Did you believe the messenger? My analysis of the Optus CEO’s response to the outage

Against the benchmark of a credible, believable, self-assured CEO of a major enterprise in a media regarding a significant crisis – conveyed through their affect, body language, speech and words – I scored Kelly Bayer-Rosmarin’s performance in her 8 September, six minute Australian Broadcast Corporation TV interview with presenter Joe O’Brien as: 6.5/10.

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The secret to projecting power and influence

Here is an important quotation from comedian, actor, writer, producer, and musician, Steve Martin:
“People who are charismatic have a combination of dominance* and warmth**. (Often thought as contradictory things). The dominant part grabs attention; the warmth prevents the dominance from being arrogant. Rather than rule by coercion –

they rule by charm.

When these hard and soft messenger effects are aligned, they are a powerful weapon.”
Now you might be thinking that Martin’s message is well and good, but how do you combine dominance and warmth in how you present yourself and communicate your ideas.
This 16 minute video clip Lean in: Power & Influence by Stanford University professor and social psychologist, Deborah Gruenfeld is Mandatory Viewing, if you want to upgrade your skill in combining dominance* and **warmth.
Here are my key take ways from the clip:
  • You need show up both authoritative and approachable.
  • People are going to decide if you’re competent or not in less that 100 milliseconds, and then it’s over.
  • Showing up authoritatively is play high.” (*Playing high aligns to dominance). Playing high will look like a very open, expansive, relaxed body . . . you assume others will move out of your path… and

you allow your body and gestures to flow into the space of other people.

  • When playing high you hold your head still and speak in complete sentences. You hold eye contact when addressing them.
  • People will defer to you just by how you use your body.
  • Playing high can be really dangerous. It can be dangerous when you play higher that your actual rank.

Playing low is the basis of building rapport.

  • Women are held to dual expectations. That is, to play low and to be authoritative.
  • You can use your own body language to intervene in your own state of mind.

Own the Conversation

Implementation idea
  • Consider and trial how you might combine dominance and warmth/play high and play low, in safe situations.
  • As Gruenfeld suggests… think about how you are standing when you walk into a room; think about how you sit down; think about what you’re doing with your head and your eyes when you speak and listen… and see what happens.
++++
p.s. Nathan Haynes is a top,  Sydney based, professional golf coach. Recently I had a swing problem that was causing me stress. I booked a session with Nathan and he readily diagnosed the problem and gave me an easy to understand fix – and also gave me a great set-up technique. He also allowed me to video record him demonstrating the error I was making, followed by demonstrating the correct technique.
If you’re experiencing problems with your golf game, or just want a tune up, I highly recommend you phone Nathan on 0414 887 300
And let him know I was the introduction source.
(To be clear, I get no referral fee from recommending Nathan).

Structuring an IT pitch presentation using AI

I asked ChatGPT to generate questions to consider, prior to delivering an internal, corporate I.T. business pitch. Below is what it came back with. It’s pretty good.

Certainly, when pitching an internal business initiative, especially in the context of a mid-level IT professional seeking approval for a significant software project, you should emphasize the practical and strategic aspects of your proposal.

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Do you cram in too much information when you present?

Recently one of my one on one executive manager clients mentioned that he regularly sees his colleagues – when presenting to senior audiences – ‘cram too much information’ into their allotted speaking time.

Here are the results of cramming in too much information:

  • You rush through the presentation.
  • Due to rushing, your key messages are not clearly heard and understood.
  • The rushed speaking signals junior behaviour.
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Analysis of Qantas CEO update

Against the benchmark of a credible, believable, self-assured CEO of a major enterprise delivering a presentation to the public regarding a significant loss of trust in the leadership of the enterprise – conveyed through their affect, body language, speech and language – I scored Qantas Group CEO, Vanessa Hudson in her 1:34 minute, 21 September update speech, as 8/10.

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How to avoid ‘verbal diarrhoea’

When you’re having an interaction, or are a participant in a meeting, or are pitching to the leadership team et al – do you suffer from verbal diarrhoea?…

Do you talk because you are uncomfortable with silence?…or talk because you’ve don’t know how to stop talking . . . or talk because you’re in love with the sound of your voice?

I believe I first heard the following technique a number of years ago from a Salesforce client of mine, who was a participant in a workshop I was conducting.

The technique is WAIT? that stands for: ‘Why Am I Talking?

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Even surgeons require coaching

A few weeks back I gave and received 1-1 master class coaching. Today, I am using that coaching I received to quicken the results my clients achieve in how they present themselves and communicate their ideas. In this terrific 16 minute TED talk – that I have my clients watch before I work one on one with them – luminary doctor, writer and researcher Atul Gawande shares how a coaching helped him become a better surgeon, and also how coaching improved health care in Utter Pradesh, the largest state in India. Here is a vignette about the value Gawande received by having another doctor watch him in surgery, and give him feedback, afterward. It was a whole other level of awareness. And I had to think, you know, there was something fundamentally profound about this. He was describing what great coaches do, and what they do is

they (coaches) are your external eyes and ears, providing a more accurate picture of your reality.

They’re recognizing the fundamentals. They’re breaking your actions down and then helping you build them back up again. After two months of coaching, I felt myself getting better again. And after a year, I saw my complications drop down even further.  It was painful. I didn’t like being observed, and at times I didn’t want to have to work on things. I also felt there were periods where I would get worse before I got better. But it made me realize that the coaches were onto something profoundly important. …important to instill positive habits of thinking, and to break our actions down and then help us build them back up again. “It’s not how good you are now; it’s how good you’re going to be that really matters,”  Here is the LINK for the CLIP

Own the Conversation

Implementation idea:
  • In the next seven days just identify a person you believe whom could help you improve in your field of endeavour.
  • In the next 30 days make a commitment to contact the person to arrange a discussion about 1:1 coaching/observation.

Does status make you stupid?

Michael Vassar once suggested:  “Status makes people effectively stupid, as it makes it harder for them to update their public positions without feeling that they are losing face.”

This is the opening sentence of an excellent article( a three minute read) titled High status and stupidity: Why?

In the article Eliezer Yudkowsky makes 10 hypotheses for why high status people are stupid, and several points on how to avoid the status-makes-you-stupid effect:

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Why you should seek an honest critic

“I think this is very important, number nine, is to be honest. This is a tactical approach these days. People always say, ‘I love that thing you’ve got where you just say whatever’s on your mind. You just come right out with it. It’s like, you know, the truth.’ It’s like, well, that’s not really a tactic. That’s a way of living. That’s a way of being.” This is just one of the pithy quotes from David Carr’s commencement address to the UC Berkeley School of Journalism in 2014. Carr’s comment reminded me of a quote from the founder of Common Cause, John Gardner:

“Pity the leader caught between unloving critics and uncritical lovers.”

In effect, what we should seek out in our lives are ‘loving critics’. The people who care about our welfare and support us, as well as giving us unvarnished feedback. People pay me to be their loving critic – to give them honest feedback that is couched with sensitivity – about how they present themselves and communicate their ideas; about their self-possession, about their body language, their voice, the structure of their messages, their cadence and how they listen and speak under pressure. Other quotations from Carr’s speech that resonated with me were: “The most interesting thing in the world is something I don’t know.” “If you’re scared and courageous at the same time you’ll probably do great things.” “Don’t be a bystander in your own life.”

Own the Conversation

Implementation idea Over the next seven day seek out a loving critic, or be open to being a loving critic for someone.