The reason I’m writing about this is because of the holidays. I’m the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants and we celebrate Lithuanian as well as American holidays. So we always get a double dose of celebrations throughout the year.
From my earliest memory, there was never a holiday dinner where someone did not get up from the table, possibly in tears or wounded silence, storm out of the room and slam the door loudly. Never. It was not always the same person, we would rotate.
We got offended easily, and the way we handled it only made it worse.
Even so, I challenge you to find a family that loves each other more than we do. If ever anyone said anything bad about any one of us, they were in trouble.
That’s how it used to be.
Gregor had made an overnight change, both at work and at home. The results were so powerful, it turned his world inside out.
It was during the Causative Communication workshop that Gregor came to realize he only “half listened to anyone”. His mind was always moving on to “what’s next”. He was mentally halfway out of this meeting and heading to the next one no matter where he was.
At the end of the 3rd day of the workshop, Gregor made a life-changing decision. He said, “I’m going to stay fully present in every conversation. I’m going to give 100% of my focus, really listen and really understand. No shortcuts.”
Thanksgiving has inspired this article because Thanksgiving always reminds me how wonderful, even magical, affinity is.
Affinity is a feeling. It’s what you’re feeling about the other person, your emotional response to them. And very specifically, it’s how much you like them in that moment.
Affinity can fluctuate, even within one conversation. You can start out with low affinity and end up with high affinity. Or start high and go low.
“I’m now walking into meetings and making what I want happen. The first thing I noticed was that everyone started listening to me differently. Even my boss. Now people go quiet when I speak and genuinely listen, even my superiors. I hadn’t realized there are different kinds of listening. This is REALLY different. After that, it’s not hard.”
This broke all the rules considering where Agoston was on the corporate ladder. He was young, early in career and had no authority. But he spoke up at meetings, in hallways and conversations. His influence was growing daily. It wasn’t long before he was promoted and began rapidly moving up the organization.
Before he did the Causative Communication workshop, no one listened to him.
What made the difference for Agoston was mastering the skill of…
The question, “What do I need to say to get the outcome I want?” is a good question. Knowing the answer to it is essential to being causative.
The reason people experience difficulties when they’re looking at a situation through this lens is because they don’t realize that they’re skipping steps.
I’ve worked with professionals and executives of large corporations for over 30 years. They are used to feeling tense. It’s become normal. Feeling completely comfortable is not normal. Being relaxed is not.
That’s how being slightly tense, or even very tense, becomes habitual. And they’re surrounded by others who are also slightly or very tense. So they’re swimming in a sea of uninspected “normal”.
Last week I wrote about Victor, a VP I was coaching on Executive Presence. I wrote about the effect Victor’s facial expressions were having on others and how it diminished his Executive Presence.
Victor’s BIGGEST realization was when he saw a screenshot of his face during a moment he didn’t think he had any facial expression, when he was feeling neutral, not one way or the other, not positive or negative, not really feeling anything.
What shocked Victor when he saw his face was that his “neutral” expression looked COLD.
People don’t realize that when you put a neutral expression on your face, you look cold. Try it in the mirror and see for yourself. Get your neutral face on and then look.
Neutral has no warmth in it. Zero.
And no warmth equals cold. There’s no way around it.
When it comes to human relationships, neutral leaves them cold about you. Possibly even defensive. You are discouraging them from warming up to you.
Larry, the Senior Vice President, was horrified.
It was an important meeting with important people. He was watching Victor, a newly promoted Vice President, and was completely horrified by what he saw. It wasn’t about what Victor was saying…he wasn’t saying anything. The problem was what Victor was doing.
Larry sent me an email saying, “You’ve got to coach Victor on his Executive Presence immediately!”
I said, “What specifically?”
It turned out to be something I’ve been coaching a surprisingly large number of people on, so I decided to write about it.
Larry said, “Victor is doing great work. But when he’s in a meeting, Victor looks totally bored, completely disengaged. He’s too relaxed, leaning back in his chair, totally disinterested. And often he has a disgusted look on his face. He’s creating a horrible impression.”
I told Larry, “No problem, it’s an easy fix.”
It was. It was one of the fastest coaching transformations in the history of the world.
A couple of days ago I started the first Executive Coaching session with Marcos. I asked him to tell me about his goals for the coaching and he said, “I really want to learn about Executive Presence.” I asked him why.
As he was telling me his goals, he apologized three times.
“I’m sorry, this probably sounds like a silly thing. But what I’d really like is…”
“That probably doesn’t make any sense, but what I was thinking was…”
“I’m sorry that was such a long-winded explanation of what I am looking for, I hope that makes sense…”
He’s not the only one apologizing. If I count the number of times each week that someone apologizes to me for communicating, it’s quite a number.
“I’m sorry if I’m coming across opinionated…”
“I’m sorry, I just have to say this…”
“I’m probably taking too long to explain this …”
This is a new phenomenon in society. Somehow perfectly wonderful people have been made to feel they need to apologize for communicating.
I could spend an entire article talking about how this came to be, but I want to get right to the point:
It’s not healthy.
Steve was nervous. New to the executive ranks, he was preparing for his first major presentation to 250 senior leaders of a $30 billion corporation. Let me tell you what was making him uneasy. This is what he told me:
“I’m putting the finishing touches on my slides and I’m nervous. I wish I didn’t have to use them, but I have slides that MUST be shown. I want to be able to engage the audience, and engage them like NO OTHER PERSON EVER HAS, but I’m worried I’m not going to come through because of all the slides I have to show them.”
I understand the problem.
The most important factor in a truly successful presentation is the deep, powerful, human connection a great presenter makes with every person in the room. Slides can easily BREAK your connection with the audience.
Without that connection, your words are weak. They hit the surface of the audience’s mind and bounce off. There’s no impact.
I was coaching Jon, a senior executive located in bustling New York City’s mid-Manhattan.
Jon wants to develop Executive Presence.
We began with presence.
Executive presence is a particular type of presence. It’s an advanced type of presence.
You need to possess tremendous presence before you can develop Executive presence.
A key factor in presence is the ability to stay in the moment.
I taught Jon the robust theory behind presence, and now he was practicing the first exercise he had to master. Jon had his eyes closed so he wouldn’t be visually distracted. He was simply sitting there, being in the moment, learning how to control his attention and awareness and simply stay in the moment.
It was difficult for Jon in the beginning. As he sat there with his eyes closed, he was struggling with a traffic jam of thoughts in his head. Worries about an upcoming meeting, snatches of yesterday’s conversations, sudden rememberings of something he’d promised. A mad rush of thoughts whirled around, colliding in his mind, distracting him from the present moment. Creating chronic anxiety.
Don (VP of a major corporation here for coaching): “I want to extend my executive presence throughout the organization, beyond my immediate area.”
Me: “What does that mean?”
Don: “I want them to know I can add value to their activities.”
Me: “Is there a problem with that?”
Don: “Yes, they’re not seeing it. They think that I can only add value in my own area. Not outside of it, not for them cross-functionally in the organization. It’s frustrating.”
Me: “Have you ever told them that you can add value?”
Don: “No.”
Me: “Why not?”
Don: “They need to see it for themselves.”
I call this “Executive Charades”.
“What are you doing?”
I was asking Alessandro this at the beginning of the Mastering Virtual Presentations workshop. Alessandro was giving his first presentation and I was trying to make sense of his sudden stone-faced glare and forceful hand gestures.
“I was told I need executive presence so I’m trying to come across with gravitas.”
The problem was that he was trying to do it with his body.
“Dominique is smart, people like her, she gets things done. But we can’t promote her to VP yet. She has no executive presence.”
Imagine Dominique‘s reaction when she heard those words spoken by her senior management.
“But, but, but … I’m qualified! I don’t get it!”
That one missing ingredient was stopping it all.
What is executive presence? It’s an aura.
Alisa had an important presentation before our second Mastering Virtual Presentation Skills coaching session. She decided to try what she learned instead of her normal routine which is to look at her notes or her slides.
Afterward, Alisa made a brilliant observation, “The results exceeded expectations. Looking into the camera made me tune into their voices, how their voices sounded.”
I asked her, “What did the voices tell you?”
Alisa said, “I could tell they were warm, receptive, interested and engaged. I didn’t need to see their faces.”
Alisa is right. Human voices, when you really tune in, tell you everything.
Teams from three companies, different time zones, were coming together to discuss supplier issues. All three anticipating an unpleasant, contentious, argumentative, blaming, confrontational series of disagreements, punctuated by complete resistance on three sides.
Valerie, the vice president I’m coaching, was one of 12 people attending.
Valerie arrived to the meeting early. And did something no one had ever done before in their previous meetings: She turned on her camera.
As each person joined one by one, Valerie greeted them warmly and used the new skills we practiced in her coaching.
One by one, they all turn their cameras on and the next thing you know they were all talking warmly with each other. Like friends, actually.
And the meeting transformed into a collaboration.
Linda was given work that was beneath her capability. When she spoke up, she was dismissed. They gave a project that belonged to her to someone less qualified. No one would talk with her and her boss kept canceling their one-on-one meetings.
Everything about her was dark. She came across like doom and gloom combined with fear, resentment and blame.
Linda decided to find out what she was doing wrong that was causing her to fail, and to discover what she could do about it.
She transformed during the coaching. Every video showed dramatic progress. New strategies. New abilities. Real personal growth. She learned how to handle not just that situation, but any conversation, any communication challenge.
After using what she learned in our one-on-one coaching program, she became radiant and compelling. The people she works with changed from cold and hostile to warm and greatly appreciative.
They pushed her into a leadership position because they wanted her there. This never happens, ever.
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