Go Fishing, Not Hunting

Fishing is a very interesting sport. It’s all about presentation. A fisherman puts something out there that is packaged in a way to make it as attractive as possible to the fish. The goal is to draw them in, to offer them something interesting to them. And, when they aren’t hungry, there’s no presentation in the world that’s going to get them to bite.

Contrast this with hunting.  There is usually no presentation. Their is usually some kind of pursuit. I think of Elmer Fudd, stalking “that scwewy wabbit.” Pursuit and more pursuit until BAM! The hunter lets them have it with both barrels.

When we meet someone for the first time, we have a choice between hunting and fishing. Hunting amounts to something like preparing a 3-5-minute elevator speech and delivering it all at once – both barrels.

It’s pursuit and delivery whether they’re hungry or not. I much prefer to go the fishing route.

Fishing doesn’t just apply to meeting the client for the first time or sitting for that first interview. I believe that it also applies to our approach with the person next to us on the plane, at the lunch table, or working out at the gym. People desperately want us to be interesting.

Often the last thing they want is for us to become a wall of words.

Fishing, then, can be applied to all of our first-impression opportunities.

Brian Walter is a motivational coach and trainer. His approach to applying the fishing technique is to “play catch.” He compares delivering the full load, the complete elevator speech, to keeping the ball. Don’t keep the ball! Instead, play catch! Have the entire elevator speech ready to deliver, but give it to them a little at a time. Give them the chance to respond. If they are hungry to know more, they will.

If not, we’ve saved both of us a lot of time.

Let’s try an example.

“So, Brian, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a coach.”

“Really? What sport do you coach?”

“Not sports. I coach a team of software developers. A lot of the principles are the same, but no sports.”

At this point, if the listener is interested, they will ask more. The game of catch will continue, with each toss of the ball delving further and further into the details.

If they’re not interested, the listener will not throw the ball back.

The conversation will stop – or perhaps take a turn to something else.

If this is the case, we’ve avoided a potentially embarassing situation where we’ve delivered far more information than the listener ever wanted to hear from us. Everybody wins.

I strongly recommend that we have at the ready a quiver full of answers to questions like, “What do you do for a living?” If we develop a set of opening “fishing lines” that offer our listeners a nugget of interesting information and leave them wanting more, we can improve our chances of making a good first impression.

Smile

We’re continuing to consider ways to improve our chances of making a good first impression. In my last post, we considered walking that fine line between fear and focus. In this post we will consider one of the simplest techniques for improving first impressions: Smile.

The smile consistently ranks at the top of the list of reasons we like other people. Chris Widener, a leadership expert and coach, says that this is because people are drawn to optimists – the “glass half full” types. Successful leaders are optimists. They must be in order to overcome the inevitable problems and obstacles that come between them and their dreams. The result is that people who smile more tend to be perceived as leaders.

A note of caution here: Like Spiderman, we should always strive to use our powers (of communication) for good! It is possible to fake a smile or to “glad-hand” our way through a first meeting with someone. The problem with this, besides being ethically questionable, is that many people have finely-tuned BS detectors. They can detect a fake from a mile away. Being fake is often a shortcut to a horrible first impression. (Do you really want to chance wearing that dirty halo?) Our goal is to both be genuine and be perceived as genuine.

Widener asks us to consider how we respond to the simple question, “How are you doing?” Many times a day we field this question. We pass someone in the hall or they stop by our desk and we go through what might be an automatic ritual. Pay close attention to how we answer. If our answer is consistently negative, such as, “Pretty good – under the circumstances,” we might have some work to do. Other people don’t want to join us under the circumstances! No, they want to follow someone that’s on top of the circumstances.

Optimism comes naturally to some. For the rest of us, it might take a bit of work. Optimism may be something for us to develop over time – a kind of habit of living in the “half-full glasses” of our lives.

Spidey repeat: Only use our powers (of communication) for good. Don’t lie. Don’t fake an answer. If things are horrible, don’t put on a big grin and say, “Wonderful!”

Two final points:

• A smile will lift your mood! Psychology types talk about “the facial feedback hypothesis.” In plain language, several research studies have shown that what we do with our face influences how we feel. I won’t go into all the reasons and theories, but the reality is that putting a smile on your face can lift your mood and make you a more interesting and appealing person. Feeling follows action.
• A smile will change the sound of your voice – for the better! The range and subtlety of tone increases when you mix smiles and other facial expressions as you talk. This applies especially to talking while on the phone. Be animated. People can actually hear the smile in your voice.

The bottom line is that making a smile a natural part of our communication style will serve us well with first impressions and in everyday interactions.

Relax! And be Afraid!

I think most of us would agree that first impressions are important. After all, people do make up their minds quickly, often on very little evidence, about us. And, due to the Halo Effect, those first impressions linger. The question then becomes, how do we maximize our chances for making a good first impression? I hope to provide a few suggestions in the next several posts to this blog.

If we do a search for advice about making a good first impression, we find the nearly universal admonition: RELAX!

Yeah. Right. These are the same people that remind us, “You only have one chance to make a good first impression!“

In my experience, a little nervousness is a good thing. A little fear helps to keep us on our toes. A friend of mine pointed out that having the right balance of relaxation and fear is also a requirement for a good athlete. The athlete must relax to the point where he or she can focus, but not to the point of carelessness. Focus implies seriousness. Seriousness implies intention and seeking after a goal. “Relax and be afraid,” then, means to strike a balance that allows us to be very serious and intentional about making a good first impression without being overrun by nervousness.

The key is to control the nervousness, not letting it leak out into our behavior, not letting it overwhelm us with fear.

In future posts, we’ll be talking about techniques we can use to help achieve the balance.

A First Impression Gone Bad

It was a first impression gone bad.

Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of “The Tipping Point,” allowed his usually-short hair to grow long and curly for the first time in a long time. When he did so, he noticed a couple of things:

• He started getting speeding tickets
• He was singled out for extra scrutiny by the TSA as he made his way through airport security

The icing on the cake for Gladwell, though, happened when a rape was committed near the New York City neighborhood where he lives. Armed with an artist’s sketch, police spotted Gladwell and started questioning him. The perpetrator depicted in the sketch had long, curly hair. Other than the hair, he shared no other features with Gladwell. In Gladwell’s opinion, it was obvious that he and the person depicted in the sketch were not the same person. Still, it took him 20 minutes to convince the police that he wasn’t the man they were looking for.

What made the “first impression” of Gladwell become so firmly entrenched in those police officers’ minds? Why was it so hard for them to let go of the impression they had formed based on just slivers of information? Out of these questions, Gladwell’s next best-selling book, “Blink,” was born. In it, Gladwell describes how the phenomenon called, “thin slicing” allows us to make decisions based on a bare minimum of information.

“Blink,” is fascinating reading. For those interested in communication and first impressions, it’s invaluable. It arms us with information that we can use to:

1. Craft more effective messages
2. Be more mindful of how we jump to conclusions (thin slicing)
3. Make better first impressions

Halo Effect

As I continue to think about the impact of first impressions, I feel led to describe something researchers call, “The Halo Effect.” No, it doesn’t refer to a Microsoft video game. The Halo Effect is a term used to describe the fact that people tend to judge us based on their past impressions of us. For example, if we make a really good first impression, subsequent behavior will tend to be interpreted favorably. If, on the other hand, we make a bad first impression, people will tend to judge our subsequent behaviors in a negative light.

Let me give an example. My wife uses our DVR to record the daytime series, “General Hospital,” so that she can watch it in the evening. I have joined her to watch a few episodes myself. (Pure intellectual investigation, I might add!  ) In one episode, a female character named Maxie said and did some kind and caring things. I said, “Hey! I like this Maxie character!” My wife was horrified. “Maxie is evil. She’s just in it for herself,” she corrected me. My wife was applying the halo effect. Maxie’s in-the-moment actions were genuinely good, but my wife’s previous observations of her behavior colored everything dark. Maxie was wearing a dark halo.

This example isn’t real, but it is true to life in that people make those same kinds of judgements all the time. This is one of the reasons that making a good first impression is so important. A bad first impression isn’t a death sentence, but it can be quite a laborious task to overcome.

Mom was right!

It’s always good to put a plug in for Mom. What is the stereotypical trio our mothers are usually credited with saying? “Sit up straight, keep your elbows off the table, and watch your language!” In the realm of first impressions, Mom was right! Let’s take them one at a time.

“Sit up straight!”

It may not be fair, but the truth is that people judge us on appearances.  Good posture, clean clothes, and pleasant facial expressions all contribute significantly to the way other people perceive us. Several months ago, my teenage daughter was applying for a job at a shoe store. As she wrapped up the interview, a young man walked into the store and announced that he, too, was there to apply. He was disheveled in appearance and leaned on everything – kind of draping himself on the counter as he spoke. Who do you think got the job?

“Keep your elbows off the table!”

Mom thought that sitting with your elbows on the table was rude. Perceptions of us are deeply affected by whether we approach others with polite manners and respect. This is especially important as we cross national and cultural borders where we might unwittingly offend those we speak to. Several years ago, my phone company kept screwing something up. In a fit of anger I called their toll-free support line and just about yelled into the phone, “This is the 12th time I’ve called and you still screwed this up! I’m so mad I could spit!” The gentleman on the other end of the phone said, “I’ll take care of you sir. Please hold.” I sat on hold for 15 minutes before I realized what he had done. I was out of line and he had truly “taken care of” me. I learned my lesson and have found telephone support folks to be much more cooperative when I am polite and respectful.

“Watch your language!”

Vulgar language is to be avoided, but I think this goes even deeper for our daily communications. Are you using language appropriate for your audience? Does everyone know the jargon and the acronyms? Not long ago, in a conversation with my Cable supplier, the fellow on the phone kept wanting to talk about a “multi-platform content delivery system.” I just wanted clear reception! It is important that we match the words we use to those who will be listening.

Thanks, Mom!

First Impressions

First impressions are an important part of being an effective speaker and communicator. The problem is that we don’t have much time to make those first impressions! Have you even been listening to a talk and, after just a few minutes, realized that you had made a big mistake? If so, you have experience evaluating speakers using very little information and in a very brief period of time.

In an article published in the May 29, 2000 edition of The New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell told the story of Harvard researcher Nalini Ambady. Using videotapes of teaching fellows that had been taken during a training program at Harvard, Ambady set out to examine the non-verbal aspects of teaching. Her plan was to have outside observers look at the tapes with the sound off and rate the effectiveness of the teachers using expressions and visual cues. When she looked at the tapes, she discovered that there was only about 10 seconds of footage where the teachers were shown without students in the picture. Ambady was afraid that the presence of students might bias the opinions of the observers. She almost abandoned the project, assuming that no observer could effectively evaluate using only 10 seconds of footage. Encouraged by her advisor, though, Ambady went ahead with the experiment.

Surprise! When presented with 10-second video clips, observers had no trouble rating the teachers on a 15-item checklist of personality traits. Next, Ambady cut the clips back to 5 seconds. The results were the same. They were even the same when she showed observers just 2 seconds of video. 2 seconds!

Here’s another surprise: When Ambady compared the results of these brief, video-only evaluations with those delivered by students that had spent an entire semester with those same teachers, the correlation between the results was extremely high. Not only do we make up our minds in a hurry, but we’re actually pretty good at it!

The bottom line for you and me: The research on how long it takes to form a first impression varies somewhat, but it’s clear that some in cases our listeners will be making up their minds about us before we even speak!