Within less than a second, using your facial expressions, people make what are called spontaneous trait inferences about you. Warmth and competence are the two critical variables that other people use to assess your character and intentions. According to Amy… Read More »3 Ways to Avoid Communication Failure
To clarify this complexity, I have to step back, calm down, and ask myself a question, such as, “What seems to be the problem?” Then I have to look at the rat’s nest of black wires, and begin the delicate surgery of extricating one wire from the clutches of the other…
Right now I’m sitting in the back of a hotel meeting room near Washington, DC, where two dozen physicians are rehearsing for a presentation to the regulatory authorities. They are debating what point they are trying to prove. The question… Read More »What’s the point you’re trying to prove?
In a recent article in Harvard Magazine, Amy Cuddy, who teaches at Harvard Business School is quoted as saying that the success of venture-capital pitches to investors apparently turns, in fact, on nonverbal factors like “how comfortable and charismatic you… Read More »How to Raise Money from Venture Capitalists and Other Investors
Robert Selander, the former CEO of MasterCard, had a thing for “presence.” When asked what he looked for in those he hired, he said, “Leadership, results, and presence.” About presence he said, “At varying levels of the company you deal… Read More »Presence is knowing what to say
Years ago I splurged on a course at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where, among other things, I learned that leadership is a constant tug between assertiveness and empathy. Assertiveness without empathy, I learned, leads to conflict with followers and… Read More »Empathy in Action