Charisma - how to be more charismatic than you ever imagined!
As charisma is based on the ability to inspire action in others, you may well be asking:
”how can I begin to be charismatic?”
I will give you a firm example at the end of this article, but first do me a favor and read the following ..
The biggest problem that human beings face when having to form an impression of someone is that we base our experiences on perception. If we are to be perceived as charismatic, we must make people believe that we are. Unfortunately, within school and work we are taught to look for details and accuracy within numbers and words. Are our spellings correct? Have we got the correct number decimal places or significant figures? And then we are put into careers where we must produce reports, following ‘rules’ and norms.
All of this is really to much for us humans :- “you can only focus on one task at a time” (unless you are a woman of course!)
But its true. We are pretty useless at doing sums and spellings at the EXACT same time. So how does this relate to being charismatic? Well look at how we HAVE to judge people when we meet them; maybe a sales training professional, interview, or assessing a conference speaker. They are speaking to us, using words, verbal nods, eye contact or not, facial gestures, body language changes, but are they smiling? If not, why not? Is it me? They are looking over my shoulder. Are they paying attention? Do I have something on my jacket? They keep waving their arms a lot. How much can anyone really take in?
Our minds think “I just have to obtain some information” to form an impression. Yet we don’t know how that person is feeling, their background, who they spoke with before, their values, etc we know nothing really about them. So we take in what we can, which is extremely limited, and then process that information as our ‘impression’.
I recall a successful PhD had just come back from an oncology conference. When I asked about one of the presenters, he said that he was “a fat bloke, talking about cells or something. That was about it really.” So in a two hour speech he remembered “fat”, “male” and “cells”. As exemplified here, we think that the spoken word is important. But psychologists tell us only 8% of the words people help to form an overall impression. And the following day, we only recall 1% of the words spoken consistent with the PhD’s recollection.
“So how can I be more charismatic now you ask?”
Well, let me give you a great example.
Miles and I were sat in the office one day and our colleague Dianne was sat three feet from me. We were talking about “emitting positive responses” by asking open but leading questions and Dianne overheard the conversation. She said “I really don’t think that asking opening questions with a positive lead to them will work on anyone who is really bright. Its in-genuine and people will see through it”. About 10 minutes later she received a client complaint. She came off the phone complaining and was visibly distressed.
Miles said “Diane, you seem really stressed. When was the last time you felt really good?”.
Diane’s body language changed completely! She sat up, smiled, and looked upwards. “Well, she said….”
Miles and I burst out laughing!
“You guys are the worst!” she exclaimed
Diane has gone on to become a successful manager, is bright and intelligent, and would not suffer fools gladly. And yet Miles was able to emit a positive response from her after she had just come off an extremely stressful complaint call. Had we not laughed, she would have continued in her positive recollection of the last time she felt “really great”. And this was despite the fact that we had just been discussing “emitting positive responses” in front of her and she had doubted their ability to work.
Miles had inspired a complete mood change now that is powerful!
Now Miles could have then taken those very positive feelings to find out all sorts of valuable information to further inspire Dianne in whatever manner how chose. That is charisma!
In my next article, I will be following on from this and taking your charisma to the next level.
Tags: open questions | open questions | perception | perception | impression | techniques | techniques | inspiring | inspiring | charisma | training | training | forming | forming | others | others | basic | basic