Speaker 1: You're stuck. It's a stalemate.
Speaker 2: You need to get this decision over the line, and
Speaker 2: you don't have any more time to waste. You just
Speaker 2: need this one particular person to.
Speaker 1: Agree and commit, but they won't. What can you do?
Speaker 2: How can you influence the situation? If only there was
Speaker 2: a magic question that would turn this all around?
Speaker 1: Well, have I got the guest for you?
Speaker 2: The Queen of Influence, Zoe Chance, is an assistant professor
Speaker 2: of Marketing at Yale and has so many tricks and
Speaker 2: tips for being influential that she has distilled into a
Speaker 2: book called Influence Is Your Superpower. Her class, Mastering Influence
Speaker 2: and Persuasion is the most popular course at the Yale
Speaker 2: School of Management. So what is this magic question and
Speaker 2: how can it become your superpower for being a better influencer?
Speaker 2: How can you make people agree when they really.
Speaker 1: Don't want to come to a decision?
Speaker 2: And why is it important to be one of the
Speaker 2: first three people to speak in a meeting. My name
Speaker 2: is doctor Amantha Imber. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 2: founder of Behavioral Science Consultancy Inventium, And this is how
Speaker 2: I work A show about how to help you do
Speaker 2: your best work. Now. Zoe's area of expertise is all
Speaker 2: around influence, but as a professor of marketing at Yale,
Speaker 2: she also thinks a.
Speaker 1: Lot about productivity.
Speaker 3: Well, my dad grilled into me that productivity is the
Speaker 3: most important thing, and his perspective was just that you're
Speaker 3: working non stop all the time, every day, And so
Speaker 3: for many decades of my life it was just am
Speaker 3: I working? Then I coded myself as being productive, but
Speaker 3: that was completely wrong because there were a lot of
Speaker 3: days that I worked for many, many hours and had
Speaker 3: very little to show for it.
Speaker 4: Like if I'm on a writing project.
Speaker 3: I might write one paragraph and then edit the heck
Speaker 3: out of it for an entire day or something. So
Speaker 3: now I try to, when I'm organized, just set a
Speaker 3: couple of reasonable goals for myself at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the day, and if I accomplish those goals, then I
Speaker 3: feel productive.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, And how do you see the relationship between like
Speaker 2: enjoyment or pleasure and productivity.
Speaker 4: In a neurotic way?
Speaker 3: When I'm productive, then I give myself a gold star
Speaker 3: and I'm all happy. And when I'm not, I'm very stressed.
Speaker 3: But the reality, the deeper reality, is that when I'm
Speaker 3: overly focused on productivity that itself is what contributes to stress.
Speaker 4: And my coach.
Speaker 3: So I've been working with a coach for at least
Speaker 3: a decade, and she helped me this year come up
Speaker 3: with the theme for twenty twenty two of improvise when
Speaker 3: I asked her to help me again for the millionth
Speaker 3: time with time management. So I'm excited for that to
Speaker 3: now take a new lens from the two that I
Speaker 3: just shared with you and see what productivity looks like
Speaker 3: in a year of improvisation.
Speaker 2: Ooh, improvise.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to think about a theme for my year,
Speaker 2: but I'm never very successful in doing it, So I'd
Speaker 2: love to know what you and your coach's approach was
Speaker 2: to getting to that word improvise.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a little bit woo woo, something that we
Speaker 3: end up doing a lot of, because, like I said,
Speaker 3: we've been working together so long and she's great and
Speaker 3: she tries all different things, but very often for us,
Speaker 3: she'll lead me on a guided visualization meditation where I
Speaker 3: will end up meeting face to face in my mind
Speaker 3: with future Zoe, who gives me advice and I get
Speaker 3: to ask her whatever questions I want, and she gives
Speaker 3: me strategic advice or life advice or helps me feel better.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of funny because obviously it's just me
Speaker 3: giving myself advice. But the container that my coach creates
Speaker 3: and the frame of mind that she's able to lead
Speaker 3: me into gives a lot of clarity.
Speaker 2: Ooh, I like that a lot. And so what advice
Speaker 2: did Feature Zoe give to you to help guide you
Speaker 2: through twenty twenty two?
Speaker 3: Well, the advice is that I'm always setting these goals
Speaker 3: for myself and then beating myself up if I don't
Speaker 3: accomplish them. But stepping back and looking at the reality
Speaker 3: of how things are going in my life and how
Speaker 3: they've been going for a long time, is that overall,
Speaker 3: I'm very successful and I accomplish these big things that
Speaker 3: I'm excited about in the long run, and it's just
Speaker 3: the day to day that does always go as planned.
Speaker 3: So the advice was just embrace that, and especially with
Speaker 3: us being in the third year now of the pandemic,
Speaker 3: just accept the reality that things are not going to
Speaker 3: go how I or anyone else is going to plan
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 2: And so how is the word improvise or the theme
Speaker 2: of improvise impacting your day to day is so far, like,
Speaker 2: can you give me an example.
Speaker 4: Well, this is a very literal one. But I've signed
Speaker 4: up for improvisation classes, which I'm really really excited about.
Speaker 3: And it was something I've done only once over a
Speaker 3: decade ago, for a couple of months, and I was
Speaker 3: so humorous and happy and just feeling full of life,
Speaker 3: just alive. I loved that time of my life. And
Speaker 3: then I ended up moving to a different part of
Speaker 3: the country, and you know, life happened. And I've realized
Speaker 3: that if I can get back to that improvisational state
Speaker 3: of yes and accepting the world reality, my own productivity
Speaker 3: being one tiny piece of it, but the universe and
Speaker 3: my life and my work and everything as it actually is,
Speaker 3: and then adding on to that, I'll be able to
Speaker 3: be much more joyful. So I've just signed up for
Speaker 3: improvisation classes and the first ones on Thursday.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so exciting.
Speaker 2: I used to I did a few years of improv
Speaker 2: when I was younger, and it was so much fun.
Speaker 1: It's so funny.
Speaker 2: I can so relate to what you're saying. A few
Speaker 2: weeks ago, my best friend said to me aman that
Speaker 2: you need to incorporate more spontaneity into your life. And
Speaker 2: I got really defensive when she said it. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I am spontaneous. I do that already. And then I
Speaker 2: was sort of reflecting on, Gosh, why did I have
Speaker 2: such a defensive response, And I'm like, hmm, maybe I'm
Speaker 2: not actually all that spontaneous. So I'm feeling quite inspired
Speaker 2: with your improvisation theme that you've got going. I think
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to do some further reflection on
Speaker 2: that myself. Now, you made a really interesting choice of
Speaker 2: walking away from going down the tenure track at university.
Speaker 2: Can you can you tell me about like what the
Speaker 2: tenure track is for those that don't know, and why
Speaker 2: you walked away from it and why that's such a
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 3: Sure, it's basically the worst thing that you can do
Speaker 3: if you're an academic, And it depends what country you're
Speaker 3: living in what the tenure track is like. But in
Speaker 3: the United States and at my university I'm at Yale University,
Speaker 3: the tenure track is it just happens to be ten
Speaker 3: years long, and you have a couple of promotion stages
Speaker 3: leading up to at the end of a decade, either
Speaker 3: you get tenure and that you and it means that
Speaker 3: you're senior colleagues vote on do we keep her around
Speaker 3: for the rest of her life or do we fire her?
Speaker 3: And sixty percent of the time that you've made it
Speaker 3: all the way to that stage, which means major hurdles
Speaker 3: to get there, sixty percent of the time you get fired.
Speaker 3: So only and it's so hard to get down that
Speaker 3: path that actually, for I think this is just average
Speaker 3: across fields in the US, but I have heard from
Speaker 3: smart people that only six percent of new professors end
Speaker 3: up making it to the end of that path at
Speaker 3: the university where they start. So there's a whole lot
Speaker 3: of moving around. Sometimes people get recruited elsewhere happily. Sometimes
Speaker 3: they don't get promotion in one place and they move
Speaker 3: to another place. And then sometimes like me, they like
Speaker 3: I got the first stage promotion and then before the
Speaker 3: second stage, I just said, you know, actually this is
Speaker 3: not my jam. I'm really not happy and I want
Speaker 3: to do something else. Usually if you stepped off the
Speaker 3: tenure track, not just if you didn't get tenure, but
Speaker 3: usually if you stepped off the tenure track, you'd be fired.
Speaker 3: It's just wow, pretty much up or out the whole way.
Speaker 3: But I got really lucky at my university. There are
Speaker 3: a lot of resources and that's really important, and I'm
Speaker 3: a star teacher and that's what I love. My class
Speaker 3: is the most popular class at the business school. Students
Speaker 3: love it. And it probably helps that I do a
Speaker 3: lot for different parts of the university because I really
Speaker 3: really love it here, despite the part that I wasn't loving.
Speaker 3: So I'll help recruit with the admissions department, I help
Speaker 3: train fundraisers for the fundraising department, lots of other stuff.
Speaker 3: And the thing that I wasn't loving is what would
Speaker 3: get me tenure, which is the process of publishing academic research.
Speaker 3: So the research investigation part is interesting. It's cool, it's
Speaker 3: you know, for people like you and me and a
Speaker 3: lot of your listeners who are nerdy. It's totally interesting
Speaker 3: to have a hypothesis and then you test it and
Speaker 3: you create new knowledge. However, the actual real life experience
Speaker 3: of academic publishing is that projects take years and years
Speaker 3: and they are read by very few people.
Speaker 4: Most of them.
Speaker 3: When I say very few people the modal number of citations.
Speaker 3: That means, you know, the most common number of people
Speaker 3: who are writing a paper that cites your paper is zero,
Speaker 3: so mostly not even your mom reads it. Lots of
Speaker 3: papers are published and probably nobody ever actually reads it.
Speaker 3: Sometimes a few people read it, sometimes a few hundred
Speaker 3: people read it. And then on that path, there's so
Speaker 3: much meanness and negativity, Amantha, It's just a barrage, and
Speaker 3: any academic will tell you, but especially in fields that
Speaker 3: get closer to hard sciences and economics, and I'm in
Speaker 3: marketing and it straddles economics and psychology. But people, even
Speaker 3: if they're nice, people in real life are very, very
Speaker 3: critical and negative. And we give each other anonymous negative
Speaker 3: feedback and reviews and face to face negative feedback when
Speaker 3: we present research. And it was just hurting my heart.
Speaker 2: And so you made that decision. What was your process
Speaker 2: for making that decision to step away from the popular path.
Speaker 3: It was a few years of denial and then and
Speaker 3: getting depressed. And when I say denial, like I study
Speaker 3: self deception, and it's not coincidental that I was really
Speaker 3: deceiving myself that some how I was going to make
Speaker 3: it through and figure it out and get back on
Speaker 3: track and be happy and flourishing and productive, and all
Speaker 3: of this and then when it was twoenty sixteen, I
Speaker 3: guess when Donald Trump had just been elected, and I
Speaker 3: was personally devastated, and I was at such a low point,
Speaker 3: such a terrible state of mind, that it just ripped
Speaker 3: off the blinders and I just said, I can't do
Speaker 3: this anymore. And I was meeting with a mentor of mine,
Speaker 3: and I just shocked myself by just blurting out, I
Speaker 3: just don't like research and I love teaching, and I
Speaker 3: don't know what to do. And afterward, I was going,
Speaker 3: oh my god, that was so dumb. You shouldn't have
Speaker 3: told Gaul's Alberman that you do live research. But he
Speaker 3: was great and he helped me, along with many other
Speaker 3: colleagues to make a transition that's worked out really well.
Speaker 3: But Amantha, my office used to have this beautiful, large
Speaker 3: office with this view, like giant window view across the
Speaker 3: whole city. And now I have this office that's basically
Speaker 3: the size of a king sized bed, and it not
Speaker 3: only does it not have a window, it has two
Speaker 3: walls that are glass on a hallway, so people can
Speaker 3: walk by and see exactly what I'm doing on my
Speaker 3: computer even right now. And the thing is, it actually
Speaker 3: is fun for me. And I've made this little tiny
Speaker 3: office absolutely beautiful and people walk by and they wave
Speaker 3: and they say hi, and they stop and talk with me,
Speaker 3: and it helps me be productive that they can see
Speaker 3: what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's very cool.
Speaker 2: Now you have a book out called Influence Is Your Superpower,
Speaker 2: which is brilliant. And by the way, we'll be out
Speaker 2: by the time this interview goes to air. I'd love
Speaker 2: to know if you can tell me about the magic
Speaker 2: questions and why they are your go to strategy for
Speaker 2: being influent?
Speaker 3: Can I, metha, Can I just share a story that
Speaker 3: will take a couple of minutes. Of course, yes, the
Speaker 3: magic question sinks in a little better with a story,
Speaker 3: and from an influenced perspective, we can remember things better
Speaker 3: when we have something concrete to visualize. So this will
Speaker 3: help listeners remember the magic question. And this is a
Speaker 3: story that an American feminist named Gloria Steinem told when
Speaker 3: she came to my hometown of New Haven, Connecticut a
Speaker 3: little while ago. She was and she told it for
Speaker 3: a different reason, but it illustrates very well. She was
Speaker 3: working on the problem of sex trafficking. She was speaking,
Speaker 3: she was writing she was traveling the world and she
Speaker 3: had gone to a sex trafficking conference in Zambia. After
Speaker 3: the conference, she goes to visit some women in a
Speaker 3: village that's in the middle of nowhere, near a big
Speaker 3: game preserve. And three of the young women from that
Speaker 3: village had been lost to sex trafficking the previous year.
Speaker 3: And Gloria Steine is sitting down with this group of
Speaker 3: women on a tarp in the middle of a barren field,
Speaker 3: and she asks them the magic question. She says, what
Speaker 3: would it take or what would it have taken for
Speaker 3: those three young women not to have left the village
Speaker 3: in that way? And they told her an electric fence.
Speaker 3: An electric fence. They said, when the corn reaches a
Speaker 3: certain height, the elephants come and they eat it and
Speaker 3: they trample it. And we have nothing to eat, we
Speaker 3: have nothing to sell at the market. We don't have
Speaker 3: any money to send our kids to school. So these
Speaker 3: young women and their families were desperate. Glorias Dynam says, listen,
Speaker 3: if I send you the money, will you clear the
Speaker 3: field and build the fence. These women say yes, So
Speaker 3: Glorious Dynam goes back home. She raises a few thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: She sends the money to these women in the village,
Speaker 3: and the way she tells it, she comes back a
Speaker 3: few years later and they have a bumper crop of corn,
Speaker 3: and since they put up the fence, no young women
Speaker 3: have been lost to sex trafficking from that village. It
Speaker 3: also happens that the women in that village had ended
Speaker 3: up collaborating with the women in the village next door,
Speaker 3: and they have now created and as far as I know,
Speaker 3: it's still going on. There's a chicken collective and a
Speaker 3: tailoring operation and their group is called Waka Simba. It
Speaker 3: means strong women.
Speaker 4: So the magic.
Speaker 3: Question is just what would it take? And it's magic
Speaker 3: for multiple reasons. First of all, it's respectful and so
Speaker 3: that means it's comfortable on the other side and comfortable.
Speaker 4: For you too.
Speaker 3: You are acknowledging that you're not the expert here. They're
Speaker 3: the expert on their situation and their obstacles. It second
Speaker 3: is magic because it often gives you a roadmap to
Speaker 3: success that's actually so much easier than you would have expected,
Speaker 3: or maybe than you have even been willing to do.
Speaker 3: And third, it's magic because if that person or those
Speaker 3: people in this case have told you what it will take,
Speaker 3: then they have implicitly committed to supporting that outcome. And
Speaker 3: the way that I interpret this story, it's not that
Speaker 3: the electric fence magically prevented sex trafficking, but the women
Speaker 3: who had said this is what it would take, would
Speaker 3: make sure that none of their friends, neighbors daughters, neighbor's
Speaker 3: daughters are going to be sex trafficked. Now they have
Speaker 3: the fence. So the magic question you can work with
Speaker 3: almost any situation and any person, even if you've used
Speaker 3: it before, even if you've taught them the magic question
Speaker 3: and they laugh at you and of like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'll use it with my daughter.
Speaker 4: She'll use it with me and I'll be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, ripley, the magic question again, and she's like, I know.
Speaker 4: But then they give you an answer. That's great.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Now I'm thinking about meetings and I'm also thinking about presentations,
Speaker 2: which are two situations that certainly I'm in a lot,
Speaker 2: and then I think a lot of listeners would be
Speaker 2: in a lot. So I'd love to start with presentations,
Speaker 2: and I'd love to know what are some of the
Speaker 2: things that you're deliberately doing to be more influential around
Speaker 2: the ideas that you're communicating when you're presenting to other people.
Speaker 3: You know, I'll start with something that is so simple,
Speaker 3: but hardly anyone else does it, And it's particularly effective
Speaker 3: and impactful in global business sorts of situations when we're
Speaker 3: in meetings together, or for people who are doing business
Speaker 3: or do leading workshops and things like that across borders
Speaker 3: and or going around the world like I do. And
Speaker 3: that is just playing music that is from the places
Speaker 3: that the other people in the room are from. So
Speaker 3: at Yale, we have people coming from all over the world.
Speaker 3: About forty percent of our student body as international, and
Speaker 3: we'll have groups of people coming in from many different countries.
Speaker 3: So if it's a global audience, I'll put together a
Speaker 3: global playlist, and people who are hearing music from their
Speaker 3: country instead of the one that they're in get so
Speaker 3: excited and they feel so welcomed, and it helps everybody
Speaker 3: just feel relaxed before we even get started. And this
Speaker 3: is an example of one of the million things I
Speaker 3: do to create an inclusive environment when I'm teaching or
Speaker 3: presenting or leading a meeting.
Speaker 1: I love that that is so cool.
Speaker 2: I could imagine, you know, if I was visiting another country,
Speaker 2: if someone was playing an Australian band, that would be
Speaker 2: a really cool experience.
Speaker 1: But yes, go on, what is a otther strategies?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so another strategy that's super you can tell I
Speaker 3: like to focus on low hanging fruit and little tiny
Speaker 3: things that you can do that can end up making
Speaker 3: a big difference. Another example is something that I learned
Speaker 3: from a former manager who I didn't get along with
Speaker 3: well at all, but he gave me a great piece
Speaker 3: of advice. And this advice was about timing, and it's
Speaker 3: that if you can be one of the first three
Speaker 3: people in a meeting to speak, then the other people
Speaker 3: in the meeting will notice that you're there and they
Speaker 3: will treat you differently through the rest of the meeting.
Speaker 3: And this is especially helpful for junior managers or junior employees.
Speaker 3: What happens if you haven't spoken up early in a
Speaker 3: meeting is that when other people are speaking, they're not
Speaker 3: looking at you, and it gets harder and harder for
Speaker 3: you to jump in and speak up. And it's not
Speaker 3: just harder because they're not paying attention to you, but
Speaker 3: you don't even feel present yourself. But when you've spoken up,
Speaker 3: as one of the first few people to speak up
Speaker 3: in the meeting. Then when other people are speaking, they're
Speaker 3: actually looking at you, and it's easier for you to
Speaker 3: speak up again.
Speaker 4: Leader.
Speaker 2: He will be back with Zoe shortly talking about how
Speaker 2: to persuade.
Speaker 1: People to agree with you.
Speaker 2: And if you're looking for more tips to improve the
Speaker 2: way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter
Speaker 2: that contains three cool things that have helped me improve
Speaker 2: the way I work. You can sign up for that
Speaker 2: at Howiwork dot co. That's how I Work dot co. Now,
Speaker 2: something that happens in meetings is that we're often trying
Speaker 2: to get people to reach a decision. So do you
Speaker 2: have strategies around how we can persuade someone to agree
Speaker 2: with something when we're trying to get to that decision point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and again a piece of low hanging fruit here.
Speaker 3: The highest hanging fruit, by the way, is crafting a
Speaker 3: perfect persuasive argument. And the reason why I say it's
Speaker 3: the highest hanging is not that it's the most difficult
Speaker 3: to do, but it's the most difficult to succeed in
Speaker 3: because persuasive arguments rarely change people's minds. But low hanging
Speaker 3: fruit here is that actually influencing people to make a
Speaker 3: decision shouldn't happen very often in a meeting itself, especially
Speaker 3: when there's some resistance. So if there's anything big that
Speaker 3: you're trying to persuade people of in a group, or
Speaker 3: anything you're trying to persuade people of that you know
Speaker 3: that you're going to get some backlash or resistance to.
Speaker 3: It always starts with one on one conversations before the meeting.
Speaker 3: It doesn't have to be with everybody. You have conversations
Speaker 3: with anybody who's going to be a loud detractor to
Speaker 3: your idea, and anybody who holds a position of power
Speaker 3: is at someone considered an expert that other people will
Speaker 3: be looking to for their response.
Speaker 1: And this is.
Speaker 3: This is going to sound a little bit tricky, and
Speaker 3: listeners can just.
Speaker 4: I'll just let it sit there. They can think what
Speaker 4: they may.
Speaker 3: But one of the reasons that this works, besides the
Speaker 3: most important one that you let people speak their mind
Speaker 3: and you got their advice and maybe made their idea
Speaker 3: better before the meeting. One of the reasons that's not
Speaker 3: obvious is that when somebody has heard an argument or
Speaker 3: viewpoint before, they tend to nod their head just to
Speaker 3: acknowledge yes, I remember hearing that, and then other people
Speaker 3: in the room see heads nodding, and it feels like
Speaker 3: even more agreement than.
Speaker 4: There is for your great idea.
Speaker 1: I can just speak to that.
Speaker 2: And what about when, like, do you have instances what
Speaker 2: you're trying to get a meating with someone you know
Speaker 2: with the work that you do now and they're like, sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm too busy, I don't have time. How do you
Speaker 2: work around that?
Speaker 4: First of all, yes, all the time, and we all do.
Speaker 3: And I really really encourage listeners to be the person
Speaker 3: saying sorry, I don't have time, probably even more than
Speaker 3: they are. And the real problem is too many of
Speaker 3: us not drying boundaries and just looking on our calendar
Speaker 3: to see if we happen to have an opening somewhere.
Speaker 3: So it starts with just being okay with other people
Speaker 3: having boundaries with you and saying no to you, and
Speaker 3: then acknowledging you, I know you're probably really busy, and
Speaker 3: if there's any chance that we could meet about so
Speaker 3: you when you're acknowledging that they're a busy person, they
Speaker 3: may not have time for this thing. You're letting them
Speaker 3: know that you don't feel entitled, and that's actually helpful
Speaker 3: for them to want to help you. And so ironically,
Speaker 3: making it easier to say no makes other people more
Speaker 3: inclined to say yes. And then another small thing is
Speaker 3: I would just in general say that it should be
Speaker 3: very rare that you should ask for more than fifteen
Speaker 3: minutes of somebody's time. When the lockdown happened and we're
Speaker 3: all doing virtual everything, I ended up reaching out to
Speaker 3: some very famous people to see if they could be
Speaker 3: virtual guest speakers for the class that I teach, and
Speaker 3: we ended up having some people that really surprised me
Speaker 3: that they would show up for fifteen minutes. But it's
Speaker 3: such a small amount of time and doing something from
Speaker 3: their house that somebody else or a group of people
Speaker 3: is really going to appreciate. Is it's hard to say
Speaker 3: no to when you have a lot of appreciation ready
Speaker 3: to happen on the other end, and you've made it
Speaker 3: easy for the other person if it's virtual, if it's
Speaker 3: just a short amount of time. That the most famous
Speaker 3: person who said yes to us was Darren Brown, who's
Speaker 3: an a list mentalist and.
Speaker 4: The UK you know him very well.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was amazing, so memorable for the students, maybe the
Speaker 3: most memorable part of our class.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, yes, he'll probably be my favorite magician in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 4: Oh amazing. Yes, I'm too too.
Speaker 2: Now, you teach charisma as part of your course, and
Speaker 2: I'd love to know, like, what do you deliberately do
Speaker 2: or what have you learned to do to be more charismatic.
Speaker 3: The idea of teaching charisma was so crazy and terrifying
Speaker 3: to me when I first came up, because I just
Speaker 3: felt like I would be a fraud and an ass
Speaker 3: even though I had done a ton of acting training
Speaker 3: and also directing. I had done theater, and I had
Speaker 3: done some small movies, and I had been a high
Speaker 3: school theater teacher even and directed stuff like directed a
Speaker 3: film that won a little film festival. But who am
Speaker 3: I to teach charisma? And you could imagine, whoever you are,
Speaker 3: if you're a relatively humble person, it would just be
Speaker 3: ridiculous to teach charisma. But I decided to do it
Speaker 3: because when I would ask people what's the influenced skill
Speaker 3: you would most like to master, just an open ended question,
Speaker 3: charisma was by far the most common response. So I
Speaker 3: started reading all the academic literature on charisma, because that's
Speaker 3: the kind of nerdy thing do.
Speaker 5: And the academic definitions of charisma were things like a
Speaker 5: seven factor model by the world Expert and charismas John Antonochus.
Speaker 3: And so it's really he's great, but as far as
Speaker 3: being charismatic, it's not possible to try to do seven
Speaker 3: different things at once. And so I started then just
Speaker 3: workshopping charisma to figure out, Okay.
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 3: What is the thing that people do that might be
Speaker 3: actually replicable for normal people like us?
Speaker 4: And I would ask people, actually, do you want to
Speaker 4: try this?
Speaker 1: Let's do it? Yes, okay, great.
Speaker 3: So I would ask people in a room to think
Speaker 3: of a charismatic individual, just the first person who pops
Speaker 3: into your head, famous or not. And in the workshop,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if you say the name, but I'm
Speaker 3: just curious who's a charismatic person that comes up for you.
Speaker 2: So I've got a friend called Sean who I actually
Speaker 2: met in improv classes a couple of decades ago, and
Speaker 2: he's very charismatic.
Speaker 3: Oh cool, and he would love to hear that he's
Speaker 3: the first man who find it. So could you just
Speaker 3: think about and just quickly that was only a great
Speaker 3: amount of sight. What are three characteristics about Sean that
Speaker 3: make him charismatic?
Speaker 2: He's incredibly present, He's very funny, and he uh really listens.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I was commenting to another friend
Speaker 2: of mine because my daughter Frankie just adores Sean like
Speaker 2: more than any of my other friends. But she's probably
Speaker 2: spent more time with a lot of my other friends.
Speaker 2: And I was commenting on this to another friend, and
Speaker 2: this friend of mine said, it's because Sean is just
Speaker 2: so present with her. All his attention is focused on
Speaker 2: her when she's around. So, yeah, there's some things.
Speaker 3: So awesome and I would love to meet your friend Sean.
Speaker 3: So what ends up happening? And again this time what
Speaker 3: ends up happening? About eighty five percent of all of
Speaker 3: the answers and all the things people write down fall
Speaker 3: into only two buckets, and those two buckets are connection
Speaker 3: and confidence. And it turns out that when you mix
Speaker 3: this cocktail, that's pretty much all you need and the
Speaker 3: only thing that explains who are the charismatic most charismatic
Speaker 3: people among us and who are not. And it sounds
Speaker 3: like Sean has so being present and listening one hundred
Speaker 3: percent about connection, right, and then being funny actually takes
Speaker 3: a mix of both. It requires confidence to let your
Speaker 3: guard down enough to be funny and to say things
Speaker 3: that are unexpected and maybe weird. But you're not actually
Speaker 3: funny unless you're connecting with people. So for those of
Speaker 3: us who are not that funny, and that definitely includes me,
Speaker 3: although I'm working on it by taking these improv classes.
Speaker 4: That all you really need to do.
Speaker 3: To nail connection and confidence at the same time is
Speaker 3: to practice focusing on the other person. And this is
Speaker 3: coming back to just what you said about listening and presence.
Speaker 3: And it's weird that it think about how weird it
Speaker 3: is that you said Sean is charismatic because he's a
Speaker 3: great listener, because we most of us think of charisma
Speaker 3: as somebody who's a shining star. But actually you don't
Speaker 3: have to say almost anything to be charismatic, and you
Speaker 3: don't have to be loud. You can definitely be a
Speaker 3: quiet person who's like the Dali Lama would be someone
Speaker 3: who comes up a lot as charismatic and social quite
Speaker 3: because he has that kind of presence you're talking about.
Speaker 2: What's fascinating now, what about the dark side of influence
Speaker 2: where you know people and brands are trying to get
Speaker 2: us to do things. And I say, this is someone
Speaker 2: that did work in advertising as a strategist for several years.
Speaker 2: Can we how can we like protect ourselves when we
Speaker 2: are being trying to be influenced?
Speaker 1: Like, how do you do this in your own life?
Speaker 2: Given you know all the tricks?
Speaker 3: So I'm happy to talk with you about it. And
Speaker 3: I too have worked on the dark side, And I
Speaker 3: just ask you as as we get into it, did
Speaker 3: you do things when you worked in advertising strategy that
Speaker 3: now you shy away from or would be embarrassed about
Speaker 3: that you're that you would be willing to share absolutely.
Speaker 2: You know. I had a really hardline as I, I
Speaker 2: guess became a bit more senior in what I was
Speaker 2: doing that I wouldn't work on brands that advertised to kids.
Speaker 2: And in my first year of working in advertising, I
Speaker 2: remember I had to work on a project. So I
Speaker 2: was working as a consumer psychologist and brand strategist, and
Speaker 2: I was working on a project for a very well
Speaker 2: known chocolate brand and I had to go out and
Speaker 2: do focus groups, run focus groups with it's like eight
Speaker 2: to ten year olds, and I look back on that now,
Speaker 2: and I feel quite sick about the fact that I
Speaker 2: was trying to get insights from kids to try to
Speaker 2: use those insights to make them eat more chocolate.
Speaker 1: Awful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I had similar misgivings myself because back in
Speaker 3: my marketing days, I was working before I came to
Speaker 3: Academia as a brand manager for Barbie and doing focus
Speaker 3: groups with even three to five year olds, wow, trying
Speaker 3: to get them to pester their parents for more toys.
Speaker 3: And we were selling two Barbie dolls a second, and
Speaker 3: I was just asking myself, what would success look like?
Speaker 3: Does it look like selling three Barbie dolls a second?
Speaker 3: And girls were getting five Barbie dolls a year, So
Speaker 3: what does that look like like? They get six Barbie
Speaker 3: dolls a year, and you know, they chop off the
Speaker 3: hair and then chop off the head stripper naked, you
Speaker 3: can't get the clothes back on, and then.
Speaker 4: She just ends up in a landfill. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, but that's not like it doesn't sound like you
Speaker 3: were doing dirty tricks or anything necessarily, but just the
Speaker 3: just not feeling comfortable about the whole idea of persuading kids.
Speaker 3: And now as a parent, I feel much differently as well,
Speaker 3: and I don't want people trying to persuade my daughter.
Speaker 3: So there are lots of red flags that we can
Speaker 3: look for. In the book, I have a chapter that's
Speaker 3: called Defense against the Dark Arts of Persuasion, and we
Speaker 3: start out with Bernie made Off and we talk about
Speaker 3: nine red flags that you can find in situations like
Speaker 3: cons situations like manipulative charlatans who might be cult leaders
Speaker 3: or even leaders in personal development industry, kind of going
Speaker 3: that direction, but also just transactional sales. And the red
Speaker 3: flags don't necessarily prove like if you find one of these,
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean that, oh, this person can't be trusted,
Speaker 3: but it's a clue to look for more of them.
Speaker 3: And the number one red flag to look for that says,
Speaker 3: maybe this person trying to persuade you is trying to
Speaker 3: manipulate you and they don't have your own best interest
Speaker 3: in mind, is the most common one that's used in
Speaker 3: transactional sales.
Speaker 4: And it's just urgency.
Speaker 3: It's just telling you this is you know, here's this
Speaker 3: great deal, but you can only have it right now.
Speaker 1: While supplies last today.
Speaker 4: Only kind of thing.
Speaker 3: And you know, when you go on hotel booking websites
Speaker 3: and they'll tell you only three rooms left, or you know,
Speaker 3: twenty nine people are looking at this pair of shoes
Speaker 3: right now. Almost every time you see that, it's a
Speaker 3: clue that somebody is trying to manipulate you to buy
Speaker 3: something quickly or make a decision quickly without being able
Speaker 3: to think through it well enough. And the vast majority
Speaker 3: of the time they will still want to sell you
Speaker 3: that thing tomorrow after you have a chance to sleep
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 2: Now, For people that want to consume more of your
Speaker 2: work and importantly get hold of your book, what is
Speaker 2: the best way for people to do that?
Speaker 3: So the best way for people to do it is
Speaker 3: whatever wigh is the easiest for them. It's the book
Speaker 3: is available wherever books are sold and online at whatever
Speaker 3: site you want to go to. A lot of people
Speaker 3: who like you and me, are very into product activity
Speaker 3: are using audible or some audiobooks a lot, So you
Speaker 3: could go on there and use some of the extra
Speaker 3: credits that you have, or if you're not sure you
Speaker 3: want to explore other stuff, please come to my website,
Speaker 3: Zoe Chance dot com and there's a newsletter and all
Speaker 3: kinds of other things like that.
Speaker 2: Amazing Zoe. I've just loved chat. I wish we had
Speaker 2: another five hours, but we don't. Sorry, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for your time. It's been absolutely enlightening.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure of
Speaker 3: talking with you and Martha.
Speaker 2: I just loved hearing all of Zoe's tips for being
Speaker 2: more influential, and I especially love the magic question what
Speaker 2: would it take? I tell you what, I'm very keen
Speaker 2: to try this one out on my daughter Frankie. If
Speaker 2: you are enjoying How I Work, maybe today's the day
Speaker 2: that you decide to leave a review for the show.
Speaker 2: You can do that by clicking on the star rating
Speaker 2: or leaving a comment wherever you're listening to.
Speaker 1: This podcast from.
Speaker 2: How I Work is produced by Inventing with production support
Speaker 2: from Dead Said Studios. The producer for this episode was
Speaker 2: Liam Riordan, and thank you to Martin Nimba, who does
Speaker 2: the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound
Speaker 2: better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.