#540： How to Be a More Compelling Person
Episode Stats
Summary
We all know people who have a certain magnetism and charisma. What is it exactly that makes them so compelling? My guest today explores that question in his book, Compelling People: The Hidden Qualities That Make People Influential, and primarily locates the answer in two such hidden qualities, strength and warmth. His name is Matthew Kohut. Today, on the show, he explains why it is we find the combination of strength and warmth so attractive in others, and how we can cultivate those traits ourselves, including the way we dress, carry ourselves, and talk. Matt then gives advice on how to display strength in different situations we might find ourselves in, from acing a job interview to managing a crisis at work.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. We all know
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people who have a certain magnetism and charisma. What is it exactly that makes them so compelling?
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My guest today explores that question in his book, Compelling People, the Hidden Qualities
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that Make People Influential, and primarily locates the answer in two such hidden qualities,
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strength and warmth. His name is Matthew Kohut. Today on the show, he explains why it is we find
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the combination of strength and warmth so attractive in others and how we can cultivate those traits
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ourselves, including the way we dress, carry ourselves, and talk. Matt then gives advice
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on how to display strength and warmth in different situations we might find ourselves in, from
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acing a job interview to managing a crisis at work. We enter a conversation with that most
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perennial question of body language, what do you do with your hands when you speak? As the show's
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over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash compellingpeople.
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So you are the co-author of a book called Compelling People, the Hidden Qualities that
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Make Us Influential. So what got you started researching what makes compelling people compelling?
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Well, you know, my co-author, John Neffinger, and I, and a third partner, Seth Pendleton, we
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came to this through politics, actually. All of us were speechwriters. We were working with
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different folks, and full disclosure, we're Democrats. And we were watching people lose
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in the early 2000s here. And we were trying to figure out, how do we make messengers more
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effective in that setting? And it led us really on a journey to try and figure out how people
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got the thing that we call the it factor, this idea of charisma or whatever it is you see when you
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sense that somebody is a very magnetic presence.
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And around the time we're trying to figure this out and doing some speechwriting for some folks,
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we also started working with some first clients. And it led us to identify two fundamental
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problems that clients would have. Some of them were really towers of strength in the sense that
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they were incredibly capable, but they were cold. And that was one set of problems. And then on the
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other side, we'd see these people who were the nicest people in the world, but they were always
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tripping over themselves and apologizing for themselves. And we saw this again and again
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in this early client work. We were sometimes doing things for free with people and getting friends
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who were just having problems communicating. And we noticed these two things happening.
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And we were also research geeks. And we were talking to different behavioral economists and
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reading social psych. And we looked in the research and we found an answer that essentially supported
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our hypothesis that there was really something there about these two fundamental qualities
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that we were identifying as problem areas for a lot of people.
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So yeah, you make the case that strength and warmth are these two things that people look to
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when they're making judgments at people. Because oftentimes we think, oh, when you make a judgment
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at a person, there's like one thing you're looking at. But you say we're making two separate
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Yeah, that's right. And, you know, in some way you can think about it almost, I'm going
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to go sort of pseudo evolutionary biology here. You see somebody coming over the savannah, you
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know, far off on the hill. And you look at that person, you think, is that person a threat?
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Is this person maybe an ally? And we make these kinds of judgments all the time. We look at
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people's capabilities and their intentions. And we say, what can this person do? And are they
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my kind of person? And so, you know, it's interesting that we chose the word strength
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and warmth very deliberately. And yet in the years that have followed, sometimes I find
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that talking about capability and connection is also just as accurate a way to describe
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these qualities, because ultimately it's showing people what can you do? And do you care about
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the same things I do? Are we on the same page in some way?
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Yeah, I think it's great that, I mean, you came from this in the political perspective,
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because like politicians from like the very beginning have been balancing these two factors,
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like why politicians, they want to appear strong, but it's like why they kiss babies,
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right? When they're on the campaign trail, they want to appear warm. Or it's like, they're like,
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you want to be the guy that you can have a beer with, right? Or you're relatable.
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Right. Sure. Right. And that relatability factor is why people eat, you know, fried dough at
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county fairs and do all those kinds of things you were mentioning.
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Even though they hate it and you can tell they're just not want to be there. All right. Well,
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so let's talk about these two attributes. What do you mean by strength and why do we respond
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Well, you know, strength, the easiest way to think about it. And again, if the word capability
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works better for you, use that. But think about it as a combination of your skill plus your will.
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The academic words that we tend to connect to make this concept are competence and assertiveness.
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And not to go too far down the rabbit hole here, but the academics who have looked at these two
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qualities, they really focus on competence and warmth. John and I, in our practice,
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we're really seeing something more than that. Competence alone doesn't really explain what we
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respond to in people. There is a facet of our will that's in here, the assertiveness side of it.
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In other words, you can probably think of people who are really competent in something,
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but they don't speak up for themselves. They don't put themselves out there. So we kind of
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combine these combinations, combine these qualities and hit on this idea of strength or capability
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as the thing that really matters. And at a fundamental level, strength says you can get
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things done. It also says you can protect yourself and you can protect others. And that's part of what's
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really attractive about strength is when we see somebody who's either very capable at something and
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we admire their capability or that ability to protect. That's a really, that's a very positive
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thing. Now there's a downside to strength too, which is that strength can be used to get things
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done that you don't want done. You know, when you see someone else using their strength in a way that
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is not to your liking, they don't share your intentions. Then you look at that strength and say,
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oh my gosh, yikes. And there, it can elicit a fear response when it's all strength, no warmth.
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And you also have the book that some people are skeptical of strength. They're like, I don't know
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about that. Absolutely. So when you think about the, I'll kind of go traditional here. When you
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think about, let's cast our minds back 50 years, it's the anniversary of Woodstock here. Think about
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hippies looking at the establishment back in the 1960s. And you know, this is on the backdrop of the
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Vietnam War and all those kinds of social factors. There was a very skeptical view of what you might
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think of as traditional strength at that time. And you can argue rightly so. And it's a very
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interesting dynamic. There are people who almost as a disposition are skeptics about what you might
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think of as traditional strength displays. And I don't mean to say that they're all hippies. There
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are plenty of people who share that disposition of all sorts of stripes politically, but it's an
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interesting thing that you see some people when they see a person posturing in a way that is sort
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of traditionally perceived as strength, given whatever culture you're in, they'll kind of give
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it the hairy eyeball and say, what are you up to? And they won't necessarily believe it's anything more
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than that kind of a posture, or they might even just reject the posture on its face.
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So what goes on in our body when we display strength?
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Yeah. Well, I mean, the key hormone where strength is concerned is testosterone, and that's not a secret.
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And it's also about one of the things that people tend to associate strength with on the physical
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side is taking up space. And so when you think about how you feel when you're triumphant, when
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you're taking up a lot of space, while you're doing those kinds of things, your hormones are
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shifting too. And people who have just been in some sort of a more triumphant kind of a setting
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feel more confident, and their hormonal balance is shifting as they're doing these things too.
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We're never at rest hormonally. We're always doing something. And for sure, there are different
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effects that kick in depending on what behaviors we've just had, whether we've just been victorious
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or felt like we did something really well, or if on the other hand, we've just experienced some
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sort of a setback or are feeling downcast or dejected. All right. So strength is competence and
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Warmth is very context-based. I think the easiest way to think about warmth is showing people that you
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share their concerns, their interests, maybe even their emotions, depending on what's in play.
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And that can include values as well. And like I said before, a lot of times I talk about a sense of
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connection because warmth is, it can both be biological in the sense of the way we feel around
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the people we're closest to. Think about parents and their children. There's that warmth that is
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really something that begins with skin-to-skin contact between mothers and infants. And then
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there's also this sense we have with people we know in a more broadly social way of just having
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common things in common with them. And we feel that they share our perspective in some way,
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or they see the world through a common lens with us, even if we don't agree with them about
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everything. And for most people, most of the time kind of walking through life, I find that's a more
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user-friendly definition of this. It's that sense of connection where you see the world through a
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common lens. You feel like this is my kind of person. Well, the downside with warmth, so the downside
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with strength is that it could be looked at with suspicion or it can be, you know, you're using it the
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wrong time. There's downsides to too much warmth, right? Right. So the extreme of warmth is the nice
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guys finish last. This is kind of Charlie Brown with Lucy pulling the football away from him,
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if I can use an old cartoon metaphor here. It's essentially that you can come across as the
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lovable loser or at the extreme, somebody who elicits a pity response. If you think about somebody
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who's super, super nice, but they just kind of keep tripping over their own shoelaces, at some point
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you say, oh, that's too bad about him. And that's what, that's sort of all warmth, no strength at
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its extreme. And what's going on with our biology when we, you know, are displaying warmth?
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Well, you know, the primary hormone that's in play with warmth is something called oxytocin.
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And it's this feeling of togetherness with other people. Some people call it the empathy
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hormone. And it's not just about that. I want to be clear that oxytocin is something that we feel
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when we're with people who we're very connected to. Oxytocin is a complex hormone. It's also the
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thing that makes us sort of strike out at people who are outside of our tribe, so to speak. So I
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want to be clear that it's not just all warm and fuzzy, but it is absolutely what we're feeling
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when we get the warm and fuzzy with other people.
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All right. So warmth is our ability to connect with others. Are we able to be both strong and warm
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at the same time? So display competence and will and connection at the same time?
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It's really hard. Let's put it that way. John and I sort of hit on the idea that it's kind of like
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multitasking in the sense that you're never truly doing two things at once. You're shuttling back
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and forth between them. And the same is true with people who are doing strength and warmth in the
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same appearance, if you will. So when you're with somebody and you sense their capability,
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and then you sense their sense of connectedness with you or vice versa, that's the better way to
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think about it is different situations, even within the same meeting with somebody will in some way
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offer you a chance to show them your capability and or your sense of connection to them. And it's
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much more likely that you're going to have a chance to show both one after the other or back and forth
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than anything would happen where you would just be able to kind of nail it, so to speak. There just
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aren't... First off, it's very hard because there's a balancing act between these things. They are in
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tension with each other. And realistically, the situations that come up just typically ask you
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to show one more than the other in any given moment. Well, you call it like there's like a hydraulic
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factor going on between the two. Like one goes up, the other goes down.
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Right. That's exactly right. The more strong you seem, the less warm you seem and vice versa.
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And so that's why if you're cognizant of these things and you know your own
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tendencies, then it can be helpful to keep an eye on, hey, have I overexerted here on the strength
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side? I have to remind people, look, I'm on your side or vice versa. And it's not that you're doing
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this in some high self-monitoring way so much as you're just kind of being emotionally intelligent
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with people and making sure they don't lose sight of these things where you're concerned.
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So you mentioned earlier that there's sort of... You kind of alluded to it. There's like a spectrum
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of strength plus warmth combinations, right? If you're just super nice, all warm, no strength,
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that elicits that pity response from people. And what are some other combinations on that sort of,
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I guess it's a matrix that you've developed? Yeah. So this two by two, which came out of some
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of the academic research, it's something that's kind of fun to play with. So if you think about
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yourself and your combination of strength and warmth as something you can plot on a two by two graph,
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then here's one way to think about the thought experiment. And then I'll kind of get to your
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question about the combinations here. So if you ask 10 of your friends, hey, here are these two
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qualities, strength and warmth. How would you put a dot for me on this two by two here?
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And then you average those dots. That kind of gives you a pretty good idea of where you stand.
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None of us are great at seeing ourselves as others do. But if you had 10 of the people who knew you
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best put a dot on that thing and you average those dots, that would kind of give you an idea
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of pretty much how other people are seeing your combination of showing them that sense of capability
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and connection or strength and warmth. Now, as far as archetypes that fall between these things,
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it kind of gets granular at this point. It's almost like thinking about Jungian archetypes or
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something. One of the things that I found talking about this with people since the book came out is
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that there's a category of people who oftentimes are subject matter experts who, while they're doing
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strength more than warmth, the strength they're doing is really about competence. And it's not this
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kind of domineering assertive strength. They're doing a lot of subject matter expertise.
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These are typically really, really smart people who are really invested in what they do. And they
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sometimes have warmth challenges, but they are fantastic at the competence side of strength.
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Now, another side of it is the person who's the bully, essentially, who's domineering. They may not
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know much, but they're great at just pushing people around and they can lack the warmth. Those are some
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of the gradations on the strength side. On the warmth side, where you have some degree of capability,
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but you have people who are helpers, for instance, their instinct is to do for others. And they're the
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person who's maybe the go-between with people, the person who is always mediating or facilitating
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interactions among people. That's something you can see with someone who is more warm than strong,
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but they're not deficient on the strength side. And you have people who play roles that require a
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little bit more of one than the other. It's hard to generalize about people in different combinations
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too much here. But when you think about people doing things like teaching or doing things like
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parenting, both of these qualities are required in these roles. And it's worth thinking about
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how are you navigating these things? So rather than thinking about archetypes that you see in
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the four quadrants, it's almost more interesting to think about the roles you're playing and how they
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Yeah. And I liked that you had this matrix and you talked about different responses you give
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to people because that was useful for me. So you talked about someone who's low on warmth and low
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on competence or low on strength. Like those types of people, they're just really annoying,
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Right. You use contempt, but like, you know, those people are just like, ah, geez, like he's not useful
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for anything. And he's just, he aggravates you. Like everyone's had that person in their group. So yeah,
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that's low warmth, low strength that you have contempt or just, you're just annoyed by them.
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High warmth, low strength, you've, you know, that pity response, high strength, low warmth,
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it could be envy or fear. And then like the sweet spot is high strength, high warmth,
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and that's sort of admiration. Like that person has prestige.
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That's right. And you know, the way I like to think about that is you can almost draw some
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concentric circles out from where the two lines cross and, you know, you can sneak into the
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quadrant of high strength, high warmth or, you know, the strength plus warmth quadrant.
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And this could be lots of people, you know, you might say, Hey, this person really gets things
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done and I admire her. And that might be somebody who's in there for you. And then you can think of
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somebody you've worked for, who was the best boss you ever had and say, wow, that's a person who's
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really got it going on here. I admire that person. And then you can go for the history books and go
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for those people who you say, wow, great leader who used all that capability on behalf of others.
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So it's not just people who have buildings in the town square who make it into that upper quadrant
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there. You know, think about team captains, for instance, if you ever played sports, that person
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ideally is the person who was both great at their position. And also they had the ability to inspire,
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lift up, really rally people together. And that's the warmth side in that setting.
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So that's an interesting, you know, I find that there's, so there's room in each of these
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quadrants. It doesn't mean you're just kind of automatically at the tippity top of each of them.
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Right. So I imagine whether you display strength or warmth is very context dependent. So like some
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situations call for strength and others warmth. How do you figure out that, you know, what,
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when you need to display strength and when you need to display warmth?
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You know, it's, you're, you're spot on that is totally context dependent and all of us are
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different in different settings too. So think about your work self and your family self or your social
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self, and you probably come across differently in different settings. You know, you think about
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some jobs that are really competence driven in the sense that you're there and it's all business
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all the time. I don't know, air traffic controllers or something, you know, where you really have to
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just be super hyper-focused and the competence is the thing that you are there for. Then it's not so much
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about being, you know, I'm not, I don't want to generalize about any given job. I don't mean to say
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air traffic controllers aren't warm people by any means, but I just, you know, certain settings will
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obviously require you to focus on one or the other, you know, get, go the other way. Therapists,
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therapists have to be great listeners. They have to start with that sense of drawing people out and being
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able to connect with them. So certain settings tell you what they're looking for. Beyond that,
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it really becomes a question of emotional intelligence and asking yourself, what do I
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need this person to understand from me? Do they need to understand that I can get this thing done
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or do they need to understand that I see the world through their lens? And I think you can ask these
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questions in a way that is not trying to manipulate people. It's really from a question of shared
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understanding. To me, that's what the real nugget of the book is, is that it's not about posturing.
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It's not about putting on something. It's about really asking yourself, how can I help
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connect more deeply with this person? Do they need to know I can get this done or do they need to know
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that I understand what matters to them? Yeah. So you talk about Machiavelli in the book. He said
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in the print, it's better to be feared than loved. You're saying, well, maybe sometimes,
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rarely, you know, but most of the time you should probably look for being loved and having that
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respect. Maybe not necessarily feared, but respected. Right. Well, okay. So with the Machiavelli
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thing, since we're going there, if you read on, no one ever reads beyond that sentence,
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he says, it would be best to be both, but it's very difficult in one person. And so we're going
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for the Michael Scott of the office answer, which is easy, both. And we're saying, look,
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there are opportunities for most of us in everyday life. We're not princes vying at the highest end of
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politics for, you know, skullduggery. And we're not trying for the brass ring that Machiavelli was
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addressing in his book, The Prince. But for most of us day to day, I think that we have opportunities
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to show people both that we are capable and that we care about the same things they do.
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We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. So let's talk about some of the things you dig into and how we can display
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strength or warmth. And you start off talking about nonverbal cues that we give off. And the
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first one is our appearance. Sure. So how does our appearance help determine whether we're perceived
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as strong or warm? And my appearance, I mean, this could be, I mean, we can go clothing, we can go,
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you know, your body size, your body shape, whatever.
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Sure. Well, think about that for a second. One way to do this test for yourself, by the way,
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is if you just are watching something on a screen, turn the mute button on so there's no sound and
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just watch people. So you can do this watching TV or you can do it if you, a great way to do this,
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if you actually are working on this for yourself is get some video of yourself out in the wild.
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You know, if you're in a meeting or something, or you give a presentation or a speech or something,
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get some video of it and get a look at yourself with the sound off and ask yourself, what are you
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seeing? And we see strength typically first through posture. And you could be wearing a t-shirt or you
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could be wearing a suit and you'll still see the strength in the way that someone expresses
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themselves through good posture. This is the freebie for me, for everyone is just good posture. I mean,
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this is the low hanging fruit and you would be shocked how many times Don and Seth and I are
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still telling people, Hey, stand up or sit up because it's one of those things that we know
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oftentimes we're just not aware of this in our day-to-day life, but that is the nonverbal number
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one clue that we are in some way taking up our full height and our full width. Now you mentioned
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appearance and dress. And if we can dig into that a little bit too, if you want, it's an interesting
00:22:50.520
thing. I'm not a fashion person, but I have some, just some thoughts about it. I'm curious if you
00:22:55.200
had any specific questions about that or we just wanted to go into more generally.
00:22:59.400
Yeah. Let's go. Like what, what type of clothing makes people appear competent and strong? And is
00:23:05.100
there clothing types that make people feel or get perceived as warm?
00:23:10.260
Well, I mean, there's some, you know, honestly, some of the research on this looks a little funny to
00:23:16.160
me just as somebody who's read a lot of research, but dark colors, you know, there's a reason people
00:23:20.640
wear black in more solemn occasions, more somber things. When you think about the clothes that
00:23:24.820
people in finance wear, they wear blacks, blues, and grays. And those things now in our culture,
00:23:30.860
we're kind of conditioned to think of those as the more sober and serious colors. And so if you're
00:23:37.800
trying to affect a more professionally competent demeanor, those, those kinds of choices can do
00:23:46.000
that for you. Now we're in a shifting time too. And I spend a lot of times with tech firms. And
00:23:51.500
if you wear, you know, God forbid you wear a suit, you'll be laughed at the office. But, you know,
00:23:58.800
we have, you know, entire workforces where people are wearing the equivalent of jeans and t-shirts to
00:24:03.760
work. And so then you're making these choices and you're making them in ways that are through
00:24:08.980
different gradations than you saw even 10 or 15 years ago on workplaces. And so you have interesting
00:24:15.760
choices around this stuff that, you know, I think it's a shifting landscape and I don't have as hard
00:24:21.340
and firm recommendations as I have for somebody who's thinking about how they're going to present
00:24:25.180
themselves to a CEO of a fortune 500 company. I think it's, like I said, it's a moving target right
00:24:31.680
now. The interesting question to me about it is when something's almost like uniform and you're
00:24:38.200
trying to fit in a little bit, that speaks to warmth more than it does to strength. And the
00:24:42.180
question is, how do you also make sure that you're showing people that you're, that you came to play
00:24:46.620
if you think of that as more of the capability side? Well, in speaking of your world of politics,
00:24:51.340
you see this sort of how people change their clothes to whether to explain strength or warmth.
00:24:56.080
So, you know, on the debate, everyone, the men are wearing suits, power ties, whatever. Except for
00:25:01.320
Andrew Yang, he decided to go no tie, which caused him uproar. But then when they go to the county
00:25:07.660
fairs, you know, they got no coat on, they've got their, the top button unbuttoned, they got their
00:25:12.480
sleeves rolled up. So, hey, I'm relatable. Right. So there's an example of that being played out.
00:25:18.460
Absolutely. You know, Mayor Pete's an interesting example. He's gotten some attention for the fact
00:25:22.460
that he's essentially wearing a uniform. He's wearing the white shirt, the blue tie every
00:25:26.460
day. And it's his brand now. He's, he's made that his brand as much as Steve Jobs made the black
00:25:32.160
mock turtleneck his brand. And it's interesting because if you're trying to stand out in a group
00:25:37.560
of 20 people, then doing something consistently like that helps in that respect. And in his case,
00:25:44.560
it's also a competence driven brand. He's wearing the white shirt and the tie that you could have seen
00:25:49.960
anytime in the last 50 years, essentially. And as a younger guy, as a guy who's not just massive
00:25:57.160
physically, he's not, you know, six to 225 pounds or something, he's asserting competence with that
00:26:04.060
uniform. So not only do our clothes can display warmth or strength. And again, as you said, it's
00:26:10.000
context dependent. You have to be very kind of attuned to what's going on in the group, but just
00:26:14.760
even like the appearance that we were born with, right? Like our head shape or face shape, body
00:26:19.660
shape, skin color, like that can influence whether we're perceived as competent or warm.
00:26:26.340
Absolutely. Yeah. All the stuff we're born with, you know, it's funny because in some way these
00:26:31.660
things, it's frustrating to talk about them on the one hand, because you sort of have the hand you're
00:26:37.380
dealt and there's very little you can do about it. And then what we try to focus on in the book is
00:26:41.640
the things you can turn the dials on, but you're absolutely spot on that. These are the things
00:26:46.660
that we show up with. And people do read signals into everything from height, weight, ethnicity,
00:26:53.980
gender, sexual orientation, all those things do send stronger, warm signals. And they quickly,
00:26:59.800
rapidly descend into stereotype behavior too, or stereotype judgments rather, not the behaviors,
00:27:04.620
stereotype judgments of the people we're perceiving. And look, all of us stereotype people when we're
00:27:09.940
looking at them at first glance. And, you know, if you think you're not doing it, you're probably
00:27:14.600
fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself because there's just been reams of research done on this.
00:27:20.220
And it's a challenging thing. And it raises all kinds of questions about how our brains work,
00:27:26.380
but it's a sorting mechanism essentially for us. And, you know, rightly or wrongly, it's something that
00:27:33.200
does, like you said, send these strength or warmth signals.
00:27:35.800
Well, thinking of one for men that, you know, a common trait that you're just born with,
00:27:41.120
you either have it or you don't, is height. I mean, the studies show that men who are taller
00:27:45.060
are perceived as more competent and powerful than shorter men are not. So if you're a short guy,
00:27:49.480
you might hear that it's like, well, I'm hosed. Not necessarily so. You highlight, you know,
00:27:53.260
research and studies that show that, you know, even a guy who's not, you know, 6'5 or 6'4 or above
00:27:59.220
6' even. There's things they can turn, dials they can turn where they can still be perceived as
00:28:08.120
So posture is the thing I mentioned earlier. And look, I'm 5'9. So for me, sure, do I wish I were
00:28:15.740
three inches taller? You bet. But I'm not. So I'm the guy who, and I'm relatively slender too. So for
00:28:21.020
me, I'm standing up straight and taking up my full height with my shoulders is part of what I just need
00:28:25.540
to do to make sure I don't get lost in the shuffle. It doesn't mean I walk around like a peacock with
00:28:30.360
my chest down. It just means I want to be cognizant of that as somebody who's a little smaller of
00:28:36.420
stature than probably two-thirds of the guys I bump into in a professional setting. So there are
00:28:44.120
things you can do around that. You also have choices around appearance too. And again, some people
00:28:50.440
who want to make sure they don't get lost in the shuffle might make fashion choices to help with
00:28:56.700
that as well. So there is a tall premium. You mentioned it for sure. The funny thing about
00:29:01.400
tall folks is a lot of times tall guys, because the world's not built for them, they will slouch.
00:29:06.320
And sometimes they will throw away their natural advantage. The thing they were born with that all
00:29:11.140
the rest of us say, wow, I wish I had a couple extra inches. Some of them will in some way undo that
00:29:16.780
by slouching. And partly it's because doorways are too low for them, but partly it's because they
00:29:21.180
don't want to hover over people and they don't want to make people uncomfortable. And when people
00:29:26.400
are going into public-facing settings, I always say, hey, own your height because you've got it.
00:29:33.600
So another nonverbal cue you talk about that can display both strength and warmth,
00:29:37.760
depending on how you use it, is a smile, which is interesting because you think smile will just be
00:29:41.420
warmth. That's how you show like, hey, I like you. I'm okay. You can approach me. So let's talk
00:29:46.860
about how can a smile display strength as well. Right. Well, you know, we talk about this thing,
00:29:53.340
we call it the steely smile. And the steely smile is that thing that you see that's, first off,
00:30:00.060
it comes paired with the good strength cues like posture. So it's, you're standing up full height,
00:30:06.080
full width, and your head is straight. And this is important because one of the things that we don't
00:30:12.140
typically think about is head angle also sends signals. If you've ever played with a baby or a
00:30:17.060
puppy and you've done this thing where you cock your head back and forth, you can entertain babies
00:30:22.120
for hours doing this by putting your head off angle and you smile at them and they smile at you
00:30:27.160
and puppies will go rant, rant with you too. And that's warm when you have your head cocked off to
00:30:33.080
the side. And that's a great thing to be able to do when you're trying to connect with somebody.
00:30:36.540
But when you think about this stronger smile, it's head straight up and down, you know, it's like a
00:30:42.200
plumb line running straight down the center of you. And then the smile is not that it's your eyebrows
00:30:47.540
or head. It's not, hey guys, great to see you. It's, hey, how are you doing? And it's a smile on the
00:30:55.760
bottom, but your gaze is relatively even at the top. It's not the eyebrows up at half, you know,
00:31:02.420
the flag at half mass, so to speak. Now that's not to say that that's not a good smile in other
00:31:06.840
settings, but it's the nice guy smile. And the nice guy smile says, hey, I'm not a threat.
00:31:11.700
The stronger smile we're talking about here where your posture is solid and your gaze is relatively
00:31:16.840
level. It's still a smile. Your eyes are still crinkled at the corners, but you're not,
00:31:22.140
you're not as eager as the eyebrows up smile, if you will.
00:31:27.400
Another aspect of, you know, something on our face that displays strength or warmth are our eyes.
00:31:33.260
What role does eye contact play in conveying strength or warmth?
00:31:36.700
You know, eye contact is so interesting. And I just want to be really clear at the outset,
00:31:41.380
eye contact is the most culturally specific cue that is hard to talk, to generalize about. So
00:31:48.780
eye contact in American settings, and I even generalize, I hate to generalize about in American
00:31:54.420
settings because we're a huge country of a diverse population, but the norms you see, let's say,
00:31:59.440
in American professional settings are that a lot of eye contact is expected, especially if you're
00:32:04.940
listening to someone, you're expected to be looking them in the eye. And the fact that we're comfortable
00:32:10.680
with eye contact when somebody says we're confident, and it's also a way we connect with people.
00:32:14.700
So eye contact is really about strength and warmth. You know, one of the things we mentioned in the
00:32:18.880
book is that two words that speak to this have a shared root. Think about intimacy and intimidation.
00:32:25.860
Two boxers at the, yeah, at the weigh-in, they're staring each other down. That's the intimidation
00:32:31.440
factor. It's all eye contact and whoever blinks first loses. And then intimacy, obviously, and love,
00:32:36.900
we're making eye contact with people. And so it's interesting how eye contact is really required of
00:32:43.740
us for both. And if we're uncomfortable with eye contact or we're avoidant with it, then it can
00:32:49.000
raise questions about trustworthiness or our comfort with something or our confidence. It can raise a
00:32:53.820
whole host of questions depending on what the context is. Yeah. And yeah, even said in America,
00:32:58.420
it can be very context dependent, even like in the situation. So in some cases, someone not giving eye
00:33:03.760
contact to somebody would be like a strength display, right? It's like, you're just, you're not even worth
00:33:08.540
looking at. I'm going to look away from it, right? Right. Yeah. No, and that's so funny because
00:33:13.700
in another setting, not looking someone in the eye could be, you're avoiding them because you're
00:33:17.340
scared of them. So you're, you're spot on. It's a hundred percent context driven.
00:33:21.260
Or you can, you, you can like stare someone down and that's like a display or I got strength,
00:33:25.600
a display of strength. And then sometimes, yeah, you look someone in the eye because like you're
00:33:29.460
supposed to show respect. So it's like a subservient thing. So yeah, it's all context dependent.
00:33:34.400
So you got to have that, I guess they develop that emotional intelligence to figure out what's the
00:33:37.940
best thing to do in whatever situation. That's right. You know, one last thing I'd say about
00:33:41.840
this is if somebody is not giving you the eye contact you're expecting from them, this is
00:33:45.880
especially true in a work setting, ask yourself, could there be a cultural thing in play here?
00:33:50.900
Or could it be that this person's uncomfortable in some way? And I would just suggest that people
00:33:54.980
be generous about that a little bit. You know, a lot of the stuff we're talking about around body
00:33:59.440
language and nonverbal communication, it can almost become this thing of a checklist in people's
00:34:05.420
minds. Oh, they're not looking at me. Therefore it means X. And I would suggest being a little more
00:34:10.240
generous, especially around eye contact, because you just don't know how people were raised.
00:34:14.360
And there are so many different expectations culturally, even among people who were raised
00:34:19.800
in different parts of the country that I really hesitate to generalize too much about it. And I
00:34:24.720
encourage people to try to understand that people may have a different norm or expectation depending
00:34:29.920
on where they're from and what was normal where they grew up.
00:34:33.600
Yeah, I think that's a good point about not obsessing too much about this stuff and like
00:34:37.560
making it a checklist thing. Because what ends up happening is you're going through your head,
00:34:41.300
it's going to make whatever encounter you have like super awkward, right? Or it could make it awkward
00:34:45.960
because you're just thinking, okay, am I being strong? Am I being warm? So like you're probably
00:34:50.140
like not looking strong because you're looking like, you know, going through the thing through your
00:34:53.900
head. And you're also not looking warm because you're being incredibly awkward because you're trying to
00:34:57.320
figure out all of my boxes checked. Totally. Yeah. You know, it's funny. Bruce Springsteen
00:35:02.160
said something a year or two ago that completely caught my ear about this. He said, the weirdest
00:35:08.360
and worst place you can be when you go on stage is if you suddenly realize, hey, I'm on stage now.
00:35:15.520
Because you're not there. You're just thinking about the fact that you're there. And the same is
00:35:19.240
true around all this. And here's where this gets tricky is, so how do you operationalize the insights
00:35:24.000
in the book around posture or gesture or eye contact or anything like that? And it's really
00:35:28.620
a process of making this stuff second nature. And so there's a learning curve. And at some point
00:35:34.600
during that learning curve, it does feel self-conscious. And the idea is to get this
00:35:39.460
beyond self-conscious to the point where it becomes unconscious because our nonverbal behavior is
00:35:44.380
largely utterly unconscious to us. We're really not aware of what we're doing. And if you're thinking,
00:35:48.800
where are my hands? Something like that, then you're distracting from making a really good
00:35:54.060
connection with somebody. And so going from that conscious incompetence to the unconscious
00:35:59.840
competence, as they call it, that continuum, it does take a little bit of practice. And it does
00:36:05.980
take, there is a process where this stuff leaves your conscious mind. And you want to get there as
00:36:10.920
soon as you can. And that's why one of the things we do when we're working with speakers is getting
00:36:15.520
them practicing, practicing, practicing, watching themselves on tape, and then forgetting about it
00:36:19.440
so that these things become second nature and you're not thinking, oh my gosh, I've got my head
00:36:23.880
off axis again or whatever. So we've talked about nonverbal cues. What are, how can our words display
00:36:30.440
strength or warmth? Well, let's start on the strength side. A lot of strength is about being very clear,
00:36:37.340
being very concise, and knowing what you're talking about. I think about it as expert, clear,
00:36:41.540
concise, and expert. And people who tend to talk in bullet points, that's what that's about.
00:36:46.700
An extreme of this might be if you think about military communication, where it's very critical
00:36:51.840
that you communicate the bare facts really quickly and no one is unclear about it. Or think about
00:36:57.880
communication in operating rooms, where people have to be very specific about what they say.
00:37:03.300
That's really strength-based communication in a lot of ways. And there are lots of different kinds
00:37:07.920
of settings where you can think about that, where the words are very carefully choreographed and mapped.
00:37:13.060
And anything that's extraneous is out because it's not helping with the competence.
00:37:17.440
What's a thing that I find is much more interesting in some way is that the warmth side is where there's
00:37:25.320
often a lot of low-hanging fruit. And when you think about what warmth in words means, it essentially
00:37:31.580
means you're connecting with people. You're showing them you care about the things they care about.
00:37:35.980
And that I find people don't, they tend to not necessarily have the vocabulary for that or
00:37:42.800
think about ways that you can demonstrate that.
00:37:45.360
I mean, so what does that look like for the warmth side?
00:37:47.640
Well, we talk about this idea of showing people that you understand their concerns,
00:37:54.460
their interests, and their emotions. And the way you do that, there are a couple of different ways.
00:37:58.300
One of the easiest ways, the shortcut to do this, essentially, is to tell them a story that shows
00:38:05.520
them, rather than trying to tell them. Rather than saying, oh yeah, I get where you're coming from,
00:38:10.880
you use an anecdote or some sort of a story that essentially demonstrates exactly that.
00:38:16.560
Because we're all wired to take in story. We love stories, just as human animals.
00:38:21.320
And if you can use story language to show people that you felt the same way, they felt you've
00:38:28.040
experienced something that's similar to what they've experienced, all of a sudden, they feel
00:38:32.760
that sense of connection. You didn't have to do anything to make that point. There are a couple
00:38:37.380
other things too. So one is using the same language they use. I know that sounds really obvious. I don't
00:38:42.660
mean you're speaking English, they're speaking English. I mean, using the same kind of vocabulary
00:38:47.500
they use. Sometimes people who have specialized lingo, for instance, speak that specialized lingo
00:38:52.980
around people who don't speak it. And then the people they're meeting are lost, and they don't
00:38:58.560
know what the heck they're talking about. So that creates a barrier to that warmth, to that sense of
00:39:02.380
connection. And being actually a great listener and asker of questions, I don't mean an interrogator,
00:39:09.220
but somebody who really takes an interest in other people, that's where warmth starts for me,
00:39:13.580
is by saying to somebody, hey, it's great to meet you. And then getting into what's interesting to
00:39:20.680
them. And just being the person who's able to ask them a simple question and unlock things and say,
00:39:26.020
huh, that sounds really interesting. Tell me more about that. If you are good at that, you're good
00:39:30.440
at warmth. Now, the last thing along this line is validating people's concerns, their interests,
00:39:36.220
especially their emotions. You're dealing with somebody and they say, you know, Matt, I'm really
00:39:40.600
frustrated that you did blankety-blankety-blank. If you can validate that frustration, that goes a
00:39:47.180
long way toward demonstrating this warmth. And especially around emotions, everybody's emotions
00:39:54.380
are true on their face. You may not agree with somebody around the substance of something, but
00:39:58.180
you can't argue with people's emotions. And if you can validate their emotions, when they say,
00:40:02.700
look, I'm frustrated, and I say, look, I hear you. And I'm sorry that this is frustrating. I know what
00:40:09.820
you mean. If you can do that from a place of legitimate agreement or some sort of affirmation
00:40:15.400
where you're not, it's not window dressing. You have to feel it. That's the trick here. It has
00:40:18.940
to be genuine. But if you can validate like that, that's warmth with words.
00:40:23.920
So yeah, you gave a great example of like showing that you understand instead of telling you
00:40:27.940
understand. You gave the example of Robert Kennedy. When he was giving a speech, he was in Indianapolis.
00:40:34.460
It was in front of a lot of, I guess the audience is African-American. And he got the news that
00:40:38.720
Martin Luther King was assassinated and he had to be the one to break the news. And he did it in a way
00:40:44.020
where it, like he showed people that he understood like the anger and pain they felt.
00:40:50.400
Right. That's right. This is a really great historical example where, I mean, you think
00:40:55.940
about the anger in that community and the sense of outrage that Martin Luther King has been
00:41:02.880
assassinated. You know, you're in an African-American community. You are a white man standing there to
00:41:08.380
deliver this news. And you know that this is, could provoke any kind of reaction. It could provoke
00:41:16.400
violence. It could provoke any kind of thing from an audience that's going to feel so devastated by
00:41:21.500
this. And he talked about the sense that he had experienced loss too. He had lost a brother too.
00:41:28.940
And everyone in that audience knew what he meant because they knew about his own brother being
00:41:33.700
assassinated. And he didn't in any way, there was nothing condescending in the way he did this. He
00:41:41.720
just was pitch perfect in the way that he expressed that sense of anguish about what people were feeling
00:41:50.820
and was able to connect himself to it in a way that was genuine because of his own shared past that
00:41:59.060
people were already familiar with. We call this move getting in the circle with the audience you're
00:42:03.400
with. And if you can do that, if you can show people who are already in one place that you
00:42:09.700
have felt the same way, or you do feel the same way, or you have some experience that legitimately
00:42:16.380
connects to the way they are feeling or the thing they're experiencing, that's it. That's really what
00:42:25.100
So let's talk about this display of strength and warmth in different situations that all of us
00:42:28.920
will encounter. One example you gave was a job interview. And so that's one, like you have to
00:42:34.480
show both because the goal is to want to show you're competent, but also too, you're trying to
00:42:38.660
show, hey, I would be, you would really want to work with me. I'd get along with you. So how do you
00:42:43.160
do both in that same, in that one, you know, maybe 20 minute interview?
00:42:47.160
You know, you're spot on that you are going to be showing both in these settings. Here's my thought
00:42:51.220
about that is the resume got you in the door on your competence. The resume doesn't typically do
00:42:56.600
warmth. It's a strength display. And then the questions as they come are asking you to do a
00:43:04.120
little bit of both. To me, the tell me about yourself question, which is often the first one
00:43:09.520
that comes in, is asking you to do the, essentially the quick version of, so here's, here's who I am as
00:43:18.380
a person. And here's what I've, here's what kind of person I am. Here's what kind of professional I am.
00:43:22.940
And you're doing a little bit of the competence by being relatively succinct about it and knowing
00:43:28.920
your story that you can give somebody in that fairly quick bite there. I think part of what
00:43:36.160
you're trying to remind people, like you said, is that you're going to be a good team player.
00:43:40.560
You're going to be somebody people are going to want to come to work with. So that as you're
00:43:44.440
thinking about showing people examples of what you've accomplished in the past, it's not about
00:43:48.960
you. It's not the me show. It's the, it's the me succeeding with others, helping others succeed,
00:43:55.040
being the person who is able to lead or to be the driver of that collaboration. Because honestly,
00:44:01.360
none of us get anything done alone at work. It all happens in a team setting and reminding people
00:44:07.400
that you know how to work effectively with others, to lead others effectively, whatever,
00:44:11.680
however you want to characterize that. That's what a lot of the warmth is going to come across as,
00:44:16.440
as far as the content of what you say. Then the way you say it, of course, is it's not rambling.
00:44:22.400
It's not just the me show. It's showing the person that you're listening to their questions and
00:44:27.560
giving them appropriate signals non-verbally that you understood what they want to hear.
00:44:32.960
It's a, it's a whole combination of those things that does the warmth there too.
00:44:36.820
So another thing that people will, all of us probably have to do at some point in our life is
00:44:40.040
either give a speech or a presentation. And I thought in the book, you guys did made a really
00:44:44.580
interesting point that public speaking is a lot trickier now than say a hundred years ago.
00:44:52.160
Well, you know, it's interesting because we live in the age of Ted and there are literally
00:44:57.300
hundreds of thousands of people who have met this level of speaking that they need to do
00:45:04.100
where they're putting on these 10 to 15 minute talks and they've got them memorized.
00:45:08.120
And nowadays we are really prioritizing conversation over oration. And what I mean by that is a Ted
00:45:16.740
talk is supposed to be intimate. And we're part of the intimacy is you're wearing a microphone so you
00:45:22.340
can use your conversational voice. You're not orating so that the people in the back of the room can hear
00:45:27.380
you. You're not projecting your voice in some way that people had to before amplification.
00:45:32.040
And you're supposed to give people some of yourself as well as no stuff. And I think it's tricky
00:45:41.140
because first off, the bar's high because of the Ted effect, but it's also just that time where you
00:45:48.420
have to figure out how can you bring enough of yourself so people get that sense that you're
00:45:54.300
showing them you're true or authentic person. And how can you demonstrate that sense of competence
00:46:02.080
or expertise that people want to take from you? So then there was something for them to hear,
00:46:07.380
you know, why, why were they listening to you in the first place? Was it something
00:46:10.200
interesting about your background? Do you know something? And it's making sure you balance those
00:46:14.860
things. That's in some way, fundamentally different than it used to be where it was more about speakers,
00:46:19.860
speakers, speakers, audiences, listen. Now there's a more conversational dynamic to it. And what was
00:46:26.700
more formal speech now just sounds stiff and wooden. So it has to have that conversational tone. And yet
00:46:31.880
you also have to hit that mark for competence. So how do you display that intimacy and warmth when
00:46:37.500
you're in front of a large audience? So you can have a more conversational tone, but are there other
00:46:41.000
nonverbal cues you can do? Absolutely. And a good speech will take you on a journey and it'll do a
00:46:47.380
bunch of these things. And sometimes there'll be a moment where you're really just kind of hitting
00:46:51.600
the marks on what you know, but then sometimes there will be either a change of direction or a
00:46:58.520
pause or a break. And someone will tell a more personal story. Maybe their voice will come down
00:47:04.240
a little bit and say, look, this is really hard. And suddenly you're listening and you're connecting
00:47:09.360
to them as a person and then they bring you back up. And so it's thinking about hitting multiple
00:47:15.160
notes in a talk. It's not all at one level the whole time. It's making sure that there are
00:47:20.180
different beats in it where you're connecting with what people already know and then taking
00:47:24.320
them into unfamiliar territory where they haven't been there before and giving them enough variety.
00:47:30.320
It's kind of like a symphony where you've got to have enough different movements to it that
00:47:33.520
it keeps people engaged the whole time, but also takes them into unfamiliar turf at some point.
00:47:39.580
So what do we do with our hands? That's the question everyone wants to know. What do I do with
00:47:43.040
my hands when I'm up there? Right. This is the one thing when we work with people in person that
00:47:48.940
they remember more than anything because everybody's obsessed with this question.
00:47:52.700
Now, look, let's just kind of acknowledge culturally that there are differences around
00:47:55.800
gesture around the world. So let's put that on the table. Within the United States, at least,
00:48:00.460
one way to think about this is a lot of times the gesture that's seen as strong, it almost is
00:48:05.320
a cliche, is the karate chop. It's the kind of straight down, your hand's almost like a blade.
00:48:11.020
It goes straight down and says, look, here's the thing. And it's very insistent. And if you're
00:48:15.960
twice as strong, it's the double karate chop, the right hand and the left hand. And you can almost
00:48:20.100
look like a Ginsu knife salesman on infomercial at two in the morning saying, bye now with the hands
00:48:25.780
like that. It's kind of a joke. And then the extreme, so think of that as an extreme of strength.
00:48:30.680
On the other extreme of warmth, think about if you're welcoming your relatives who have come
00:48:35.060
great distances to see you and you open your arms to them at the airport. And so warmth is really
00:48:40.720
opening ourselves to people. Strength is almost drawing that barrier. And if you think about the
00:48:44.980
balance between these things, between this blade that's cutting the air in front of you and arms
00:48:49.720
wide open, it's almost like, imagine you had a basketball in your hands and you had it somewhere
00:48:55.240
between your hips and waist. Yeah, go ahead and do it right now. Imagine you have a basketball.
00:48:58.880
I'm doing it right now, yeah. I've got my imaginary ball here.
00:49:02.020
Yeah, the imaginary ball is actually a great tip if you're the kind of person who's not sure what
00:49:05.960
your hands should be doing when you're gesturing. And depending on the point you're making, your
00:49:10.400
ball can get bigger or smaller. So if you're making a little bit bigger point now, now make your ball
00:49:13.940
a beach ball. Now, if you're ever going to do one of these TEDx talks or something like that,
00:49:18.180
that biggest point in your life, that big takeaway is that thing at the gym, that Pilates ball,
00:49:23.200
that giant thing. And now you've got the ball out. It's maybe beyond your shoulders on either
00:49:27.060
side. Now you can shrink the ball back down. Now maybe in your left hand, there's just a
00:49:30.940
baseball there for a second. So move that baseball out to the left side, maybe shift hands, put the
00:49:36.480
baseball on the right-hand side. Sometimes you can pass it almost like a basketball.
00:49:40.620
And the ball is a helpful corrective if you're the kind of person who flops around a little bit
00:49:45.460
with your hands. I don't mean to say, hey, just do this ball thing all the time. That would be a
00:49:51.060
misconstruing of what I'm saying here. But if you're a person who you've seen yourself on video and
00:49:55.280
your hands tend to flail around and they're just doing things like the illegal motion sign that you
00:50:00.100
see your referees doing football or something that is not consistent with what you're saying,
00:50:05.500
the ball can be a nice thing because it does a little bit of strength and a little bit of
00:50:09.560
warmth. It's open, but it also has a little bit of control or poise to it.
00:50:13.780
So let's talk about a crisis time. Let's say at work, you're a leader and there's something's
00:50:19.000
happened, right? And it's all hands on deck. I imagine you're, again, you're wanting to display
00:50:23.740
strength to show that, hey, we've got a plan, but you're also wanting to display warmth because
00:50:27.980
people are probably feeling anxious or whatever. So what does that look like?
00:50:33.020
It's so specifically context-driven that it's hard to generalize. Sometimes you have to be the
00:50:39.220
person that says, all right, let's do this. And that can be the perfect answer. And that's the
00:50:43.060
thing that sets people's minds at ease in that setting. Depending on another instance,
00:50:49.940
it might be the person who says, look, this is really tough. And they do the warmth move first.
00:50:55.360
And then they say, because this is so urgent, we've got to go do this. And it can be a quick
00:51:00.340
pivot there depending on the setting. So it's hard to know what the setting is, who the protagonists
00:51:07.380
and what the specifics of the challenge are. But if there's a question of people needing a little bit
00:51:13.600
of a morale boost, maybe that's where the warmth moment comes. If it's really about which way do
00:51:19.180
we get out of the jungle here, being the person who says, let's go that way, that can be the place
00:51:23.820
where you say, okay, we need just the strength, the competence answer now, and somebody who sounds
00:51:29.080
like they know which way to go. So yeah, you're going to get the balance, strength, and warmth.
00:51:33.220
So sometimes show strength, sometimes you got to show the warmth. Well, Matt, this has been a great
00:51:38.120
conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?
00:51:40.460
Well, the book is out there on Amazon and all those places. And we have a bunch of resources
00:51:46.680
on the K&B Communications website about this. And I've written a few things on Medium over the years
00:51:52.300
that people can find as well if they just search on my name. It's been a real pleasure to talk with
00:51:56.040
you about this. It's been fun seeing this stuff work out in the wild for several years at this
00:52:01.180
point. And it's fun to talk through it with you. Well, Matt Kohut, thanks so much for your time.
00:52:05.540
It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me. My guest there was Matthew Kohut. He is the co-author of the
00:52:09.560
book, Compelling People. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. Check
00:52:13.080
out our show notes at aom.is slash compelling people. We can find links to resources. We're
00:52:25.780
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at
00:52:29.280
artofmanliness.com where you can find our podcast archives. There's over 500 episodes there,
00:52:33.260
as well as thousands of articles we've written over the years on things like charisma and social
00:52:37.180
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