the various cultures around the planet, mostly what we see on television, on the media, and on the internet highlights differences, and it's designed for division because that's like divide people because it sells ads. But in the work that we do as speech coaches, we see the similarities almost identical in some cases, culture after culture after culture. That surprises me, which I think is profound actually.
Intriguing. And so, what are a few universals that cut across everything?
Well, for instance, people get nervous when they have to speak in front of a group, not everybody does. Not everybody does. But the psychology around it and the reasons behind it are often similar. People get uncomfortable in the business world, when they need to give feedback, for instance. And, again, not everybody. I'm generalizing. But the kinds of things that we hear and see are almost identical.
Like, I'll hear somebody tell me that, "My manager just doesn't understand me. He's putting too much stuff on my plate." Like, I might hear something like that here in Massachusetts or when I'm in Malaysia, it's like the same things. Once you get through the culture, the obvious cultural uniqueness of a different environment, there are very, very common similarities in all cultures.
Okay. Well, good to know for the world travelers or future returning travelers amongst us. Well, let's chat a bit about your book Mastering Communication at Work. So, it's been a while since the previous edition was published. Tell us, you say that everything and nothing has changed in the interim. What do you mean by that?
Yeah, there's not a whole lot that's changed. Much of what we know in human communication and psychology comes from Aristotle over centuries ago but there have been some things we've seen get updated. We updated the book. We did a second edition. We added a section for gender equity and a section for virtual communication, not because of COVID but just, in general, the technology curve has increased so there were some changes there. But a lot of how we think and process and connect and how we get good and develop skill in communication hasn't changed too much. So, yeah.
All right. Well, so let's talk a little bit about how that's done but, first, maybe a little bit of the why. Just what kind of an impact does having excellent communication skills make for a professional?
The answer varies, really. In most cases, the impact is going to be pretty significant because when you can get your ideas and thoughts out in a way where another human can hear it, decode it, and understand it, usually things tend to go well. And when that doesn't happen, it can be highly frustrating. So, in most cases, it's a pretty positive experience.
Okay. And can you share maybe a story of someone who saw a transformation and what impact that made for them?
Sure. One client of ours who enjoys sharing his story with us, Jon Platt. He's the chairman at Sony Music. So, when Jon first came to us, he was executive vice president, and this is the fellow who was a producer for like Jay Z and Beyonce and so forth, but he was looking to move up in his career. And one of the things he was saying, "So, look, I need to strengthen my ability to articulate my ideas in these senior executive levels," which is a different kind of communication than he was able to do with artists.
Jon has a real talent, a real ear for talent, and he was able to negotiate very effective deals with artists, and he needed to update the language he was using and the approach he was using to communicate internally with those who would be in a position to put him in a position of leadership, and he did. He did. He did the work. It was very difficult at times because he had to learn to behave in ways that were new for him.
But, as he did that, he moved up the ladder pretty quickly throughout. He was at EMI at the time, and then he moved over to Sony, and he's doing very well these days. But a great example of someone who put the time and effort into strengthening the quality of his communication skills and now he's benefitting from that.
We see these examples all the time. Not everything is high profile. We'll see this, sometimes, it could just be a typical manager or somebody maybe they have no interest in being a manager. Not everyone wants to move up in organization, that's just one example. Sometimes it's just a matter of somebody feeling comfortable on their own team, or learning how to communicate with peers comfortably, or it might be a presentation, anything like that. We see these kinds of things happen all the time with folks.
Well, I'm curious to hear about that notion about certain behaviors needed to change when you're communicating in a more senior level. What are some of the key difference-makers when we are communicating like a leader? How does that differ from just kind of typical, normal everyday patterns in behaviors you may have around communication?
One way of looking at this, I've heard some other discussion around some Aristotle, and this would be a good idea to maybe sort of clarify some ideas around it. Aristotle, one of the reasons that speech coaches look at Aristotle is because he was one of the early philosophers to look at how we think, how we process information. And so, some of the terms we hear tossed around a little bit are a little bit sometimes not always clear. But he was saying people tend to think and process in one of two different ways, either inductive or deductive. These are the terms that are used.
And here's what it means. If I'm an inductive thinker, it's just who I am. What that means is that I need to have specific pieces of information that lead to me a general conclusion, it's called going from the specific details to the general conclusion, what you want happens at the end. That's inductive.
For instance, if I were to say to you, "Hey, listen, last weekend, I was at a family barbecue, and my mother-in-law was there. And she said, 'Ethan, I think you should lose a little weight.' Well, I think that was kind of rude of her but she's the mother-in-law so she can say anything she wants to say. So, I thought I would take up jogging and I went to the mall to get a new pair of sneakers. And it was really frustrating that day because it was Sunday and it was really crowded."
"There was a lot of sales on Sundays, by the way. So, I got into the parking lot and I couldn't find a place to park, and this other guy came and cut me off. And I was going to get out and confront him but I was really just here for the sneakers so I had to park in the remote parking lot which was really frustrating because I had to walk to the front of the mall and I had this old pair of shoes. And if it gets too sore, the shoes get a little sore in the back of my foot, and thenI have to see my doctor, which is a nightmare because the lady at the desk hates me. She hates everybody."
"You're with me still? Good. You see, because I went into the shoe store and they didn't have sneakers. I thought that was interesting so I asked if I could talk to the manager, and they sent me down to the sports shop. And at the sports shop, they didn't have white sneakers. And I like the white ones because if they get dirty, you can bleach them. They're just like new. So, that leads me to what I'm going to ask you today because, see, now I'm going to go jogging this afternoon, and I don't want to get my new pair of sneakers dirty. So, could you tell me is it going to rain?"
"Is it going to rain? That was my point. That is what I needed to know." But, you see, if I think and process in an inductive way, I can't just ask that, "I think you need to know about the mother-in-law, and the parking lot, and the doctor, and all that." And if you're hearing my example right now, and you're thinking, "Oh, the guy is just rambling about random stuff," "Hold on a second. It's not random inside of my mind. Somehow these things are all connected to each other."
Now, this is an inductive pattern. Now, you don't have to be that inductive. That's an extreme example. I could be slightly inductive and it's less frustrating. I could say, "Hey, listen, Pete, I just got a new pair of sneakers and I don't want to get them dirty as I go jogging. Do you know if it's going to rain?" So, I'm giving you the background information first and then the point, then what I want. That is known as an inductive pattern.
The deductive pattern is different. It is the exact opposite. You start with the point and then you give your details. So, for instance, somebody who is extremely deductive, they might sound like this, "Rain?" That's it. Now, I don't have to be that deductive. I could say, "Do you know if it's going to rain? I just got a new pair of sneakers and I don't want to get them dirty as I go jogging." "Hey, I just got a new pair of sneakers and I don't want to get them dirty as I go jogging. Do you know if it's going to…?"
Can you hear the difference between the two patterns?
Absolutely. And when you said, it's interesting that you say some people just are inductive. So, when in your first rambling example, I guess I found that very frustrating and thought, "Oh, I hate this." Like, as I imagine that person talking to me, like, this is like, "Oh, I hate this. When are they going to shut up?" And I say, "Pete, be compassionate. And I'll be patient with them. That's kind of what was going on in my mind. But if someone is inductive, and they're hearing that, might they be like, "Oh, this is really interesting and engaging"? That seems hard for me to believe.
Yeah, spoken like a true deductive listener. See, one of the reasons these matters is because one of these two people meet each other, look out, there's a level of frustration that just breaks the communication down. If I'm a deductive thinker, it's just who I am. I process in a deductive way. And this inductive person comes to talk to me? What I look like is frustrated, you know, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh," I'm like nodding my head, "Uh-huh," waving my hand, "Mm-hmm, yup. What do you want? Get to the point." I get so frustrated to the point that I'm not even listening anymore. I might be looking at you and I might not be talking but the comprehension is very low. I would need you to do it in a deductive way for me.
And the reverse is true, by the way, also. If I'm an inductive thinker, and this deductive person comes to talk to me, what I would look like is very frustrated, "What? Whoa, wait a minute. Hold on. Slow down. How did you get to the…? Back up just a minute here." So, this isn't about right or wrong. The language we like to use here, this is about what's effective versus ineffective. Therefore, the skill is to, number one, know which way you tend to lean. And, number two, probably more importantly, is, what does your listener, or listeners, need you to be? What do they need you to be in order to make it as easy as possible for them to receive the information, comprehend the information, and see what you're trying to communicate? That's the skill around here.
And where sometimes there's a confusion is there are folks who will say, "You should always be deductive. Tell them the point up front." It's, like, well, that's not bad advice for deductive thinkers. "Well, senior executives are always deductive." Oh, that is not true. That is not true. I coach CEOs all over the world, and I know many who are inductive in the way they think. However, we know it is a trend that the more senior we become, there is a trend to become more deductive, so it's not a bad way to plan but you always want to be ready to pivot.
Just like in the game of soccer, if I were to say to you, "Only kick the ball with your right foot. Never kick with your left," that's really poor advice. It doesn't help you. The skill is to learn both. And that's easy to understand, hard to do, because one of these is our comfort zone, and the other one is, Pete, you did a great job of explaining a second ago, kind of annoying. It's like, "Will you just shut up and get to the point?"
In Jon's case, what he did really, really well is he was very deductive in the way he thought because he knows a lot about the music business. And as he grew, and people would come to him with deals, he was listening deductively but they were talking inductively. He trained himself how to listen in an inductive way. And when he did, he says two things happened.
Number one is the quality of the relationships with those around him strengthened. And, number two, he actually learned stuff. It was like, "I could learn things." So, it's a good skill to look at. I know it's old but the reason we've never decided to give cute names to it, or get into the psychometric, a lot of the psychometric tests have come from some of the Aristotle stuff, is that we just found that in the business world, when you teach it in its raw form, it's much easier for people to hear it, comprehend it, and, most importantly, apply it in their daily life without us there coaching and so.
And that's an interesting point with the deductive-listening approach. Like, on the one hand, we stay focused on the point, what really matters. But, on the other hand, when it comes to deal-making, you could very well be missing opportunities in terms of like, "Oh, that thing that you were just kind of rambling on about actually contained some kernels of stuff that's useful clues about what really matters to you, or what really frustrates you, or if I could get incorporated in this deal for you, you'd be willing to make a concession elsewhere that is of more benefit to me. And if I were just like laser-focused about what just sort what just washed passed me, I'd miss out on it."
Yeah. In the world of selling, we do a lot of this kind of work with sales professionals. And if you look at traditional selling, it's been around for a while, the inductive approach is pretty much what's trained, like, "Don't tell them the price until you have presented the value proposition," and it is drilled into people.
And I guess I haven't thought about it in these terms but I guess I am super deductive because when I'm talking to a sales person, I guess, I want them to prove that they've got the goods. And so, they're like, "Let me tell you a little bit about the history of our company. So, we were founded in 1974 by a couple who had some frustration with their…" and I was like, "I don't care at all." Like, "Show me some compelling data, tests, experiments, case studies, that reveal that you're the real deal and you can do what you claim to be able to do supremely well such that I can trust that you can do it for me."
And then I do get frustrated when they don't do that. And sometimes I even tell them, it's like, "Hey, heads up, here's what I find very persuasive." It's like I'm giving you a roadmap to selling me, and sometimes it just doesn't matter at all, they do their scripts.
Well, funny you bring that up, if you look at different sales methodologies that are out there, whether it's Sandler or SPIN, or many of them are challengers, some of these things have been around for a very long time, these sort of older models that were, for the most part, what are they trying to do? They're trying to teach the salesperson to learn something about the listener, understand their situation, and the problems, and the implications, and then go back and present what they need.
And those who are really skilled at it have very high-quality listening ability, and they're listening for a lot of different things. Those who are brand-new are reading a script of questions, and people hate them, they want to smack them. But what are they listening for? Does this person need a more inductive or deductive approach? And when that's not taught, when it is said, "Don't tell them the price, tell the value," that's nice if, in some cases, that may be the case. But, in other cases, oh, my goodness.
It's not just selling a product, like, let's say, you're trying to sell your idea to senior management, and you're asking for, I don't know, half a million dollars for your project, and you inductively lead up to that. And if that particular team are deductive, if it's a deductive group of listeners, here's what they hear. As you go through your value and the data and all of the details, what they hear is this, "[muffled sounds] half a million dollars." Like, they missed it. Why? Because in their mind, all they're thinking is, "What do you want? Where are you going with this?"
Now, that doesn't mean start out by showing up and saying, "Hey, I need half a million dollars." Some teams you might, but it means know your listener. The real thing is you can't get too far on one way or the other.
Okay. And I'm thinking right now in terms of like best practices and how to kind of, as best as you can, be all things to all people in terms of, hey, we have an executive summary on the handout, and then we go into some of the details, or whatever, or just a little bit of a preview, "I've got an exciting investment opportunity I think it can give us 8X ROI that will cost about half a million dollars, and here are some of the details."
Yeah, "What do you want?" and, "What do you want?" And so, from you, I'm going to ask you for approval. I'm going to ask, "What do you want from them?" Sometimes it's nothing, "I'm just giving you an update." The main point that you need might be at the beginning, and when we do that, for instance, like what you're talking about in an executive summary, or when we look at, for instance, structure, there's a structure that we introduced to the world back in 1964. It was actually '63. The firm started in 1964, but in 1963, my mom and dad, both were on ABC television and they were interviewed about communication. It was sort of the year they were just starting the company.
And they were asked about this, and they talked about this, what we today we've referred to, and in my book, I talk about this, is we refer to it as the four-step outline.
Step number one has three words, "Tell what tell," is the way we put it. And this is when you tell your listeners what you're going to be talking about, how long you'll be talking for, and how many particular topics. This might be your deductive point if it's a deductive presentation. You might say what you want from them here. If it's an inductive presentation, you might not. You might save that till later. But "Tell what tell" is when you set the expectation of what's going to happen.
Step number two, this one kind of get dropped in some places but we still teach it, three words, "Tell why listen." And this is a brief statement as to why they should listen to this presentation. It's not necessarily why they should agree with you, or buy what you're selling, or the why of the idea, or any of that jazz. It's, "So, you're going to talk about your department's update. So, what? Why? Is this a good time for me to check my email? Like, why should I pay attention right now?" And we can talk about that in a bit, but that's basically what it is; it's brief commentary, and sometimes you have more than one if you have a group of people. If you got multiple people in the room, you might have to have more than one reason why they're listening to this.
Step three, "Tell," that's the body of your presentation where most of your time is spent. Step four, "Tell what told," and it's a summarization, summaries of two parts to them. The first part is you repeat your most important points, not everything, but you go back and what it is those points are. And in some meetings, some business meetings, those points may have evolved over the course of the meeting, but you repeat, you come back, meaning if they've turned into discussion. But what are your most important points?
And then the second part is an action statement. What do you want your listeners to do? Now that they know this, do they go somewhere, call somebody? Maybe it's just a soft action, like to consider or think about, things like that. But that's it, tell them what you can tell them, tell them what they should listen, tell them what you told them.
And in some talks, we'll reverse steps one and two, or repeat it, or if it's a conference talk, or like a TED Talk, we might start out with a story, which is one big fat step number two that leads up to what we're going to do. But when we look with inductive and deductive, well, that outline could apply either way. It depends who your listeners are.
And for the telling them why they should listen, you said that's distinct from why they should buy or do the thing. So, could you give us some examples of statements or articulations of why to listen?
Sure. And sometimes they overlap so that's fine. And when I'm coaching clients, sometimes the reason to buy is also a reason to listen. I just don't think it's that as strong.
So, let's take the example of I'm a product manager and I'm presenting at a national sales meeting to the salesforce. And my job was to go up and do a 20-minute presentation on the new product, and my boss needs me to get the sales team all jazzed up about this because they're going to be selling it for the next year.
All right, I'll make this a little harder on me. It's not even a new product. It's the same product. We hear this all the time, it's like, "There's not even anything new but I still have to get them all excited about it." So, step one and step two, "All right. Well, thanks, everybody. Over the next 20 minutes, I'm going to be talking to you about the product and all of the changes," there's step one.
"This is important because, for those of you who are not familiar with what's different, this is going to help you feel very confident out in the field, that you know what is and what isn't different about this so that you don't accidentally say the wrong thing." In that example, it's not profound. This is where we get tripped up. Sometimes people feel like step number two needs to be this profound sale, "This will save your life." It's like, well, sure, that is a reason to listen but, in most business meetings, it's usually something, "Who are your listeners? And why do they care about the particular topic?"
Let say, in that exact same example I just gave, there's another targeted group, maybe they're in that same group at the sales meeting, I also have people from finance at the meeting and I want to target them as well. So, it might sound something like this, "So, over the next 20 minutes, I'll be taking you through the new product and so you can see all of the changes. And for those in sales, this is going to help you understand exactly what is and what isn't different so that when you're out in front of your customers, you have all the knowledge you need and you're not going to look bad in front of them." You're not going to look bad in front of them, that's the reason.
"For those of you in finance, I'm glad you're here today. While this isn't specific for you, this is going to give you some very good insight as to why we have been asking for what we have been, and where the money that you've been allocating to the team has gone. Okay," and then they get into it, blah, blah, blah.
Now, I'm making up examples here. When we have real topics, it's actually you can think about, "Who are these people? Who are my listeners? And why do they care?" And sometimes it's hard because we're so close to this, we just assume they know why. If you're presenting to senior management just an update on your department, "Why?" "Well, because they told me to come," but you can't say that. I mean, you could say that but that's not going to be very helpful. So, you might say, "So, this is going to give you the most up-to-date information on my team," or something like that.
Sometimes folks will say, "But, Ethan, that sounds obvious." Yeah. Well, we found in our research on this is that even when the listener knows why the speaker is talking, that when the speaker says it out loud, it just confirms in the back of their mind, "Why I'm here, why I am listening," even if it's not about them. They now understand who the speaker is talking to. It's all part of setting the expectations.
Well, certainly. And it may seem obvious but that's one of my top pet peeves when talking about communication because when people use the vocal pause "Obviously," when it's not obvious, and me as the recipient, it's like, "Oh, actually, I didn't know that but, apparently, it was obvious so I must be an idiot." So, I just think that's a great word to purge from one's vocabulary.
I love it. I love it.
So, one, it may not be so obvious. You may have a different set of assumptions coming in, and you clarify that right up front, which is great, and then folks might reorient and say, "Oh, wait a second. I thought this was about this." And if they've got the right kind of culture, "Hey, actually, I guess I don't need to be here. Thank you for letting me know up front. I'm going to spend my time on this other thing because I had a different impression."
Or, they can know that, "Hey, given that we're moving in a slightly different direction than I had imagined, I'm going to formulate some different questions." It's just helpful. And I like the way you said it in terms of, "This is important for you because…" and then the way you arrived there is just by really putting yourself in their shoes in terms of, "I'm a salesperson, why do I care about this? Oh, because if I don't have the info, I'm going to sound dumb. I may commit to something we can't deliver, then we're really going to be in a bigger pickle because we've disappointed somebody or we've blown a sale that could've been saved had we just sort of gotten it right the first time."
Yeah, in that example, in the "Hey, we got to present to the sales team…" example, this is an important one because sometimes marketing, product marketing, there's sort of this fear of saying something that could possibly be perceived as negative. And when you look at inductive and deductive, we were sort of joking a little bit that all salespeople are trained to be inductive, right? Yes, as talkers. However, when it is time to listen, what we found in the work that we do is they tend to be deductive when they're listening.
So, if you're at a conference, and you're trying to do a "Tell why listen," step two, "Tell why listen," first is you got to say at the beginning of your talk, can't save it till the end. In general, we have found folks who are in the profession of selling, they tend to care about two things, and if you can tap into one of those, you have their undivided attention. Any guesses on what they are, two things salespeople care about? Listeners right now could think about it, say it out loud in your car.
I'll say commissions and delighting their customers.
Very, very close. Commissions, yes, it falls into the category of money. Money, how much? And I don't mean that in a mean-spirited way. There's nothing wrong with that at all. Look, folks who are in the profession of selling are typically hired with a particular…that's a desirable thing. There's nothing wrong with that, "How much will I make?"
So, if I'm at the conference, I'm at the company conference, and you're talking to me about the same product, or a new product, or a plan, or a program, in my mind, I'm thinking, "How much will I make?" is one, or, "How will this help me get to my number or my goal?" something related to that. Fine. The second one is, "Is what you're talking about going to make it easier or harder for me to make that number? Are you going to make my world easier or harder?"
There's a big focus on that because they know the amount of work that they already need to do. And now they're at the conference, "And if your product is going to make my life easy, you have my eye. I'm excited. If it's going to be hard, I might not be excited but don't BS me. Don't try to tell me that this is wonderful when I can see it's the exact same product with a different brochure color. Just be up front. I'll respect you more."
Because if I'm that rep, I'm out there in the field by myself representing, I need to know what I have to work with, so deductively say that near the beginning. You don't have to say it in a gloom-and-doom way but just be straight up, "I'll know how to take it out there. I might be upset about it but that's a different story." So, if you can be deductive about it, and you can connect to one of those two things in your step two, you're going to do really, really well in that kind of a meeting.
Cool. Thank you.
Quite frankly, others, too. If you're presenting to senior management, you got bad news, you don't have to pretend it's not there. They'll respect you. You don't have to say, "I have bad news." No, not like that. But you don't have to be nervous about it. These are business meetings, and if there's something that's not great, you can say it.
Sure thing. Okay, I like it.
I'm going on and on on this stuff.
Well, you've also got a concept called The Four Horsemen of Delivery. So, I'm curious, what are those horsemen and how do we master that?
All right. Deductively, they are speed, volume, stress, and inflection. Now these are delivery-specific things. And delivery, is not an effective presentation all by itself. Some folks could argue that it could be.
I think I've seen some keynoters who've managed to make a living out of good delivery without a lot of substance.
We see it a lot. This is not theater. That's something I want to be very, very clear about. In fact, you'll never hear somebody like me use words like rehearse, for instance. It's a theater term. And in the business world, we ain't acting.
And when we try to teach it in that way, folks tend to do well in training, but then they get there live and the anxiety can be very high. I think a more helpful way to look at it isn't so much rehearse and so forth, but practice is a much more accurate term because speech is a behavior just like kicking a ball is a behavior, so we practice. You don't go to basketball rehearsal. You go to basketball practice so that you can learn how to do things.
And in our delivery, we look at things like speed, and volume, and stressing of words, and inflection changing the word, things like that. These are tools that can help us enhance the intent of any sentence. Together, all of these things, we call it adding color to a word. And this is a technique, many of us do this normally, in our normal natural communication when we're talking with friends. And the variety in our speech patterns are just there, for many of us.
But when we get into a formal presentation, all of a sudden, the speech pattern is almost identical, things change. So, the Four Horsemen of speed, and volume, and stress, and inflection are four things that you can look at specifically.
Speed is broken into two parts. We have what's called the rate of speech and the pace of speech. I'll say it again because you can think about it, for you listeners, your own speaking. Rate is the speed at which we put words together. We speak, on average, at approximately 183 words per minute, is the average rate of speech. If you were to go to a meeting today and start counting words, you'll get to it, in general American, which is what we speak in the United States. We don't speak English, we speak American. But, in general American, we speak at approximately 183, a little more, a little less depending on who you are.
If I start talking at a faster rate right now, right now my rate of speech has just increased. I'm probably, I don't know, maybe more like 213 words per minute right now. That's rate. Pace is the speed at which we put thoughts together. So, I can actually be a faster talking like this, and as long as I pause every so often, you'll actually be able to follow and process the things that I'm talking about. But if I start talking at a faster rate like this and I don't pause for pacing, and I start talking about technical things, and I'm expecting you to understand and follow and process the things that I'm saying, you're going to be begging for me to just take a breath. That's just what they are, rate and pace.
And, often, what happens is, in a presentation, as speech coaches, these are coachable things. We listen and hear that. Many people are pretty good with rate, not always. Sometimes you got to learn to slow the rate. but pacing is often off. It's thought, thought, thought, thought, topic, topic, topic. It just keeps going and it is very difficult for listeners to comprehend.
When we don't change the speech pattern, the speaker can lull listeners into a trance, literally, which is why, for folks who have been in a presentation, and you just sort of zone a little bit, sometimes that is because the speech pattern just does not vary. Speed is one thing we can look at to do that. The other ones, such as volume, that doesn't work for everybody. We look at volume or stress or inflection. Volume, volume. Stress, we stretch a word out somehow. Or the inflection, the tone, somehow, we make a change, and that draws attention.
Let me give you an example. If I were to say to you, "Good speech is good business," every word has about the same stress and same volume and same meaning, so it's up to you, the listener, to hear the words, process that, and understand my meaning, and for the most part you can do that. That's actually pretty profound.
As a species, we have figured out how to take thought and then control these articulators here, the vocal folds, or our breathing where sound comes from, and then the articulators, the teeth, the tongue, the lips, things like that, and shape the sound and the noises we make so another human can hear those sounds, decode it, and now they have the same thought that we had. I mean, it's pretty profound when you think about that. No wonder there's so much room for miscommunication, misunderstanding.
When I say, "Good speech is good business," I'm making you work a little harder. A moment ago, I told you we speak at about 183 words per minute. We can think at like 600 words per minute so, therefore, there's like 400 or so words a minute doing other stuff all the time. Even right now while I'm talking, people can hear me but in the back of their minds, they may be thinking, "Oh, I got to get that email out. He's a second-generation coach, what is that? Oh, my goodness." There are all sorts of dialogue happening in our minds while people are talking.
So, when I say, "Good speech is good business," I am making you use that 400 words a minute to hear the words, decode the words, and understand the meaning. Okay, fine. Fine. Listen to how the meaning changes when I add color, one of the four horsemen, when I add color to one of the words, "Good speech is good business." I'm going to change a few times. Let me do these three or four times. Listen to how the meaning changes, "Good speech is good business." "Good speech is good business." "Good speech is good business." "Good speech is good business."
Can you hear how the meanings slightly changes depending on where I'm adding the inflection or stress or changing?
You know, it's fun how that works because sometimes I play around with that just for fun in terms of like a given sentence or a joke, and see how it feels different. And I think, as you discussed these principles, the speaker that comes to mind for me is the late Jim Rohn. His voice has such music in it. And I think he's a master in that it's like it's almost too much, but not. And so, I just think it's a great example of this is what it sounds like when you bring a lot of that color into it in terms of it does feel musical. It's like I wish I could give a great quote but I actually think about how Jim Rohn might say it, it's like, "Good speech is good business," in terms of it's like, "Ooh, we've got a lot of kind of flair on that."
So, interestingly, here's where sort of like in the world of theater, a director might work with an actor or actress on this, but that's their profession doing this. So, this is one reason why we're not big fans of bringing theater ideas into the business world because, in many cases, the folks we're working with, they don't have that level of time, understanding, background, history. There are many, many people that we work with who, maybe they are a scientist, for instance, and they were trained, in fact, graded poorly if they added emphasis as they did a report.
A classic example, so we work with a lot of life science companies, as an example. These are companies that maybe they already have their first hundred million dollars, but now they're looking to raise the next round of funding. They're looking for 200 million or 300 million, and the senior leadership team are a collection of incredibly smart scientists who have come from the academic space, and they will present, "We have a drug that will cure cancer." Aristotle would refer to that as a logos approach, a very sort of not a lot of variation in the voice. And in their world, that gives them credibility in the scientific world if they were at a conference, if they were speaking to academics. And if they took a TED Talk-style, forget it. they would be laughed out of the room.
This is why we say, "Don't just talk like TED in the world of business place. There's a time and a place for that style as incredibly effective, which is really just the conference style." But you take that style to like a boardroom, no way. Or, for these scientists, the challenge for them is, "How do I, as a scientist, who was trained to not show any emotion when I am talking about even something that is significant?" They need to learn how to add emphasis in a way that is effective. And we all look different, we sound different, they don't have to talk like Tony Robbins or something. They don't have to do that. You don't have to, to be incredible.
They can take and keep their current style and just learn how to adapt and amend certain words that emphasize the point, and, bam, it will pop. Their listeners will tune right in. And what makes this authentic is they are spending the time, saying, "Whoa, what do I actually mean in any given sentence? What is the point?" But then they got to actually do the practicing of it. Learning it is easy. Practicing it, it's not hard, you just got to do the work. You just got to do it, that's all. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. All this stuff is a lot of fun.
There are other environments where you got to take a different approach but we're not all the same. We look different, sound different. This is why it ain't one size fits all. You just can't do it that way.
Okay. Well, now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
My mom always used to say, "Be sure that your brain is engaged before putting your mouth into gear."
I like Getting to Yes by Fisher and Ury. I like Good to Great, excellent book, Jim Collins. The third one would be, oh, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden. Elgin, she changed her name, but that's a great one.
Okay. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?
A favorite tool would be taking a time out to practice.
Okay. And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with readers; they tend to quote it back to you frequently?
Yeah, getting good at step number two. That's probably one of the things we get a lot of feedback on. Most folks have not thought about step two, "Tell why listen," and they will…As you get good at that, the quality of their presentations really change. Not just the quality of the presentation, the attention span of the listener changes significantly when you get good at it and it feels authentic. None of this stuff is like gimmick stuff. This is all real. This is all how you do it.
Well, you can go to SpeechImprovement.com is the website. You can find me on LinkedIn, Dr. Ethan Becker. We do have an app that's pretty cool. This is a free app. It's called Speech Companion that has a great summary of the four-step outline, inductive, deductive, ethos, pathos, logos, with examples of phrases and language. It's a tool we developed a while back. We actually wrote the code from scratch in-house here, which was a lot of fun to do.
Oh, cool. And do you have a final challenge or call to action for folks looking to be awesome at their jobs?
Yeah, as you're listening to people, begin to notice how other people are communicating. Do they like their general information up front or at the end? And as you start to do that, you're going to start to find that's just one area you'll be able to connect with them much more effectively.
Ethan, thank you. This has been a treat. I wish you much luck in all of your communications.
Thanks, Pete. I appreciate it.
666: How to Build Trust and Connection through Digital Body Language with Erica Dhawan
Leadership expert Erica Dhawan helps decode the new cues and signals that make up digital body language.
The new cues and signals to look out for
Rules for emojis in emails
The Zoom rule to keep everyone engaged
Erica Dhawan is a globally recognized leadership expert and keynote speaker helping organizations and leaders innovate faster and further, together. Erica has spoken, worldwide, to organizations and enterprises that range from the World Economic Forum to U.S. and global Fortune 500 companies, associations, sports teams, and government institutions. Named as one of the top management professionals around the world by Global Gurus, she is the founder and CEO of Cotential – a company that has helped leaders and teams leverage twenty-first-century collaboration skills globally. Her writing has appeared in dozens of publications, including Fast Company and Harvard Business Review. She has an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, MBA from MIT Sloan, and BS from The Wharton School.
Book: Digital Body Language: How to Build Trust and Connection, No Matter the Distance
Quiz: EricaDhawan.com/digitalbodylanguage
Website: EricaDhawan.com
App: Calm
Book: Choose Yourself by James Altucher
Product: Nuun tablet
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Erica Dhawan Interview Transcript
Erica, thanks for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.
Erica Dhawan
Thank you so much for having me, Pete.
Well, I'm excited to talk about Digital Body Language, but, first, I want to hear a little bit about your body of work in the realm of Bollywood dancing. What is the story here for you?
I grew up as a shy and introverted girl in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and for most of my life, I struggled to find my voice. You couldn't even realize I was there. Every teacher from kindergarten to 12th grade often said, "Erica is very studious and gave me straight As," but every teacher had the same feedback, "I wish Erica spoke more in class."
One of the things though that I loved and that really allowed me to connect with others was dancing. And coming from an Indian background, one of my biggest passions is Bollywood dancing. But with my passion and my work around connection and my research around how we really connect in today's world, I found that so much of it comes not just through our heads but through our hearts.
And so, some of the things I love to do is not only Bollywood dance myself, but bring the spirit of dance and movement to my audiences as well.
Well, fun. So, then let's talk now about body language, or specifically digital body language. You've got this book here about digital body language. Can you share with us what's perhaps the most surprising, fascinating, counterintuitive discovery you made along the way as you were putting this together?
One of the things, or knacks, that allowed me to find my voice, beyond just dance, was understanding body language and the importance of it to build connections. But as I used the power of body language to get great competitive jobs and accelerate in my career, I started noticing something over the last few years that was pervading workplaces and people's family lives – there was no rulebook for how we showed body language in a digital world.
And it led me for the last four years to study what I called digital body language, which are the new cues and signals that we send in our digital communication that really make the subtext of our messages, whether it's punctuation, response times, how we sign up an email, to how we showed up on a video call.
One of the most surprising things that I learned while writing my book Digital Body Language is I originally wrote it thinking that it was really an additive benefit or skill in addition to traditional body language. It was something you need once you learned the basics of traditional body language. But what I really realized, as we've unlocked our digital shift over the past year, is that digital body language is now changing the way we use traditional body language.
My research is showing that even when we work face to face, moving forward, we are more likely to look down on our phones multiple times, to miss the lean-in in a sales conversation, to think in bullet points and expect others to speak in bullet points, and we are missing a lot of the traditional cues of the head nod, the lean in, the direct eye contact that we used to have. So, digital body language is not just how you show up on a video screen or how you send emails, it is truly changing how we make others feel not only online but even in live meetings in our new normal.
Okay. Well, so there's a lot in there, and that's exciting. So, you talked about the word rulebook so I want to dig into lots of the precise do's and don'ts and the implications of them. But before we go there, could you maybe share with us a story about someone who's able to transform their digital body language and see some cool results from that?
One of the best examples from my own research on digital body language that I feature in my book is about a leader named Kelsey. She works at a large company, and Kelsey is someone who really cares about her people and leading her team. But one of the things that she got was some negative feedback through a performance review that her empathy was weak.
And I started coaching Kelsey, and when I started working with her, I started to look at all the typical markers of subpar empathy: poor listening skills, lack of engagement. And I found that Kelsey was actually fantastic at all these things. She showed her team that she was engaged in the room with them. She would ask for their input repetitively. She would try to bring in her introverts and her extroverts. But I realized what was missing was a whole new set of things that weren't the traditional cues of empathy.
She would look down at her phone multiple times during meetings, multitasking, or signaling to her team that she wasn't necessarily always paying attention, thinking that it was important to be responsive, not realizing that was impacting how her team felt valued. She would send one-liner emails that were brief and no context, thinking that she was responsive but actually had a major impact on her team not having a clear understanding of what they needed to do next.
Another thing she was doing was repetitively canceling meetings at the last minute, and her team would feel devalued. So, while Kelsey's traditional body language was actually quite good around empathy, her digital body language was abysmal. So, we did a few things to really help solve some of these challenges. The first thing we did, and I'll describe them as sort of three tenets of digital body language, is follow one of the first tenets, which is what I call reading messages carefully is the new listening.
Instead of rushing to respond to things, she took a second, thought before she typed, and would send all her messages to her team with clear response expectations, made sure that she could read it a second time for not only what she was thinking in her head but how others may interpret her messages, especially some of her junior employees.
The second thing that she did, which was critical, is she practiced the tenet that I call hold your horses, which means less haste equals more speed. So, she focused on not rewarding the fastest person to respond in her team meetings but the most thoughtful ideas. And the way that she did this was she started to send agendas before those meetings. She was more thoughtful instead of chronically canceling.
And she had said, "Before the meeting, I want you all to think about these questions." And then, in the team meeting, she had everyone go around and share their responses. And now, in video calls, she had everyone share in the chat tool so that they weren't turn-taking and then she would call on the people that had the most different ideas. This allowed her to avoid that culture of group think and create that thoughtfulness.
And then the last thing she did is she was more thoughtful about how her team could find their voice especially in different medium. She found that sometimes, while she was really good with introverts and extroverts face to face, sometimes in digital mediums, they needed more engagement. So, she had a rule where she said, "If you have an idea that isn't in this meeting on Monday, I want you to send it to me on Friday."
And what it would do was it would force her to think, it would force her to not just reward the quickest person to respond, and it would allow her introverts to actually bring their best ideas to the table. So, those are just some quick examples of how what we all knew what was implicit in traditional body language, now has to be explicit in our digital body language.
Well, thank you. So, there's a lot of specifics right there in terms of do's and don'ts to bear in mind. So, let's zoom right in to some more of those in terms of what are some key do's and don'ts that you see all the time and make a world of impact when we make an adjustment there?
Let's start with the do's. The first do is value others visibly by valuing their time. Don't chronically cancel, send agendas, be thoughtful of people's time. The new art of respect is honoring people's time, inboxes, and schedules. So, so much of this is really around watching the clock of starting meetings, ending meetings on time, acknowledging those differences, and showing that you recognize others and value their time and engagement with you. There's so much hidden costs in the emails we send back and forth.
The second do is to communicate carefully. Take a moment to think before you type. Another story I'll share is I once had a client who sent a message to his boss Tom that said, "Do you want to speak Wednesday or Thursday," and Tom's response was, "Yes." Now, Tom was probably rushing, he thought it wouldn't offend his colleague, but reading carefully is listening, and writing clearly is empathy, so communicate carefully.
The third do is collaborate with confidence and understand that confidence today is being consistent in your messages. You don't want to create cultures where people have to chase you down, and being consistent. Even if you don't have any answer but having a cadence for following up matters more than ever.
And the fourth do is trust others and assume positive intent. Especially in a digital body language world, there are cases where we get all caps emails, we're feeling someone is shouting at us. Or those emojis that feel a bit passive-aggressive, stay in the place of reason, don't get emotionally hijacked, and choose thoughtfulness, and giving others a benefit of the doubt.
Now let me give you three don'ts.
Oh, if I could just, because you said emojis, and that was on my list, so let's just go there. So, emojis can come across as passive-aggressive. How do we think about emojis at work in terms of like, "Never use them," or, "Use them freely," or, "Use them only under these circumstances"? What's your take?
So, emojis are like our true body language facial expressions. And they do bring emotion, nuance, and tone to digital messages that are absent of the body language which makes up roughly 75% of nonverbal communication. I recommend using emojis carefully and knowing your audience when you're using emojis.
Emojis can actually provide great benefit. They can showcase happiness. They can showcase gratitude with your team. The best way to decide when you should use emojis, how many you should use, how carefully you should use them, is by answering two questions. The first question is, "How much do you trust this person?" If there's high trust, don't be shy. Use your authenticity and maybe throw in that emoji. If there's low trust, maybe be careful. First, mirror the other person's formality, and then decide when might be that right moment to sprinkle in an emoji.
The second question to answer is, "How much of a power gap is between the two of you?" Is this a CEO who's in their 60s and you've never met in person that you're sending an email to, or is this a cousin or a friend? These simple things will help you decide power and trust levels whether to infuse that emotion or not. I would say that over the last year, we've seen a much higher degree of using the power of emojis and I really encourage it to show your authenticity, again, in places where there is high trust and little differentiation in power dynamics.
I'd also say that we're seeing a lot more senior leaders throwing in those emojis or two, and I think that it can be really great to infuse a sense of emotion or connection. There are times where you'll want to make sure you avoid them, sensitive periods where there's difficulties, situations where…
"You're firing 20,000 people…" yeah, I hear you. There's sort of heavy gravitas elements that the emoji brings a lightness to, a lightness that ought not to be brought to that sort of thing. I wanted to ask, you talked about the power gap in the senior leaders. If you are the more senior person, does that kind of nudge you towards feeling more free to use emojis in communication with the junior folks as a means of making things seem lighter, freer, more open? Or, is it…? What's your take there?
I think that senior leaders have a great opportunity to sprinkle in that emoji or two to actually create connections. In my research, what I found is that we are all in different wavelengths of digital body language. On one end, there are digital natives, people that are very savvy in these tools, they grew up using emojis in high school, in college. And then digital adopters are the other category. These are people that are learning the new road of digital body language as we go. They never used an emoji for 20 years in workplace culture, and then they might start to try this, which feels like a big leap for them.
To give you a similar parallel example. My father is a digital adopter and I'm a digital native, and when my father sends me a text message, it starts with "Dear Erica," and ends with "Love, Dad," and I just scroll through it because it's as long as a letter, and I haven't quite taught him that a text is not a letter. But we have to understand that maybe some of our senior leaders are similar to my father. They're new to these things.
And so, check your own bias. If you're a leader, sprinkle in an emoji or two. It may actually bring more connection with your teams but know that there are some things that actually may go too far. One head of HR that I interviewed said that she remembers a moment when she changed her communications from an exclamation point to an emoji, and it was like a rite of passage, and it was a big deal. Whereas, for maybe a millennial or a Gen Z, it's like a simple thing to use every day.
The other thing she learned though is she wrote adorbs, like adorable, but adorbs in an email with one of her millennial coworkers, she is a Gen Xer. And that millennial said, like, "I was uncomfortable with adorbs because you put it an email, and I feel like email is formal. And to you, email was actually more informal." And so, not only do digital adopters and digital natives have different styles around when to use these punctuation or symbols, but even they have different norms around where to use them by channel.
Well, yeah, and it sounds like you're sharing some really great principles here which are, in many ways, universal, but in some other ways individuals are going to have their own particular preferences, proclivities, nuances, and that's just how they are. Like, that would not have even occurred to me. Like, "Email is a more formal channel. I prefer not to hear adorbs." I guess I'm…how old am I again? I'm 37.
You may be more of a digital native. And I find that it's not just age-based. I know 50-year-olds that are digital natives at heart and 35-year-olds that want perfect punctuation in text messages. One fun fact is a research study showed that if you put a period at the end of a text, certain Americans will think you're angry or passive-aggressive, other Americans will think you're just using good grammar. And that's just a very good example of how, similar to emojis, we are not all the same. We are all learning the brave new world of digital body language, so it's important to check our bias to not read into things, and to really give others the benefit of the doubt.
Yeah. Well, let's talk about not reading into things. We're going to talk about the don'ts here, so let's start with that one and maybe hear a few more don'ts. Let's just say our brain just start to go, like, "Wow, what's up with that text, or Slack, or email that just said, 'Okay.' Are they mad at me? Did I screw up? Do they think that I'm trying to undermine them?" So, anyway, our brains just make up these stories and they go running. How should we deal with the internal game when that pops up for us?
So, with the lack of that tone and body language, if you get that message and you see that someone is on the verge of tears, you know that they have good intent but if you can't see any of those cues, it's easy to get lost in our minds, caught up in rumination or paranoia. So, here's a couple things that you shouldn't do when you get that message.
The first thing you should not do is you should not respond immediately with another passive-aggressive, not react with a more passive-aggressiveness. Instead, stay in the place of reason, sleep on it. I like to call it the pregnant email pause. Sleep on it overnight and come back to it when you're not as emotionally hijacked. You'll come back to it refreshed. If you want to write something back, maybe draft it, and then come back to it later.
Another thing that you can do is just pick up the phone. Don't use email back and forth if it's not really working for you anymore. Know when it's important to pick up the phone. I like to say a phone call is worth a thousand emails and there are certain cases where it matters more than ever to do that. That's the first big don't.
And to that point about the phone call, I think that that's so…it is so powerful and it can be worth a thousand emails in the sense of kind of upstream and downstream in terms of positive or negative. And like when you call, and you say, "Hey, we said okay. I was wondering if maybe we're thinking X, Y, Z." And then maybe that can open up a really important emotional conversation, like, "You know, I'm sorry. I'm really stressed about these things. You're doing a really great job. I've been really short with people." And then you just really strengthen that relationship because you were able to go there. Or you can just have a quick laugh, like, "Oh, no. No, I didn't mean that at all. No, that's funny. We're all good."
Yeah, someone is trying to be funny and it didn't go well online.
So, it's like that, even if there's nothing there, taking the time to make the phone call can just go miles in terms of enriching that relationship, so I love it.
That's absolutely right.
And digital body language is just as much about knowing when to have the video call, the phone call, the live meeting, the email, or the IM, or the text as it is, what we say in each of those mediums. I like to say the choice of communication medium is like the new measure of priority, complexity, and urgency. If it's really urgent, know when to send a text or make that quick call versus an email. If it's high complex, it's very important to know when to have that video call with nuance, with SlideShare, or send a detailed email. And if you're familiar with this person, knowing when you can just pick up the phone versus sending the long email, or where you have to work with their assistant to schedule something on a calendar.
All right. Great. Thank you. Let's hear some more don'ts now.
Don't multitask. Multitasking is rampant right now. We are all feeling not only Zoom gloom but constant fatigue, endless emails. What I really recommend to avoid this just endless feeling, like we're constantly in meetings, and we have to multitask to just get through the day, is initiate what I call the Zoom BCC just as much as we do the email BCC.
If you're in a lot of meetings, if they could be shorter meetings, first have less meetings. Instead of making them 30 minutes, make them 25 minutes, then you'll see you can make them 20 minutes. And then if you have a lot of people on there that don't need to be on there anymore, initiate a BCC rule on Zoom where you can loop people out just like we do on email. This will really avoid multitasking and really get individuals engaged.
If you're in a meeting where you feel like you want to multitask because you're not being engaged, start the meeting with, "What's the agenda here and how can I help?" Be proactive to make sure that you're valued, otherwise you don't need to be there, versus feeling a fear or guilt. And if you're the host of that meeting, always start with, "Here's what's success looks like. Here's why I need all of your input. And if we're able to get through this in 15 minutes, then we'll end 10 minutes early." Simple things like that will quickly avoid multitasking which is, as we all know, is pretty rampant.
The last thing I think is important is just don't constantly be in a rush. We are living in a world where rush responses are often prioritized, as I said earlier, over thoughtfulness. Take the moment to really reflect on, "What is a working session that really needs group thinking versus group think?" instead of just saying, "We need to talk next Tuesday because that's the next opening on our calendar."
We are not robots and we can't live or adhere to what our Outlook or our Gmail calendar is saying. We need to think about what will best serve the task at hand, and how we as humans need to process ideas and think through things before we actually jump from meeting to meeting.
And, in practice, if I want to implement this Zoom BCC action, how would I go about pulling that off?
One of the best ways you can initiate the Zoom BCC is have a rule in the chat box on a video call when individuals do not need to engage anymore or they filled their part of the meeting, just write, "BCC: Sam, John, and Mary," and then they have the liberty to BCC out of the meeting. That's just a simple way to do it. I love the power of the video call chat tools because you're avoiding turn-taking and allowing individuals to engage all at the same time.
And so, just for any listeners who aren't quite picking up what we're putting down and intricate for my understanding. Erica, when you say BCC, it's much like when in an email we perhaps move the person who introduced us, like Dorie Clark introduced us, thanks, Dorie, we move them to BCC such that they are not privy to all of the back-and-forth subsequent emails about scheduling or whatever that we're doing. And so, we're using that as a shorthand then within the Zoom chat to say, "Hey, thanks for that which you have contributed. If you would like to exit now, you're free to do so."
Exactly right.
Okay, cool. And so, it's kind of nice as a cultural shorthand, they'd say, "Oh, okay. Got it." Just like, "That happens in email, that's what's happening now, and I appreciate you respecting my time, Erica, and giving that back to me and I'm going to go do my thing." Or they might say, "No, actually, this is riveting stuff and I really want to see what happens and I'm excited to contribute a few more ideas," then, by all means, you stick around and it's all good.
Absolutely. And I think that's the opportunity here. What we're often finding is what happens when people don't feel like they're contributing anymore, they start multitasking on the call, and then people see that, and then other people multitask, and it just creates a disengaged scenario. And so, really being thoughtful about this can go a long way.
And, again, we are living in the wild, wild west of how we innovate around digital body language, so use your own creativity. With some of my clients who have read the book Digital Body Language and we've run workshops we've initiated email acronyms. For example, on subject lines, leaders are using 2H which means "I need this in two hours," or, 4D which means, "I need this in four days" so that person doesn't feel that like they have to rush; they have four days to actually think about it and then come up with the best product.
Another example of an email is one of my favorite acronyms NNTR which means "No need to respond." That simple email acronym can avoid 15 thank you emails or okay emails. And this is not trivial, it's actually valuing other's time right now. Another one of my favorites is ROM which means "Respond on Monday," especially if you're a senior leader who's sending an email on a Sunday, you don't want to blast your team member's weekend. Let them know ROM that they can respond on Monday. That can go a long way not only for you to get better ideas from them but foster wellbeing.
Oh, certainly, yeah. And it's just very clear because it's ambiguous, they say, "This doesn't seem super urgent but then, again, why are you sending it to me on a Saturday or a Sunday? And maybe you just had a good creative spark or maybe it is urgent and I can't quite tell even if I've spent that couple minutes trying to figure out if it is or not urgent by reading between the lines." It'd be great just to have that clarity at first, like, "Oh, I don't even need to open this subject line that's tantalizing me because see that acronym. That's great." Thank you.
When it comes to multitasking, I just want to get your take about how you say we see other people multitasking on like a Zoom call, and then that just sort of brings down the energy and the commitment focus level from others.
And I think what's funny, I think most of us notice but some of us don't apparently, which is that we can tell when you're multitasking because we can hear the clicking, or if you're in a Mac or something, like the "thunk, thunk, thunk" trackpad clicks, or see your eyeballs they're like reading texts elsewhere kind of on the screen as opposed to listening to the person. And so, even with the mutes or whatever, there are many ways it becomes clear that you're multitasking. So, public announcement there, we know you're multitasking. So, that's there if you didn't already know that.
Can you tell me what are some of the other telltale signs of that? And how does that bring down the energy of the group?
I think that your example was brilliant. It is obvious when individuals are multitasking versus when they're actually engaging in a conversation. And if you just write even just like, "Oh, I agree" in a chat, it's kind of like, "Okay, are you really listening?" versus sending something thoughtful around what was just said that will proactively contribute to the conversation and adds to it.
I want to answer this in a few ways. First, I'll answer "What are some of the common cues of multitasking?" but then I want to answer, "If you are the meeting host, how do you avoid this from happening from those attending your meeting?"
So, common cues of multitasking, people are just not on video even though that you asked for people to be on video, or most of the people are on video. I think that there are reasons people aren't on video, but if it is a meeting where everyone else is on video, take a second to think about the fact that other people may think you're multitasking even if you're not.
Another cue is just never looking into the camera at all and always looking down or somewhere else. A research study showed that making eye contact happens about 30% to 60% when we're face to face. In body language, we want to actually, when we're speaking, look into the camera about 60% to 70% of the time. Even though we can't see everyone, they can feel a connection with us, so it does really help. The third is being someone who, when you're called on, is sort of like, "Oh, what do we need again?" or, "Can you say this again?" Those are great examples of just the multitasking phenomenon that is existing.
So, how do you overcome some of these challenges if you're a meeting host? Number one, before the meeting, I like to say the meeting calendar invite is like the new first impression. It sets the agenda for how people will behave in your meeting. So, in that meeting invite, have a clear meeting title, have an agenda, write in there some norms, "We'd like to have everyone on video. If you can't join on video, let me know beforehand that you can't." Like, instead of creating the opt-in, create the opt-out of, "Here are the norms," and people are automatically engaged more.
In your agenda, identify ways where you can actually solicit other individuals to lead parts of the meeting or to be prepared to speak around specific questions that you want them to discuss. Then, at the beginning of your meeting, when everyone is on, actually start with, "Here's the agenda. I'm going to call on people randomly." Encourage that. Just like we did in an office. Like, we don't have to be polite. This is how we meet. And simple things like that will change behavior as well as using the chat tools, say, "I'd like everyone, as we're discussing this, to share their responses in the chat. We're going to wait till everyone shares in the chat. And then I'll call on people that have different perspectives."
And this is a great way as well for people to just pay attention and make sure that you're truly soliciting that input from everyone. So, those are just some examples. Again, it's not going to be perfect, but knowing how to engage the group thoughtfully and then knowing when to Zoom BCC them out, because otherwise it will create multitasking, can go a long way and just having great, good body language.
All right. Thank you. Well, tell me, Erica, anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?
My new book Digital Body Language is out May 11th. If you want access to some tools around it, if you go to EricaDhawan.com/digitalbodylanguage, I have a digital body language quiz that will help you assess yourself on some of the categories I talked about: valuing others visibly, communicating carefully. It's free for anyone. And I hope you'll check it out, take it with your teams, and understand whether you're a digital native or a digital adapter.
All right. Well, Erica, now can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?
My favorite quote is from Maya Angelou, and I'll share it with you, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." And what I find so inspiring about that is that this is a moment that we can help others feel heard, respected, and understood with digital body language.
Okay. Now could you share a favorite study or experiment or a bit of research?
I recently ran a study of 2,000 office workers, and one of the greatest insights I found from the study was that the average office worker cited that they were wasting four hours a week on poor, unclear, and confusing digital communication. If we equate that up to the US GDP alone, that is $889 billion in wasted salary alone.
My favorite book, most recently, I have many, is Choose Yourself by James Altucher.
All right. And a favorite tool, something you use to be awesome at your job?
My favorite tool is the Calm app. I really believe in the power of meditation and connecting not only with our minds but our bodies. And I use it every single morning for a quick meditation, and every afternoon for a five-minute meditation.
Yeah, my favorite habit is to wake up every morning and have a big glass of water with a Nuun tablet. Hydration is everything. It has changed my life. And if you are not drinking eight glasses of water, go for it and you will see immense results.
Well, hydration is actually one of my hobby horses, I guess, so you said it was transformational. Explain.
I was constantly tired for most of my life throughout the day. I've been addicted to coffees, teas, chocolates in the afternoon, and after I became a mom of two kids, I have two kids under three years old, I realized that this could not be fixed with caffeine. Caffeine is just another addiction and I needed to change my habits. And so, I started to experiment with lots of different things, but the one that has really worked is just drinking more water. And I found that I don't love to just drink glasses of water, but I started to use electrolyte tablets, like Nuun and others, and just that simple dose of not feel like water, warm water, but a little more fun goes a long way in helping me hydrate, keep my energy up throughout the day.
And is there a particular nugget you share that really seems to connect and resonate with folks; they quote it back to you often?
In terms of all of my work, I think one of the most important nuggets that has connected most was the quote I shared earlier, "Reading messages carefully is the new listening, and writing clearly is the new empathy." We are living in a new world of how we connect and build trust. And, as I shared earlier, I think what was implicit from body language now has to be explicit in digital body language. And I think that taking the extra steps to truly show empathy and care with simple actions like these go a long way in connecting.
Folks can learn more on my website at EricaDhawan.com, or my book website EricaDhawan.com/digitalbodylanguage, or you can just check out my Amazon page and find my books there.
To be awesome at your job, it's critical to get comfortable being uncomfortable, to be willing to ask for help, say what you know, what you don't know, and be vulnerable, because when you are vulnerable, you'll create the safe space to allow others to speak up.
All right. Erica, this has been a treat. I wish you lots of luck with the book and your digital body language and your many other adventures.