Category Archives: Business

Charisma in One Week: A Free Seminar

Business, Coaching, Job Search, , , , , ,

THE MEANING OF CHARISMA

Look up the definition of charisma and you will find that it is a divine gift, something that separates the extraordinary person from the ordinary Joe and Jill.

Does that sound right? Not to me. Charisma has to do with mastering a subconscious form of speech called non-verbal behavior, and I’ve taught people how to do this in one week.

THE POWER OF NON-VERBAL BEHAVIORS

Tom Payne
Tom Payne

What are non-verbal behaviors? They are facial expressions, body language, tone of voice and other elements of speech like pacing and pausing, etc. But what purpose do they serve?

They are subconscious expressions of our emotional state. When I am happy I do not have to consciously think: “I need to look happy. Smile, Tom, smile!” No, I automatically look happy, and so do you when this is your emotional state.

This causes an important effect: Those around us feel this happiness. That is what makes non-verbal behaviors so powerful. They make people feel what we feel. This is because of the mirror-neuron system. We are wired to respond in this way. And when a charismatic person is radiating confidence and positivity, then we are drawn to such a person.

FIRST EXAMPLE OF CHARISMA IN ONE WEEK

I was working with a client who had a non-verbal intensity that came from repeated failures at job interviews. He was subconsciously expressing his desperation to get a job, but I was able to teach him how to master his non-verbal voice. Then, a week later, he was one of many interviewing for a few, coveted opportunities at a well-respected, internationally-known company. The interviewing process would end on Friday and my client interviewed on Wednesday. His newly-found charisma produced the following result that both delighted and puzzled him. He received an offer that Thursday night. This was before they had finished interviewing the rest of the candidates. 

He said to me, “This doesn’t make any sense. What if Friday’s candidates are better than me? Now they won’t be able to extend an offer to one of them. Why not make an offer to me Friday evening, or the following Monday? I’m out of work. I would have waited. Happily.” He was shocked by the influence he had now gained. He caused a powerful, emotional response in the hiring authority, not a rational one. His charismatic pull created a craving for him. For him! The same person who had failed repeatedly at job interviews in the weeks prior. No wonder he was surprised. He was beginning to experience the profound insight of Blaise Pascal, “The heart has reasons that reason does not understand.”

SECOND EXAMPLE OF CHARISMA IN ONE WEEK

Another client, Tess, had failed in fifty-nine straight interviews. That is not a typo. Fifty-nine! Can you imagine how emotionally devastated she was? Then imagine the non-verbal behaviors these feelings produced. Not good, I can tell you. I worked with her for a little over a week and on her 60th job interview she got an offer for $20,000 more at the salary line than her previous job, the one she held 19 months ago.

Her charisma created a craving. But it could not overcome the bi-polar behavior that afflicts many corporations–they’re up and hiring one week, down and firing the next. A few months later this hiring company reorganized and she was one of the many let go.

Did she spiral back into the darkness? No. Within a matter of weeks she interviewed again and received another great job offer.

This charismatic communication style can be taught to jobseekers, salespeople, clinical researchers, and executives, and I have seen the outcomes that support this claim. So, how can you learn to control this non-verbal form of speech?

REGISTRATION INFORMATION FOR A FREE SEMINAR, OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

CTC ChicagoI am currently giving free seminars, open to the public, on mastering non-verbal communication. The next seminars will take place, in 2015, on October 6th, November 3rd, and December 1st at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago, 703 W. Monroe St., Chicago, IL, from 10:30-noon. If you are in the Chicago area, and are interested in attending, then you will need to register. To do this please visit www.ctcchicago.org by clicking on this link that takes you to the Full Calendar of Events. http://www.ctcchicago.org/show1.asp 

Then, scroll down to the date (my seminars are usually posted 2-4 weeks in advance), and click on the “Details” link associated with the seminar entitled, The Interviewing Edge: Mastering Non-Verbal Communication. Click “Reserve Here” and then follow the registration information. It is free, and open to the public, but you must register.

I hope to see you there. But if you cannot attend, and are interested in learning the techniques that produce this charismatic presence, then read the blurb below that introduces a resource that contains this system.

A guide to developing this charismatic presence
A guide to developing this charismatic presence

Tom Payne is an international management consultant who developed a sales system based on the emotional causes of the buying decision, his coaching of others, and recent advances in psychology and neuroscience. His system for developing a charismatic presence is found in his new, award winning book, “The Path to Job Search Success: A Neuroscientific Approach to Interviewing, Negotiating and Networking.” To read the first chapter, click on the following link: http://www.tompayne.com/books.html 

 

The Male and Female Brain

Business, Coaching, , , , , , ,

In order for us to align business practices with human nature–the way we process information, make decisions, etc.–we must first understand how humans are wired to operate. One area that people tend to shy away from are the differences between men and women. This is a touchy subject for any number of reasons, but we risk misaligning our business practices in ways that hurt men, or women, or both, when we fail to take into account that gender differences do exist.

Louann Brizendine, MD, in her books, The Female Brain, and The Male Brain, illustrates the neuroanatomical differences between men and women. In other words, there are male brains and female brains. The change occurs at the eight-week mark while male babies are in the womb. Notice, I did not include women in this statement because, as it turns out, the default position of the brain is female. Men and women begin life with “a female brain.” Yes, the cells of men have a Y-chromosome, so their brains are fundamentally different, but the structures of the brain are pretty much the same.  This changes at the eight-week mark when “the tiny male testicles begin to produce enough testosterone to marinate the brain and fundamentally alter its structure.”  Louann Brizendine, MD, The Male Brain (New York: Harmony Books,  2010), p. 2.

Among the structural changes: the Medial Preoptic Area (MPOA) of the male hypothalamus grows 2.5 times larger than the female’s MPOA. This area regulates sexual pursuit. That explains a lot, doesn’t it? Another area that is larger in males than in females, and also part of the hypothalamus, is the Dorsal Premamillary Nucleus that “contains the circuitry for a male’s instinctive one-upmanship, territorial defense, fear and aggression.” (Brizendine, p. xv).

This work correlates well with Susan Tannen’s work in sociolinguistics where she illustrates how men tend to have hierarchical relationships and their speech, or lack of it, reflects this. They always want to be “one-up,” in her wording, and not “one-down.” Women, on the other hand, operate in a more horizontal fashion, seeking to preserve the group harmony and consensus at the expense of staying at the top of a hierarchical ladder.

These finding correlate well with the Myers-Briggs world of Type. Around 3/4 of women tested are “Feeling” types that are more concerned with maintaining group harmony and dislike confrontation, unlike the other side of this dichotomy, the “Thinking” type.

All of this impacts communication, among other things. As Tannen famously noted, men don’t like to ask for directions because it places them in a “one-down” position. The person who may, or may not, possess the information being sought is now one-up.

Without an understanding of human nature we can make the most basic skills–e.g., communication–less functional than it should be. And this is just one small area, with a huge impact across all areas, where an understanding of how we tick can improve our performance.

Sales is an area that I am most familiar with and the way many salespeople, if not most, work against human nature instead of with it is astounding. I’ve consulted with European and American sales forces; some have had PhDs as salespeople, but education and intellect did not change the fact that their approach worked against human nature instead of with it. My volunteer work coaching the unemployed reveals the same issue. People, for example, interview in a way that is contrary to success. But once they align their interviewing, or selling, or communicating, with human nature, the results are much better and the chances of a successful outcome are greatly enhanced.

Simplify. Focus. Achieve.

Business, Problem Solving, , , ,

Concentrating is hard work. It is the parent of an unpleasant mental state called “cognitive strain.” Our preferred mental state is one of cognitive ease, or keeping the rational, analytical mind operating at a low amplitude. We like to keep this higher mental function in reserve so that it can attend to emergencies or crises as they arise.

Unfortunately, this is another example of how we are hard-wired to run in the wrong direction. We need to concentrate, to focus for days, weeks and sometimes months, to accomplish two vital tasks: First, discover what is the single most important thing in my business that I need to be concentrating on and then, second, concentrating on it.

Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company
Alan Mulally, CEO, Ford Motor Company

Here is an illustration of what I am trying to say. When Alan Mulally became the CEO of Ford he inherited and unfocused mess of an organization. Before he arrived, during a time when Ford was profitable, it had gone on a luxury-car buying binge. It bought Aston Martin, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo, a fine assortment of ailing brands. Ford itself was an ailing brand, but now it was sure to become sicker much faster because vital capital and engineering talent were being siphoned away to deal with problems beyond Ford’s resources to solve.

So what did Mulally do? After studying the problem he came upon the one most important priority, the thing he would concentrate all of the companies energies on: Fixing Ford. He sold all of the luxury brands, closed down Mercury, and even paid little attention to Lincoln. Ford went from $30.1 bn in losses in 2006-2008, to $29.5 bn in gains from 2009-2012.

A part of every problem solving approach should be this process of simplifying the problem, discovering what the most important issue is, and then focusing on it with all available energy. As Ford shows, it can lead to quantum leaps in productivity and revenue growth.

Willpower: A Keystone Habit

Business, Job Search, Problem Solving, , , , ,

In Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, he writes about the way willpower, or discipline, is a keystone habit. Once it becomes a habit it tends to affect everything else.

interview-questionsI’ve noticed this during the volunteer coaching that I do at the Career Transitions Center of Chicago. Those who tend to do well are the ones who have the discipline, or willpower, to put forth the effort that is needed to develop:

  • A value statement.
  • Write, edit and memorize ten stories.
  • Develop a networking plan and stick to it.
  • Script and memorize answers to the top 20 questions.
  • Conduct mock interviews to isolate potentially negative or distracting behaviors.

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This takes a lot of work, and many are not up to the task. But those who are find success much faster than those who are not.

Smiling Group of Professionals --- Image by © Royalty-Free/CorbisWhat is a person with poor discipline and inadequate willpower to do? Become a part of a group. Think about some of the most obvious areas where willpower is required, areas like dieting. How do people acquire the willpower to maintain a diet? They join groups like WeightWatchers. And these groups provide many benefits that nurture the development of willpower.

First, they make the achievement seem attainable. As you look around the group you might think, “If he can do it, so can I.”

Second, they reinforce the good behaviors by praising your gains or losses (of weight).

Third, a community offers its own reinforcement. You no longer feel isolated and alone in your struggle.

So, if you are not a particularly disciplined person, then consider becoming a part of a group of people who are pursuing a similar goal. Then, meeting by meeting, you will find yourself moving closer to developing the keystone habit of willpower, a habit that affects everything.

Consulting Assignment in Europe and Leveraging Your Strengths

Business, Coaching, , , ,

I will be traveling to Germany soon to work with a group of sales professionals from Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium. It will be my second time with this group and the focus will be the adoption of successful behaviors. One of these behaviors that works in sales, leadership, job interviews and life, is creating and telling powerful stories.

Strengths-ImageI’ve already received several of this class’s stories and they will become part of a series of workshops, but one was particularly powerful. It was written in English (for my sake), and English is not this person’s native tongue. What amazed me was the way I did not have to make many changes to this story to improve it.

I’ve given dozens of story-telling courses, and some have involved people with advanced degrees from Stanford and other fine schools, but one variable remains constant: I must rewrite their story to make it better. But not this European’s story.

How could this be? Another part of this consulting course provided the answer. The course will include, among other things, a few workshops on discovering your strengths and then leveraging them in your work. According to StrengthsFinders, this person possesses the strength of communication which, their literature states, is an innate gift for turning events into vivid, powerful stories (among other things). The question becomes, “Did this person know about this strength and leverage it prior to this training?”

The first time I met this group was in Rome, and I do not remember this individual mentioning the use of stories in his or her work. More than likely, it is a great strength that has been under-utilized. Hopefully, following this assignment, they will all learn about their strengths and begin to employ them with intentionality. And if they do, they will be more engaged and successful in their work.

Coaching Notes: The Ineffective Coach

Business, Coaching, , , ,

I’ve recently attended a training program that involves receiving content, working on the content, and being coached to improve the result. This experience of mine was not based on stories and being coached on how to create effective ones, but I will use the development and improvement of stories as an example. The content was good, the exercise was good, but the coaching skills of the instructor were deplorable. Here are a few areas where he seemed to lose his way:

  1. The goal of coaching is to assist the person being coached in the acquisition of skills and behaviors leading to success. In other words, the focus is on the student and helping them.
  2. This process requires a process that first recognizes what the student did well. “I really liked this part and that part.” Criticism, which is part of coaching, is best received when the student understands that the coach isn’t only seeing what is wrong or needs improvement.
  3. The delivery of the critique, or what you feel needs to be changed, is best heard by the student when it is couched in non-threatening language and a non-threatening approach, “Is there anything about your story that you feel could be improved?”
  4. If they think it is fine, but it obviously isn’t, you could continue, “Let’s word it the following way and see if you like it better.”

Coaching is an art most easily mastered by a person who is secure and comfortable in their own skin. But the coach who is out to prove how he is right, or how he is smarter than everyone else, is one who will never master the art of coaching until he masters a little self-control.

MBTI and Career Management Interview With Jane Kise

Business, Job Search, , ,

The following is a link to an interview with Dr. Jane Kise on Myers-Briggs and its application to career management. If you know Jane, then this interview is what you would expect. It is both insightful and filled with entertaining stories. You can download the free podcast, or listen to the recording, by clicking on this link.

http://bit.ly/1bzWtyE

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Universal Applications: Stories

Business, Job Search, , ,

Words are power, not knowledge. If knowledge was power, then the most knowledgeable people would be the most powerful, and they aren’t. That is because the knowledge in our heads is not always expressed. Xerox developed a treasure trove of knowledge–the mouse for computers and the Graphical User Interface–and they did nothing with it. But Apple and Microsoft did.

Words have moved nations to war and reconciliation. Martin Luther King did not have the money to buy his way into power. He had no standing army. But his oratory touched the conscience of a nation and he wielded great power.

Words are power and stories make them more powerful. Corporations have figured this out and at Nike, the sporting goods company, all of the senior executives are designated corporate storytellers. Kimberly Clark offers two day seminars in how to develop stories. Proctor and Gamble has hired movie directors to train its executives on how to lead better through telling stories that inspire and connect with their teams.

Stories are a universal application. Well-crafted stories work well in corporations, at parties, during job interviews, you name it. But like most universal applications we fail to give this one its proper due. We might use it during a job interview, be awed by the results it produces, and then never use stories again.

The following is a true story about someone who harnessed the power of stories at work:

There was an employee named Jamie who was somewhat robotic at work. He believed he was at work to get his job done and not make friends. Then, when he went to a new job, he decided he would reach out to people and develop relationships that were less superficial, but after a year he knew his colleagues didn’t much care for him.

One day, at an anniversary celebration, the CEO of the company said, “I’d like everyone to tell us something about themselves, as much or as little as you’d care to share.”

When Jamie’s turn came he told the story of his younger brother, Steven, who had undiagnosed bipolar disorder. At the age of 19, Steven finally reached the point where he could not take his uncontrolled highs and lows and got in a car, drove until he crossed two state lines and ran out of gas, and then shot himself in the head. He drove as far as he could because he did not want his parents to be the ones who found him.

Jamie said that though this experience was extremely painful, it taught him to never take things for granted. And he started to volunteer at suicide prevention organizations as a way to honor his brother.

When he finished his story half the room was weeping, others came by and gave him a hug. His expression of vulnerability had a profound effect on his audience and on him. The once robotic Jamie was immediately humanized. As one worker put it, “All of the sudden Jamie had depth.”

This improved his ability to lead. His direct reports now cared about him and stopped watching the clock, working until needed projects were finished. [1]

The power of words is amplified when they appear in a story. When an application is as universal as this it pays to master it, and then use it throughout your life.

[1] Jamie’s story is adapted from Paul Smith, Lead With a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives that Captivate, Convince and Inspire (New York, AMACOM, 2012), pp. 83-85.

Universal Applications: Good Questions

Business, Job Search, Problem Solving, , , , , , , ,

question markThere are certain techniques and strategies that are universal in their application. They work in business, in job search, in daily life, and yet we tend to forget about this and take advantage of their versatility.

Something as simple as asking good questions is an example of a universal application. Asking good questions is very different from merely asking questions. For example, I remember interviewing a person for a sales position and she asked if the job would require working over 40 hours a week. That was not a good question. I also remember a salesperson who asked customer after customer if he had some products that he could bid on. No one said yes, because he was asking them to generate a lot of extra work for very little return.

Unlike the above, good questions can have a favorable impact that helps you sell your product, win the job, or improve communications in your daily life, because it is one of life’s universal applications. The above-noted person who was floundering in sales by asking dumb questions soon produced double-digit revenue gains by asking good questions.

I taught him to ask the next customer we were seeing, 3-M, questions to uncover problems they may have been experiencing in the world of packaging. For example, “Are any of your packaging products failing and causing you to quarantine them?” After asking several more questions of this sort the 3-M engineer looked at me and said, “No one’s asked me these questions before.” He then turned to the salesperson and said, “Here is who you need to see.”

Asking good questions can change the way you are perceived by customers, friends, interviewers, everyone. But if it is such a powerful technique, then why don’t we spend more time refining this skill?

Strengths-ImageI was coaching someone who was working in real estate, not enjoying it, and looking to find a job outside of this area. During the coaching process he learned what his strengths were, how to articulate them, how to present his accomplishments in stories, and so on. Suddenly his real estate work became more successful and now he is going to re-engage himself in this area. He did not realize it but he was benefiting from some of the universal applications he had learned during job search.

Before he left I taught him one more, a good question that is itself universal in it application. I told him to start his conversations with potential real estate clients by asking one question, “What are your goals?” Because once he knew their goals he could craft a plan to help them achieve them. It would change their perception of him. He would transition from being a realtor to being a member of their team who was trying to help them achieve their hopes and dreams.

He was excited about using this technique, and then I reminded him of some of the other ones he’d learned in job search and how they applied very powerfully to his world of real estate, because they were universal applications. The next one we covered was stories, which I will cover in the next post.

 

Coaching Notes: Keep Fishing or Cut Bait?

Business, Coaching, , , ,
Problem solving is unlocking the secrets of the maze we are in.
Coaching is problem solving. Your problem solving approach can determine success or failure.

He was over sixty, very hard of hearing, spherical in shape… and LOSING MAJOR CUSTOMERS AND BEING BANNED FROM HOSPITALS. He was the first person I’d met who had been banned from hospitals, and the last person I would have picked to achieve this distinction. For he was kind, friendly, likable…what the heck was happening?

His numbers were never great before I came on board and now they were getting worse. At a company that seemed only to fire convicted felons, I was surprisingly given a green light to fire Joe. He was losing too many large, long-term, influential customers. But I didn’t want to. He was nearing the end of his career and I did not want it to be with me pulling the rug out from under him. So, I had one option. Coach him, make him better.

I have a simple coaching philosophy: Subtract the most egregious behavior, if there is one, and add the most important, missing behavior.

To locate what is missing and what’s needed you must keep quiet, let people do what they normally do, and watch like a hawk. The egregious behavior appeared quickly. A nurse asked a reasonable question and Joe responded, “Do you really think that would be a good idea?” I kept quiet to see where this was going. I thought his belittling response must have been an anomaly since it was so unlike him.

The next day he was asked a question by another nurse and he said, “Now that really doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” Now I had a pattern forming and the nurse’s visceral response confirmed I had found the bad behavior that needed to be removed.

After he was made aware of what he was doing, and its impact, he stopped doing it. I never heard of another problem about him.

As for the behavior that needed to be added I chose the most powerful sales technique I know: differentiation. [If you are interested in the subject of differentiation, please click on the following link  http://bit.ly/19jQ9Gy.] I taught him how to do it and–to this day it amazes me–he was an instant master of the technique. The very next day he delivered a differentiation presentation and closed a large piece of business. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Two years later I was delighted to present Joe with the Region Manager of the Year award. As I stated to all present at the awards ceremony, there was no one I was more proud of in the entire company than Joe.

Coaching can be tough for the coach and the person being coached, but there are few career satisfactions greater than turning a person around when everyone, including the coach, believed the company should probably cut bait.