318. Quick Thinks: Network Smarter and Make Better Connections

[00:00:00] Matt Abrahams: Your body can strengthen your message just as much as your words can. My name's Matt Abrahams, and I teach Strategic Communication at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Welcome to this Quick Thinks episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. My conversation with Vanessa Van Edwards was packed with practical advice for becoming a more confident and engaging communicator. She shared so many useful tips that we couldn't fit them all into one episode. So here come more practical, tactical techniques to help you and your body language reinforce your message.

[00:00:37] We remember things better when we see congruent gestures with what's said, and that can be really helpful. You have some advice and guidance that's very specific about positioning of hands, palm open, palm down. Can you share a little bit? Now, some of our folks are listening, so we're gonna have to describe this. 

[00:00:56] Vanessa Van Edwards: Let's go back to our biology. Why do body language cues translate? How does it work across cultures? How does it work across gender? If we think about we're about to meet a stranger caveman, like back in our caveman days, right? And we're about to meet this stranger caveman and they're approaching us, and our brain is very quickly trying to decide friend or foe. I ask people, where do you look when a first impression? People always say eye contact or smile.

[00:01:20] Well, actually, the first place we want to look is someone's hands because you want to see what is their intention. Are they waving hello with a nice open palm? Do they have nothing to hide? There's a reason why we like that open palm is because it literally signals to our brain, ah, this person is safe. They are not hiding anything from us, and their intention is positive. So one of my favorite gestures, ways to hold your hand is open palm, having your palms visible as possible, especially in a first impression, the moment you hop on a call, the moment you walk into a room.

[00:01:50] Whenever I'm working with speakers, the moment you hop on stage, the best gift you can give to your audience is a, "Hello. Happy to be here. Morning." Or even non-verbally having a hand wave before you even take the mic or take the stage, that is signaling to someone, I am literally open to you. My intention is to build rapport with you, is to literally reach out. And whether or not you're in a handshaking culture or not, we like to feel like we could be palm to palm, right? We like to feel like that. So open palm is one of my favorite gestures of positioning. 

[00:02:20] Matt Abrahams: I'd like to talk about networking. In your book, Captivate, you dissect the anatomy of a networking event. Can you talk us through a few best practices to maximize our effectiveness in networking? And I'd love advice on how to show up, what to say, where to stand, just all the specifics. 

[00:02:37] Vanessa Van Edwards: So as a recovering awkward person, networking events caused me great terror. So as a researcher, what I did was I'm just gonna study networking events until I've mastered them. And luckily, we were able to discover some very interesting patterns. So the biggest question I had was, in a networking event, what do I do? Like, where do I go? And I noticed anecdotally myself that when I was having different conversations, they had a different feeling based on where I was in the room. So we did a big speed networking experiment.

[00:03:06] It was actually across three different events in three different rooms, studying foot patterns, where people went, and then also the quality of conversation they were having. And I sort of like a football coach, identified that there are three different zones in a networking event. And this also goes for a party, a conference, a trade show, all similar have these. The first biggest worst place to stand is the start zone. And this is the mistake that very anxious people like me make, which is we walked in and we are alone and our anxiety is the highest.

[00:03:38] So we're like, "Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?" And we will make conversation with the first person we see. The problem is in the start zone, people have things they need to do. They gotta go say hi to the host. They wanna go to the bathroom. They want to take their shoes off. They wanna go get food. And so every conversation in that zone is gonna be like this, "What brings you here?" "Yeah, I, yeah, the host. Yeah, she's great. Yep, we should go say hi. Yeah. Great. Talk to you later." 

[00:04:02] Matt Abrahams: You've just diagnosed many of my initial conversations. 

[00:04:05] Vanessa Van Edwards: Yeah. And so it sets up needless friction, right? Like needless difficulty. So get out of that start zone as quickly as you possibly can so no one engages you and you don't engage anyone else, right? Like you're gonna get out of that start zone, anywhere in the start zone. And that's where people drop coats or drop shoes or check in. Not there. You don't want to stand near the food. I know it's so great to be near a buffet. I know. Near the food and near the bathroom, you're getting people whose brain is half on the food and the bathroom.

[00:04:31] So the best place to stand is right as people exit the bar or exit wherever they're getting their drink. This thing happens and you can literally see it on people's faces. I highly recommend if you're an observer like me, go to these events. When someone has their drink, their fresh drink in hand, water, coffee, tea, wine, whatever, and they turn and face the room, their face is like, "I'm ready. I'm ready. I'm ready." And you're a social savior. If you're standing right there and you go, "Oh, that wine looks great. What is it, a Cabernet tonight?"

[00:05:02] Or, "Oh my gosh, so nice to see you. I'm Vanessa. What brings you here?" It's like you are a social savior. So stand right there. And the second tip I love to give for networking is don't overthink your opener, but don't go sterile. One, asking about a, a drink or food, that's easy. Do you like it? You know, how is that doing? But two, working on anything exciting these days? Have any big wins this week? What's the highlight of your week? Ugh, isn't this venue so great? Those are more sparking questions, and when we do away with the sterile questions, it really helps people engage.

[00:05:34] Matt Abrahams: I like this idea of thinking about where you stand and being a social savior, helping others make it easy for them to have a communication. And then asking open questions that spark conversation that aren't trite and banal can be really helpful. I'm going to the next social event I'm at, I'm going to really pay attention to where people stand. I'm a greeter. I'm in the start zone. That's where I will typically stand because I learned a long time ago, the food and the bathroom get me in trouble 'cause people are definitely heading in a direction and not wanting to talk. You highlighted a little bit about this, but many of us struggle with small talk, in large part because we don't know how to start these conversations. What are some of those sparking lines or observations we can make to really help us? 

[00:06:20] Vanessa Van Edwards: Okay, so I've just started thinking about this concept, and I'm gonna share it with you for the first time, which is we are now competing in conversation with someone's feed, right? Like, at any moment we're in conversation, someone is gonna whip out their phone and start scrolling on their preferred social network. So really, your conversation is competing with that. What if we begin to think about conversation as a better feed? So what does a feed give? A feed gives us dopamine, which gives us a little bit of excitement, a little bit of motivation. So that's anything exciting. Any highlights? Anything exciting happening?

[00:06:55] Oh, you're never gonna believe what just happened to me, right? So you're sharing or asking. It's not just asking always. Sometimes it's actually sharing. Second, surprise and delight. So surprise is a big one. A feed doesn't have a first impression. You open up your feed and it starts. I think a mistake that we have in our brain is that we have to have this slow opener before we get into it. I think we do away with that. You can literally meet someone and they say, "How are you?" They're in, they're in just autopilot. "Oh my gosh, you know, it's been such a great week. The most surprising thing happened to me today. You're not gonna believe." Just going right into it and using what I call conversational confetti, like phrases that are a little bit like the feed, right?

[00:07:34] Like, the most surprising thing happened to me. The weirdest thing happened to me yesterday. I saw the craziest thing. You're never gonna believe. And starting to collect these stories and these moments also makes you more interesting because you're looking for things that you could share in that event or that party or that start of the meeting. A lot of these, I think, happen the first five minutes of a meeting. Most of our students are leading meetings, they're working rooms, and those first five minutes are the hardest. Just dive right into something you've been saving for them, and then spend all week curating and saving those little highlight things that you would put in your conversational feed. That's how we have to think about it. 

[00:08:07] Matt Abrahams: I have a colleague who's internationally known for her work on conflict and negotiation. Her name's Michele Gelfand, and she likes to talk about mind your metaphors. The way you approach something, the metaphors and analogies we use shape how we interact. And I love this idea of small talk is like being part of somebody's feed. And when you see it that way, it changes the way you approach. Anybody who knows me knows I love alliteration. Conversational confetti, love it. You can stockpile some of these ideas, think about it, go in, and it jumps right in. It initiates and catalyzes that communication. So I do like that idea a lot, and I will be stockpiling some things to help me in my small talk. And when we see small talk as a spark, as something that can really excite people, it totally changes that metaphor from, "Oh, this is something I dread. This is hard. This is a battle I have to fight."

[00:09:03] I'm hoping you can help me, Vanessa. I am often asked about charisma, and it's one of these things where you know it when you see it, but dissecting it can be really hard. From your perspective, what is charisma and how does one manifest and display it? 

[00:09:18] Vanessa Van Edwards: Charisma is one of those very interesting traits that we can immediately think of the most charismatic person we know, but when we have to try to define it, it's really challenging. When we think about charisma, I like to reference Dr. Susan Fiske's research, which looks at warmth and competence. Now, she wasn't coming at it from a charisma perspective. Her, the name of her research is The Stereotype Content Model. She was thinking, how do humans make impressions of others? But what she found is that most of our impressions are first warmth.

[00:09:49] Can I trust you? Can I be open to you? Do I like you? And then second, almost immediately, is competence. Highly charismatic people, and I've spent the last 20 years studying those people, what they are doing is very quickly signaling warmth and competence. In fact, the faster you can signal warmth and competence, the more charismatic you are. When you think about this, it also takes the pressure off of you. You don't have to be funny or impressive or extroverted. Actually, those things have very little to do with charisma. What's more important is very clearly signaling you can trust me and very clearly signaling you can rely on me. 

[00:10:27] Matt Abrahams: Warmth and competence are the very first topics that we cover in my strategic communication class at Stanford's Business School. They're, it's so important, and the research suggests both are critical, and leading with warmth can often be the most helpful. Can you share with us some cues and clues that we can communicate that demonstrate warmth and competence? 

[00:10:47] Vanessa Van Edwards: Now, this is a little more art than science, right? So when I read this research, I was immediately hooked and fascinated. I was like, "Yes, warmth and competence. But how?" "I love it, but what does warmth look like? What does warmth sound like? What does competence look like and sound like?" Although competence is a little bit easier because we know if we know our stuff, that can come across as competence. But you're right, warmth is, is I think the trickier one. So I went into the research of, okay, what signals openness, likability, friendliness? What makes someone feel trust? So here are my opinions of very highly warm cues based on highly charismatic people and the research.

[00:11:22] First, visible palm, eye contact, and positive, affirmative, non-verbal and verbal. So for example, if I were to come on this podcast and say, "Yeah, I'm so happy to be here." Right? So having positive tone, having positive words, and aligning those two, having that visible palm, having eye contact, a smile, if it feels authentic. I'm very careful to not prescribe smiling, because if it's inauthentic, it actually does the opposite. It, it really takes away from your warmth. So if you are actually happy to see someone, harness the happiness. What do we do when we like someone? We go closer towards them. We have closer proxemics. We go in towards them. We open up our palms. "Oh, my gosh, it's so good to see you."

[00:12:06] We either reach out for a handshake or a hug or a cheek kiss. We immediately raise our eyebrows up to take in more of them. We smile if we're happy. We might even lean in or nod more. All those things that we do when we are happy are the things that we need to harness to bring forth that warmth. And a good internal check is, if you're working with someone where you don't feel that warmth, it is very hard to fake it. So you have to find something that you feel genuinely warm about. Maybe it's a shared goal. Maybe it's a shared personal thing that you share outside of work. Find the way to build the rapport and then bring forth that instinctive warmth that we already do naturally. 

[00:12:42] Matt Abrahams: In the academic world, we call this immediacy, and I like that term because immediacy implies I'm immediately present. I'm there for you. And it can also imply urgency, and having that can help a little bit. But the notion that we have to think about and explore things that we do have some warmth and connection with the person can really help us focus in those moments. And we can all be thinking about our warmth and competence that we demonstrate.

[00:13:11] Thank you for joining us for another episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, the podcast. It was great learning from Vanessa. The one idea that really stood out to me is that reducing friction in communication isn't just about choosing the right words. It's also about intentionally using your non-verbal communication. To learn more from Vanessa, listen to episode 301. You can also check out our back catalog, which is full of helpful communication tips and tools to help you be a better communicator. This episode was produced by Katherine Reed, Ryan Campos, and me, Matt Abrahams. Our music is from Floyd Wonder, with special thanks to Podium Podcast Company. Please find us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to check out fastersmarter.io for deep dive videos, English language learning content, and our newsletter.