The science of charisma: How to shine in virtual presentations

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Hello. Hello, Friends.

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  My name is Vanessa Van Edwards, and today I'm gonna

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  talk to you about charisma.

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  I've always been fascinated by the topic of charisma, and

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  little did I know it would become a lifelong career

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  passion. I run science of people.

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  We are a human behavior research lab.

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  And my goal is to study the hidden forces that

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  drive our behavior.

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  So I realize that charisma was this very interesting little

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  trait when we were doing a study and we found

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  that many people had a hard time defining charisma.

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  They could very quickly think of the most charismatic person

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  in their life.

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  They thought, Oh, my boss, my friend, my partner.

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  But when we asked them what is charisma, this is

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  when they had a really hard time to finding.

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  And we realized that charisma, XYZ interesting trait that, you

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  know, the moment you see it, that you have a

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  really hard time to finding it.

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  So we wanted to know what actually makes someone charismatic.

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  Researchers from Harvard Business School found that there are two

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  very important traits that we use to judge someone.

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  We first meet them.

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  There weren't and competence.

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  Now it's interesting about these two traits is, there's often

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  in balance them.

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  There are people who are very high incompetence there, seen

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  a smart and powerful and capable, but not always a

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  good team player, not always collaborative.

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  They're also folks that are very high and warmth seen

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  as friendly and care is friendly and warm and trustworthy,

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  but not always powerful.

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  In dependable, this sweet spot seems to be the perfect

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  balance of warmth and competence.

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  Very highly cares about people rank off the charts in

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  friendliness and trust, but they're also seen as very powerful.

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  It's very capable in dependable.

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  So what I want to focus on today is how

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  you can hit that sweet spot in your presentations in

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  your meetings of being both open and trustworthy, but also

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  powerful and capable.

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  The question is, how do we do that?

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  How do we break that down?

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  Well, there's two ways that we're constantly signaling our warmth,

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  incompetence. The first is with our words are verbal power,

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  and the second was with our nonverbal.

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  So let's start off with our verbal power.

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  I love this study that I'm gonna talk about.

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  So this is a study that was done by Brian

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  Wansink, and he brought participants into his lab and he

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  blindfolded them and turned off the lights.

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  Never a good thing if you're an experiment.

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  And then he handed them a bowl of strawberry yogurt,

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  and he asked them to rate this yogurt on its

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  strawberry flavor.

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  59% of participants said the yogurt had a nice strawberry

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  flavor. The trick was, the yogurt was actually chocolate.

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  This is mind blowing, right?

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  Strawberry and chocolate tastes.

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  Nothing like what happened was Brian Wincing told the participants.

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  You're about to eat strawberry.

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  The brain heard strawberry and then tasted strawberry.

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  This is the first of one many studies that indicate

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  a powerful psychological effect called prime ing.

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  So prime ing is something that I don't think we

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  think enough about in our presentations.

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  And in our first impressions, Prime ing is using our

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  words, colors and images to influence and shape someone's behavior

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  expectations and actions, and I believe that we can use

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  this for good.

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  Let me zoom in for a second on a microscopic

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  way that we miss prime ing all the time.

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  I used to send emails like this all the time.

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  Totally. Miss Primate, we're all set for the meeting next

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  week or apparent overview and Sam proposal for you and

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  we can read them.

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  Let me know if you have any questions.

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  No emotions at all.

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  This is very, very sterile versus this has almost the

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  same word count, but pay attention to some of the

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  Prime Inc use.

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  I'm looking forward to collaborating next week off a pair

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  of gold worksheet and overview of desired outcomes for both

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  of us, and we can work through everything together, happy

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  to answer any questions.

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  You notice that these say the same thing, but they

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  feel totally different.

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  What research has shown is that when you use a

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  word like collaborate, people are then more likely to tap

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  into their collaborative resource is and be more collaborative.

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  So what I want to think about is not throwing

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  away our words, and we are doing this constantly.

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  Think about how many times a day you open your

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  calendar or how many times you've sent calendar invites.

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  I don't know about you, but I open my calendar

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  at least 10 to 15 times a day, at least,

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  and I always see words like this call meeting one

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  on one.

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  They mean nothing.

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  What if we looked at our calendar?

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  We thought, How come you prime with those words so

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  that every single, sometimes someone open their calendar, they were

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  actually primed for how they should act and respond in

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  that meeting.

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  Or in that call, collaborative sessions, strategy session, creative time,

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  gold session, accountability, Our.

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  Every time you send a calendar, invite your prime ing

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  someone or setting them up for success.

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  And every time you open your calendar, you're doing the

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  same for yourself.

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  So here's what I want us to think about.

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  Think about how you want someone to feel before, during

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  and after interacting with you.

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  And the most interesting part about this is you can

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  use the charisma scale to shape the kind of words

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  you use.

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  So let's say that you're really high in the competence

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  side. You want to be seen as a little higher

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  and warm.

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  You could use more warm words in your chats, your

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  agendas, your emails, your invites, your linked in profile.

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  You can say friend, connect cheers.

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  Open together, excited versus competence, productive brainstorm effective.

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  Get ready power through efficiently knowledge.

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  So if you want to be seen as higher and

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  competence. You can use more competence.

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  Words, if you want to be I've seen is higher

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  and warmth.

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  You can use more warm words.

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  Let's talk about that verbal power.

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  Sorry. Nonverbal power were doctor of the words.

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  So before I talk about my nonverbal cue here, uh,

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  I want to talk about where we look when we

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  first see someone.

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  So we first see someone.

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  We tend to look at their hands first.

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  We usually think about the eyes, mouth or face.

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  But our hands are trust indicators.

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  And that's because the brain gives a lot of weight

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  to our hand gestures.

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  So one thing to think about, especially on video, is

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  the more channels you can give someone nonverbally, the easier

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  it is for them.

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  Toe listen to you and to remember what you say.

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  So if I were to give this entire presentation without

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  my hand gestures, I would be taken away a channel

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  from you.

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  Worse if I were to give my presentation with just

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  my face, no even upper body movement.

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  I would also take one more channel away.

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  I want you to add channels and your hands are

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  one of the most important ways to do this so

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  above the desk, avoiding pockets if you're in person and

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  also thinking about adding explanation.

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  I stumbled across this interesting pattern when I was watching

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  Ted talks.

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  So my team and I, we analyzed thousands of hours

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  of Ted talks looking for patterns, and we found that

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  when you look at the most popular Ted talks next,

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  the least popular Ted talks.

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  This is just with you.

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  Count. You see a distinct pattern.

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  The most popular Ted speakers use an average of 465

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  hand gestures in 18 minutes.

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  The least popular Ted talkers use an average of 272

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  gestures. Almost half What's happening here is that not only

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  our hands important for trust and warmth, you can see

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  my intention.

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  You can see that I'm not hiding anything.

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  They're also importance for cop, important for competent, really highly

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  competent people.

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  They know their stuff so well that they speak to

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  you on two tracks with their words and their hands.

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  Now, little did I know this hand just a research

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  would actually get me a Ted talk of my own.

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  You're welcome to go watch it to see a couple

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  of the interesting things about hands and gestures.

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  What's most important here is that when you're presenting the

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  best one, be charismatic is hands first.

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  Hey, good morning, everyone.

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  And then explaining your gestures.

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  If something is really, really small, no big deal, you

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  want to show that it's actually small.

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  If something is a really big deal, you want to

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  show that it's a big deal.

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  Lastly, here, I want you to think about Visible on

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  explanatory. If you really want to be seen higher and

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  warmth, the more visible your hands are, the better you

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  really want to be seen is hiring competence.

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  The more gestures you use, the better so in summaries

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  the really quick little video.

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  To be more competent, use more competent words, empowering openers

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  and explanatory gestures to be a higher and warm to

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  use more warm words, exciting agenda LS and visible hands.

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  I want to thank you so much for watching little

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  video today.

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  I love setting charismatic people.

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  You're also welcome to read all of my tips in

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  my book Captivate, which has been translated into 16 languages

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  or check my website.

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  I wanna thank you so much, So much, so much.

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  So much for watching today