Brian Kenny: Michael Dukakis, Mitt Romney, and Al Gore were all articulate, smart, and well-versed presidential candidates. Yet, in the homestretch of their campaigns, each lost to opponents who were better able to connect with the voters, proving yet again that style can matter just as much as substance when it comes to winning elections.
Today, we’ll hear from Professor Amy Cuddy about her case entitled “Congressional Candidate Dan Silver and KNP Communications.” I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and you’re listening to Cold Call. Professor Cuddy is a social psychologist who teaches in Harvard’s MBA, Executive Education, and Doctoral programs. Her TED talk on power posing is the second most viewed of all time. Amy, welcome.
Amy Cuddy: Thank you.
BK: So, if you could start by setting up the case for us. Who’s the protagonist?
AC: The protagonist is a young congressional candidate in Florida. He’s a newcomer to the district. He’s not very experienced, but very smart, knows policy really well, very well-intentioned, and he’s running against a 26-year incumbent who is beloved and respected in the district. It’s a pretty tough battle for him.
BK: Now, is Dan Silver a real candidate?
AC: That’s a pseudonym, but he is a real person.
BK: Dan has had success. He’s already won some elections. Why does Dan need KNP to help him?
AC: Dan is struggling to connect with the voters. And that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t understand what they need or he’s not saying the right things, but they don’t feel that he gets them. When they watch him speak, when they watch him in a debate, they just walk away. He leaves them cold. And they say they think he’s competent. They just don’t think he’s very warm.
BK: Tell us a little bit about KNP. What’s their story?
AC: KNP is a real communications firm, and they work with politicians and sometimes executives on their presentation style. They go in and they first help the person to figure out what he or she isn’t communicating, and they focus on two dimensions: warmth and strength. The idea is that everyone is better at communicating one than the other. How do they get them to do both well? So, when they uncover what this person is lacking, they help them figure out how to bring it in, but they use what they call an inside out approach. Rather than scripting or choreographing specific body movements—you know, if the person isn’t smiling enough, they go watch that person in their home environment, in their natural habitat, and figure out, well, when do they smile? What’s happening when they actually smile? They then import that. They call that a backyard barbeque behavior, and they import that into their professional life in such a way that people can, from the inside out, generate the emotion that will create a smile. It’s sort of like method acting, where you create a feeling within yourself, and that is expressed then through your body language, as opposed to having a scripted, raise-your-left-eyebrow-at-this-moment. No one can do that, unless they’re one of the best actors in the world.
BK: I was going to say maybe the difference between great actors and not so great actors is that they can find an emotion that helps them to put on the expression that really connects with people.
AC: In my book, Presence, I talk quite a bit about this. I interviewed Julianne Moore, who I think has wonderful presence. I wanted to know more about how she found that, how she learned to create that. She said, “One of the things you learn as a young actor is that you’re supposed to relax, but that goes completely against everything you think when you’re 18 as an actor. You think you’ve got to be full of angst and everything comes from this place of angst, and anxiety, and discomfort.” And that’s the worst place. It can’t come from that place. You have to relax in order to become a vessel for other emotion, and then you can fill it with the right emotion, and that’s what ends up coming out.
BK: Very interesting. You have some people that are well known for being able to do this. Bill Clinton comes to mind as somebody who could make you feel like you were alone with him, even in a room filled with 100 other people.
AC: That’s an unusual gift, but everyone can learn to do this. You have to figure out what you need to project. What do you need to project to connect with this person? You need to do it authentically, and you cannot do it authentically if it’s choreographed, because you just don’t have the cognitive bandwidth to think about what you’re saying and the exact movements that you’re using when you say it.
BK: This seems to be at the core of Dan’s challenge here—he’s substantive. He’s got ideas that he wants to get out there, but he’s not Bill Clinton. But there’s a way for him to do it. How does KNP approach that with him?
AC: KNP, Matt Kohut, John Neffinger, and Seth Pendleton, what they do and what they did in this case was they come down, and they have you watch videos of yourself, for a long time, which is excruciating—all the video that they can find of you.
BK: Nobody likes to watch themselves on video.
AC: Imagine doing that for a whole day or two days with body language experts in the room with you. What they want is for you to see what it is you’re doing and not doing. They don’t want to tell you, because they need buy-in, and the way to get buy-in is for you to generate it for yourself, figure out what you’re doing. After a day of doing this, Dan Silver said, “I never smile.” And that was exactly right. He never smiled.
BK: How did they help him fix that?
AC: They helped him by spending time with him, with his family, which must have been pretty odd to have a few guys with notebooks walking around and following you.
BK: At your barbeque.
AC: Exactly. And they really pay attention and look for signals of the missing thing, which, in his case, was warmth. They found that he always produced the most beautiful natural smile, which involves the engagement of the muscles around the eyes, when he was talking about his son. So they thought, “Alright, we can build on this. We can use this. He can start by actually talking about his son in his speeches.” Eventually, that’s what he would do. He would actually talk about his son in the future and how these policies will affect his son down the road. He cared about it deeply. It wasn’t false. And he immediately starts smiling as soon as he says the name of his son. He just lights up. And suddenly people go, “Aw, that’s so sweet.”
When you smile, people are mirroring you, so they smile. You get this mirroring effect, and then you get a virtual cycle of smiling also within the self. When you smile, it makes you feel happier. So, as he was smiling, it was improving his mood, making him feel better, more comfortable. You get reinforcement within the self and in the interaction. Eventually, he no longer needed to talk about his son in his speeches. He could just think about his family before he walked on stage. They’d give him a call.
BK: So, can you practice this?
AC: Yes. One of the things that John and Seth and Matt say is that Dan was the most receptive, open, and responsive person they had ever worked with. That is a huge plus for him because you have to be open to getting this feedback. The fact that he wasn’t defensive about it and said, “I know I need help, and I’m open to this,” that’s huge. Number one, you have to be open to it. Sit down and watch video of yourself. Listen to yourself. Have your friends do it with you. It’s painstaking, but do it. The next thing is to figure these things out. How are you coming across in warmth and strength? Are you giving off warmth first or strength first? Then you actually can start paying attention to your body language outside of the office and really figure out, when is it that I’m smiling, or when is it that I’m using really open, strong body language? What are the things that are happening right before I do that? What mindset am I in, and how can I get myself into that mindset before I go into this really stressful challenge?
BK: We’re in an election year. We’re all watching debates right now. What are some of the things that stand out to you when you watch candidates today?
AC: I want to know that they believe their story. If it seems over-rehearsed, I just can’t get on board with that. I know that sometimes it seems over-rehearsed because they’re nervous. But I don’t really want them to be very nervous. I want them to be excited to be out there telling me what they believe. So, a couple of the mistakes that I think candidates make: they focus so much on what they want to say that they neglect to do the things they need to do to connect with the voters. Instead of focusing on the voters, they’re focusing on the other candidate. They’re talking to each other when they should be talking to the voters. Focus on building trust and showing that you understand people, that you understand the people who are voting for you, who are entrusting you with this incredible responsibility, rather than showing the other person that you’re the strongest one.
BK: Yes, they seem to have this instinct to show how tough they are and how they can be combative. But you’re saying that can backfire on you. There’s also all of the infamous shots between remarks, when a candidate is actually not speaking and they zoom in on their face. Oftentimes they’re either not paying attention, or they look disinterested, or worse, they look like they’re rolling their eyes or something.
AC: Yes, even when you’re not speaking, people are watching you. It’s an interaction. Engage. Be present. Don’t roll the eyes. Don’t show contempt. Ultimately, people do like the person who is generous. They don’t like the person who seems threatened all the time and seems like they’re trying to be the dominant super alpha. People really don’t like that.
BK: They want to be able to connect. Everything that you’re saying seems to me like it applies in many other contexts. If I’m somebody early in my career, and I’m listening to this podcast, is there some important message you want me to take away from this?
AC: Think about what your most challenging moments are. What are the moments that make you feel the most stressed out, that you go into feeling the most dread, that you leave feeling the most regret, where you leave these moments feeling like, “I didn’t show them who I really am”? Figure that out first, because these are the moments when you want to practice this, being present, and they’re the moments when you most need to be. When you walk into those situations like a job interview, or giving a pitch, or leading a team meeting, or speaking to a large audience, instead of thinking about what’s actually happening, you’re thinking about what you think they think of you, and you’re usually wrong about that. You’ve got to get yourself to a point, before you walk into those situations, where you feel personally powerful. You feel strong, comfortable, where you believe your story, and you’re walking in trusting your audience. Trust your audience and see it as an opportunity to talk about the thing you are really excited about to an audience that’s there to listen.
BK: There are cynics out there who are listening who might think that KNP is just taking a candidate who lacks some electable qualities and is whitewashing them a little bit to make them more presentable. What would you say to people who have that sort of cynical take on this?
AC: First, I understand where it comes from. It comes from watching lots of politicians who do look phony, and you can tell that they were badly coached. I get it, but I would say what they’re doing is exactly the opposite. They’re helping people to figure out what their authentic best self and best message is and how to bring those things forward. It’s actually about stripping away the fears that prevent you from being who you really are and giving you the tools to really be authentic and real with people.
BK: Great advice from Professor Amy Cuddy. Thank you for joining us, tonight.
AC: Thank you.
BK: Once again, thanks for joining us. You can find this case, along with thousands of others, in the Harvard Business School case collection at HBR.org. I’m Brian Kenny. Thanks for listening to Cold Call, the official podcast of Harvard Business School.