You've got the power
How can Amy Cuddy improve your personal presence?Many professors have followers: not many have fans. Amy Cuddy, the social psychologist and Harvard Business School professor, has fans by the million.
Cuddy’s TED Talk, recorded in Edinburgh in 2012, is the second most popular TED Talk ever. (Over 31 million views and counting: David Blaine, Steve Jobs and Dan Pink don’t even come close.) On Twitter, her correspondents frequently rave, using words such as ‘inspirational’ and ‘life-changing’ to laud her work.
What’s the big idea? Essentially, Cuddy is inspiring people with her work on ‘power posing’ – adopting certain physical positions in order to heighten production of testosterone (making us more confident) and lower levels of cortisol (making us less anxious).
Adopting the classic Wonder Woman pose – right – for two minutes before entering a meeting, interview or presentation will help us to ‘bring our boldest selves to our biggest challenges’.
‘Presence’ is the name of Cuddy’s book, now out in the UK. Reviews are frequently adulatory. Susan Cain, the ‘Quiet’ woman, praises the book’s ‘warmth, empathy and laser-sharp intelligence… A must-read for – well, everyone.’ The book’s appeared on both the Amazon and New York Times bestseller lists.
It’s not just about power posing. There’s plenty on a range of aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication. These include insights into impostorism (that’s the ‘I don’t deserve to be here – when will I be found out?’ voice in your head) and iPosture (the confidence-sapping shapes our bodies assume when we’re hunching over our favourite contraptions).
We caught up with Cuddy and asked what advice she’d give to HR people facing up to some familiar, but challenging, situations.
I’ve got a big meeting with my CEO. How should I prepare?
Cuddy points out that it’s hard to generalise: there are lots of different reasons why you’d meet with a CEO and CEOs can vary incredibly in character. (Don’t forget, she works at Harvard Business School, where you can uncover twenty CEOs just by moving a pot plant.) That said, there are some general rules.
‘Yes, you want to go in feeling confident,’ she says, ‘but you shouldn’t be arrogant. CEOs want to work with people who are open to the possibility that they don’t have all the answers.’
People generally make one of two mistakes when walking into the CEO’s office. They’re either too deferential, or they feel like they have to take the floor.
‘The CEO doesn’t want to feel like you’re trying to overpower them. Don’t walk in and try to own the room – it’s not your room. But equally, don’t be too submissive. They need to feel that they can push you without you crumbling.’
Readying your mindset is just as important as planning what you’re going to say. ‘Don’t prepare a script. Because at some stage you’ll go off-script, and that’s when you could fall apart. Prepare to get lost in the woods, and to blaze your way out again.’
I’m interviewing someone for an important role. How do I present myself to get the very best out of the interviewee?
‘Here’s the bit most interviewers forget,’ says Cuddy. ‘You want this person to be comfortable, because you want to see this person as they really are. When they’re comfortable, you can see what they’d be like interacting with peers. That’s probably more important than seeing how they react under pressure from a senior.’
She cites Joe Navarro, the ex-FBI agent and body language guru. Navarro believes that the best interrogators are the ones who put subjects at ease. Doing so means you can establish an interviewee’s ‘baseline’ and then look for deviations from it – the tell-tale signs that they’re unhappy with a subject or just not telling the truth.
Verbally and non-verbally, then, it’s best not to appear too powerful. ‘‘Why should we hire you?’ is a horrible question,’ says Cuddy. ‘Don’t lead with it. Chitchat first to establish trust. Get to know them by asking pointed questions first.’
Physically, don’t hog the room. ‘When your body language is powerful, people in a less powerful position complement with submissive behaviour. Usually people mirror, but power asymmetry means you get complementary extremes.
‘So be somewhere in the middle – show confidence, but don’t overpower. Demonstrate interest by leaning forward and nodding. That makes it easier for the interviewee to relax and so say more revealing things about themselves.’
I’ve got a big, scary interdepartmental meeting with people who might not be my friends. How should I play it?
‘That kind of situation can feel as threatening as a job interview,’ muses Cuddy. ‘There’s one of you and a bunch of them, and they’re not really allies.’
Power posing would be a good idea, just before the meeting. Heightening testosterone may help you worry less about what your colleagues think of you, and allow you to think more about the opportunities the meeting presents. ‘It’s kind of like taking yourself out of the occasion,’ Cuddy suggests.
She reports a conversation with a fellow Harvard professor. ‘I asked her when she first knew she was a great professor. She said that it was when she realised she was no longer trying to figure out what the students were thinking of her – she was just trying to work out what they were thinking.’
If you start to collapse in the meeting, she says, pull your shoulders back, make yourself big, slow down your speech and take pauses – occupy temporal space too – all of which will make you feel more powerful.
‘And remember,’ Cuddy ends, a tad impishly. ‘No matter how bad it gets, they can’t really take anything away from who you really are.’
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