Do you know somebody that embodies this idea of being an executive or having ''executive presence?'' what are they like? What are some adjectives that you might use to describe them. That varies from culture to culture. I mean, what stands for executive presence in South Korea might be very different than it looks like in France. Also, it varies from company to company. What might stand for ''executive presence'' in a startup of 15 people, looks extremely different than a global financial services company based out of Manhattan, New York. It's very culture-specific. But what I'd like to maybe emphasize, one, it's important. Number 2, it's unavoidable, and number 3, it's not perfect. Let's talk about some of those things. I have really mixed emotions about this idea of ''executive presence''. There's a lot of very legitimate criticisms. People would say, isn't this just faking it till you make it? Or isn't this just strategically showing off? Isn't this just being a smooth talker and smoothing your boss? Those are all bad things generally. Let me tell you the reality of how we think as humans and then two, maybe how we should embrace it. Try to harness the good parts of it. Okay, here we go. As an example, there was a piano competition. Here's the example and I'll get to the title next. There was a piano competition where there were basically a 1,000 people who were watching this piano competition. Those 1,000 audience members were divided into three different groups. The three different groups were ones that were listening and watching the recorded piano recital, there were some that were only listening, maybe with their eyes closed or no video, and then there were some who were just watching it with no audio. The first thing is, you're going to be watching a piano competition with no sound? My understanding is that the reason you go to a piano concert is to listen to the music. C is absurd. But here's the point. Perception is very subjective, just like it says in the title. We all have biases and we all have snap judgments. Somebody walks in the room and from the way that they walked, the way that they smiled, their look, to their posture, things about them. People pass judgment on people all the time. Let's just agree, it's pretty unreliable. I showed my hand a little bit there, but guess which of these groups actually was most accurate in guessing which of the contestants actually won the competition. A 1,000 people divided into three groups. Some listened and watched, some only listened, some only watched. Which of the groups did a better, more accurate job of choosing who the final winner was? Yes, completely shocking. The group that wasn't listening to the music actually guessed more accurately. This has quite a few very disturbing potential implications. Which is somehow how the pianist looked, somehow played a really big part in the fact that they won. Not a fan of that fact. Because we all want to believe that it's a meritocracy, is how good you are, you're evaluated truly for your merits. Well, there's this thing called ''executive presence'' that matters. If you're good at your job and you have zero ''executive presence'', you may be in trouble. Which one? That's disturbing. That's really frightening. Yes, I agree. Then two, the question is, what's the difference between fake it till you make it being a show off versus my perspective and what I want to share with you? I feel like ''executive presence'' is not being ruled out or dismissed or ignored by accident. Then maybe more importantly, what's the nuance between these two? Okay, so here we go. Executive presence. There's a pretty pivotal book with that name, executive presence, written in 2014 by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. She interviewed and surveyed 1,000 executives and she said, "Hey, do you think executive presence is important?" Generally, they said, "Yes." She asked, so what does executive presence mean to you? What does executive presence look like? How might we go about cultivating this in us? It's a pretty useful book. There's a lot of business books out there and a lot of them aren't good, but this is actually probably worth your time and your money, only because she gives very practical advice on what we can do to accentuate our strengths. A lot of words on this page. You don't have to memorize it. If you want to, you can pause the video and look at it, but we're going to mention some of them in a little bit more detail. I think the big takeaway for me is that there are three big buckets. Remember how we talked about consultants love buckets? There's three big buckets. Those buckets are; how you act, gravitas, how you talk, communication, and how you look, your appearance, on the right. A lot of times, we have a misconception that executive presence is entirely how you look. That you're well groomed, you're fit, you're stylish, you're tall, you're youthful and vigorous. Look, none of that hurts. If you're a well dressed and well put together and you hold yourself with great posture and composure, none of that hurts, nobody minds looking at a young, bright, polished, tall person. Nobody doesn't like that. But what we'll find through the research is that appearance is surprisingly small. That's not the big thing. The big thing gravitas, and how you act and hold yourself, is actually two thirds of executive presence. Consultants love three buckets, consultants love prioritizing buckets. Gravitas is the bucket that we want to be focusing on. Key takeaways of this section, and then in the next session, we're going to talk specifically about gravitas. Why? Because that's two thirds of executive presence. Here we go. Executive presence in my definition. This is the way that I like to explain it, not in the book, but how I like to explain it is, I want you to be yourself. Don't pretend to be somebody else. Don't pretend to be Eisenhower. Don't pretend to be somebody else. Be yourself, but on your best day. Because frankly, we have good days and bad days. On bad days, we're a little bit grumpy. On bad days, we're not paying attention to what we say. On bad days, we're not being calm. On bad days, we're blaming other people. We all have bad days. What I'm asking is that in very important situations, in particular, be yourself, but on your best day, and that varies. You and I are different. Two other things. If there are easy things that you can do, do them. Be consistent, be coachable. Remember that consulting is an apprenticeship. It's just a bunch of people working together to solve a client's problem. On your team, they're going to be people with a lot of executive presence and you need to learn from that. If there's five people that you really respect, my guess is that they're different and you can learn a different thing from different people. Learn from different people and figure out what can I learn from you? The last one is going to lead into gravitas, which is become an expert in something. When you first start in any career, you're not an expert, but the more you can develop a reputation for having unique skill sets, for doing things well consistently, for having a point of view that's really going to help you in many, many other ways. It's easier to be confident if you have done the work and you're competent. In conclusion. Executive presence, it is a snap judgment that people have on you. I'm not saying that's great. I am saying that we're humans and we're wired that way a little bit to be frankly judgmental. With that, we need to arm ourselves and understand how can I use this to my advantage? How can I be very authentic, but also awesome?
