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Transcript · TED Talks
How to Look and Sound Confident | Cara Hale Alter | TED
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Cara Hale Alter, who has studied nonverbal communication for 25 years, argues that visible credibility can be projected through specific, learnable behaviors, mainly strong posture and a strong, well-modulated voice. She stresses that gaps between how we feel inside and how we come across are usually skill or awareness gaps, not character flaws, and that video feedback is the best way to close them. Her conclusion is that confidence and leadership presence are skills anyone can develop.
- Visible credibility depends on predictable nonverbal cues, so people can learn to control the image they project.
- Strong posture means weight balanced over both feet, a T-shape formed by spine and shoulders, and a head that tracks with eyes and nose aligned.
- Voice is rated on a one-to-five volume scale, where level four is optimal, level three is merely average, and level five pushes listeners away.
- Many people stay in the safe average zone, and that caution can keep them from being exceptional.
- Eugene's case showed a 'meter issue': his internal sense of his volume was out of sync with how loud he actually was, so colleagues couldn't hear him.
- Feedback often comes as vague character traits like 'be more confident,' but it is usually a specific, fixable skills gap.
- Jamie felt her new posture and voice were 'phony,' but Alter argues that changing habits to match how you want to be seen is authentic alignment.
- Video feedback works because most people have blind spots rather than inability, and the video camera makes those blind spots visible; Alter closes with a call to seek outside feedback and develop these skills.
Desire to Be Understood
0:01We all have a fundamental desire to be seen and understood. And to have other people see us the way we see ourselves: capable, competent, intelligent, playful, charismatic -- you get to choose the adjectives that fit you. But that's why when there's a disconnect, when we feel misjudged, it can be very disconcerting, even painful.
Lauren's Confusing Feedback
0:26Several years ago, when I was teaching at Stanford, one of my students, Lauren, came to me for help unraveling some confusing feedback she'd received at her new job. Lauren said of herself that she was painfully shy and timid, especially around new people, so she was taken aback when her manager told her that her new coworkers were finding her aggressive and judgmental.
0:53She could not wrap her head around how that could possibly be true. In observing Lauren, I did notice that when she was feeling particularly nervous or intimidated, she took on a pretty extreme poker face and her posture became rigid and locked down. So what felt to Lauren from the inside like deer-in-the-headlights panic, looked from the outside like a cold, hard stare.
1:24So I encouraged her to try to loosen up her facial features and try to literally reach out rather than close up when she was feeling uncomfortable. How we feel on the inside can be very different from how we come across on the outside. There's a common misconception that how we come across to others is very subjective in the eye of the beholder.
1:48But I've spent 25 years studying nonverbal communication, researching the predominant cues that we as human beings use to assess credibility, confidence, leadership presence. And the bottom line is that there are ground rules, metrics. Certain behaviors lead to very predictable assessments on the part of the listener.
Posture and Voice Basics
2:11So if you can better understand what behaviors lead to what types of assessments, you can just be more in charge of the image that you project. And today, I'd like to address two very specific behaviors that have an outsized impact on what I call visible credibility. And that's your ability to project confidence and competence so that other people just immediately recognize your true potential.
2:40These two keystone behaviors are strong posture and strong voice. And I know that seems cliché -- sit up straight and speak up -- but it is precisely because these behaviors seem so much like common knowledge that we don't feel the need to actively cultivate these good habits. So let me be explicit. Strong posture means that if you are standing up, your weight is balanced equally over both feet.
3:08And whether you're standing or you're seated, your spine and your shoulders form a T. This area has literal core strength. There's no wishy-washiness in my spine. Notice what happens to my appearance of leadership presence as soon as I allow more flexibility in my spine. So this has literal core strength, even if I take a couple of steps.
3:30Then your head moves independently on your shoulders, like a camera on a tripod, and your nose and eyes should align and track in the same direction. Which means that if I look at you, both my nose and eyes point directly toward you. And if I look at you, eyes and nose directly toward you. Notice what happens right now when my eyes and nose move a little bit more independently.
3:52I'm very likely to look uncomfortable. But I could also look sneaky. Or mischievous. Or judgmental. Or skeptical. So here's the takeaway for posture. If you’d like someone to describe you as having a strong spine and a level head, I encourage you to have a strong spine and a level head. If you'd like someone to describe you as being straightforward and direct, try to be straight on.
4:24And if you'd like to create a closer connection to whoever you're speaking to, try to literally open up and reach out. So it's not accidental that we describe someone who has great influence as having a powerful voice. I like to demonstrate the power of the speaking voice on a scale from one to five.
4:47For volume, one on the scale would mean you can't hear a word I'm saying. So I'm actually not going to do that. Two is a bit like this. It's below average. Now you can hear me -- it's just that you're doing all the work. Level three is about like this. Level three is average, and most people, by the way, speak at average volume.
5:07It's fine. It's adequate. But it's just adequate. I'm missing a lot of opportunities to make a connection and to have influence. Level four is hopefully where I've been speaking all along. Now at this volume, I’m trying to come all the way to you, but it's a sliding scale. It depends on the size of the room and the acoustics and the situation itself.
5:27But four means optimal for that situation. (Very loudly) Level five is that one step too far. (Laughter) Where if, at level four, I was really making a connection with you, at level five, you begin to put up some boundaries. So it's a really big drop from four, getting you a perfect connection, to that one step too far, getting you the opposite of what you want.
5:55People will put up barriers. And most people intuitively know this. So most people gravitate to the safety of the average zone. And that is the most common mistake I see with any group that I work with -- people who are willing to be average. But this is a situation where good is the enemy of great. Because if your average with any one of your skills, you won't get any feedback because you're fine.
6:23But you might miss the opportunity to be exceptional. It sometimes happens that someone will have what I call a meter issue, and that's that their internal meter or measure of how loud they are is out of sync with the external measure, so they just think they're talking far louder than they are. And this is a very common problem, but I experienced a pretty extreme case of this in one of my seminars.
Eugene's Volume Problem
6:52Eugene was frustrated that his ideas were not being acknowledged in meetings. He'd bring up a point that he thought was pretty important, but receive no reaction. In giving him feedback, I asked him if he was aware that his volume was significantly soft, a level two or below on my scale, and that I was missing about 50 percent of everything he was saying.
7:18He looked up at the other participants and he said, "Is that true?" And every person in the room nodded yes. They had all noticed, but had been too polite to mention it. In that moment, Eugene had a realization. He'd been carrying around this burden, that the problem was his character, that his ideas were weak, or that he wasn't worth listening to.
7:47But it finally clicked. They couldn't technically hear him.
7:53It's important to note that when we receive feedback, it often comes to us on the character-trait level. Even well-meaning mentors will offer advice like, “You need to show more confidence” or “Try to be more assertive” or "try to be more approachable." And then you're just left wondering what exact behavior you need to adjust.
8:17What I know as a coach is that what is often described as a character flaw is really just a straightforward skills gap. And if you could identify the specific behavior that needed to be addressed, it might be relatively easy to fix. So, for example, so far in this conversation, I have been trying to follow the guideline of keeping my head and shoulders level.
8:41But if I were to change that behavior and have a lot of extraneous movement, it's possible that the feedback I'd get, that in order to show more leadership presence, I should tamp down my enthusiasm or my passion. (Laughter) And you can imagine what that would do to my psyche if my takeaway for how to show more leadership presence was be less enthusiastic.
9:02When the actual straightforward behavior that needed to be adjusted just then was” Can I speak with my head and shoulders level? That's a relatively easy thing to do. These skills -- strong posture, strong voice -- they're not that complicated. And I'm not in any way suggesting that this is the only way to project credibility and confidence.
9:27If you cannot follow one of these guidelines for whatever reason, no worries. There are many ways to demonstrate visible credibility. It's just that most people find these behaviors relatively easy to adopt, and they can be game-changing.
Jamie and Authentic Alignment
9:47I had a young woman in one of my programs, Jamie, and she thought of herself as a real go-getter, highly capable, leadership material. But she wasn't advancing as fast as she thought she should. The higher-ups just didn't seem to believe in her. When I sent her to the front of the room for some interactive, on-camera coaching, I noticed she was sending some pretty mixed signals.
10:14So let me demonstrate. She started in a very small, asymmetrical posture, eyes cast down, and she had a tendency to speak with a thin voice, using upward inflections. So I started by asking her to stand with her weight balanced over both feet and her shoulders level. And she did. Then I asked her to pick up her gaze so that her head was level.
10:38And she did. Then I suggested she open up her gestures so they'd be a little more interactive. And she did. Then I encouraged her to use a full voice with downward inflections. And she did. And then finally, I suggested she really focus on eye contact and try to see the people in front of her. And she did.
11:04And in that moment, she looked like the self-assured, aspiring leader she thought herself to be. And I said, "Jamie, that looks great. How does it feel?" And she said, "Phony. This isn't me."
11:25When we step outside of our usual habits, it can feel so unnatural. But there is nothing more natural about being in this position or being in this position. They're just habits. And also, I have to ask, what is you? Are you how you feel about yourself from the inside? Or are you what others perceive about you from the outside?
11:52Even though I guide people to use these nonverbal signals intentionally, I am a fierce advocate for authenticity. But I don't believe being authentic means you in your raw state, or you not trying very hard or not caring what other people think. My definition of authenticity is when the adjectives you would use to describe yourself are the very same adjectives someone else would use to describe you.
12:23There's alignment. But if you see yourself one way, and let's just say that's brimming with potential and ready to take on more responsibility, but other people are not seeing that about you, changing your behaviors so that they would see that about you, that's not inauthentic. That's alignment. That’s you representing yourself accurately.
12:48And there is no tool more helpful for getting this alignment than the video camera. When Jamie had a chance to see herself from the outside, both the before and after versions, she was very surprised, but she became immediately motivated to cultivate those new behaviors until they felt [like] second nature.
13:11It is fairly universal that people do not like to watch themselves on video, but the reason people show so much improvement with just a small amount of on-camera feedback is that it's not really about ability. It's about awareness. Nearly all of us are fully capable of changing a behavior. We just may not know that we need to.
13:38If we are not coming across at our best, it is usually because of a blind spot. And though it is a bitter pill to swallow, no one, including me, is immune to a blind spot.
Blind Spots and Call to Action
13:55One day, many years ago, I played with my children in the morning and then I took them off to preschool. And that day, as I went around running all of my errands, everyone I came upon greeted me with these big beaming smiles. It’s like magic dust had been sprinkled over the Earth and everybody was in a fantastic mood.
14:18But they seemed especially happy to see me. When I got home, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I had forgotten that when I was playing with the children in the morning, I [had] drawn a kitty nose and whiskers on my face. (Laughter) So I had been going around all day long with a kitty nose and whiskers on my face, and no one had mentioned it.
14:43Not a single person. And why do you think? Because they assumed I knew. I mean, so obvious a signal on my face could not have been accidental on my part. So it taught me a couple of lessons that apply very well to our conversation here today. First, you cannot trust that you will get outside feedback because more often than not, people assume you know.
15:12But second, people react to the signals that we send out, whether we are aware of them or not. And it can create a reciprocal reaction. By the time I got home that day, I was kind of bubbling over with positive energy, and my rationalization was that the world had changed. Not that I had anything to do with it.
15:36So this brings me to my call to action. Be courageous. Seek out outside feedback. Intentionally get an outside view of yourself. Even if it's on your cell phone, in your living room. And now that you know some of the key signals for projecting visible credibility -- grounded stance, strong spine, level shoulders, level head, full voice -- you have some tools to guide you.
16:03Because the good news is that qualities like leadership presence, credibility, confidence, these are not special talents that some people have and some don't. These are skills. Skills that any one of you can develop.
16:23(Applause)
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