650: Would You Be Interested in You? The 3-Question Executive Presence Test

Speaker A: If you were sitting across from yourself in a meeting, would you find yourself interesting? Would you lean forward, eager to hear what you had to say? Welcome back to Speak up, the number one ranked business communication podcast for high performing introvert leaders. And yes, social introverts. That includes you, too. Here we help you turn brilliant ideas into influence and influence into better business outcomes. Because being super smart does not automatically make you influential. I am your host, Laura, uh, Camacho, your executive presence strategist, career accelerator, and when the occasion calls for it, your professional fairy godmother. And by the end of this short episode, you will know how to turn routine status updates into compelling insights that make busy executives lean in, listen, and care about your ideas. Challenge predictable communication habits, to stand out in meetings without pretending to be some crazy person. Right. And to make your unique strengths more visible and memorable so colleagues recognize your value, trust your judgment, and think of you for bigger opportunities. This week, I had the pleasure of bringing back one of my heroines, uh, the fabulous Maz Farrelly. She's an, uh, internationally successful television producer whose shows have been watched literally billions of times, and she's worked with some of the biggest names in entertainment. And she understands something that most business leaders have never been taught. Getting attention is easy. Making people care is the real skill. And that's what your executive presence. That's the job of your executive presence. And here's why that matters for your career. You can be the smartest person in the meeting, the one doing all the heavy lifting, and still be the one that no one remembers when it's time to hand out promotions or exciting new opportunities. Not because your work isn't valuable, but because no one has connected the dots between what you said and why it mattered. And if you're consistently forgettable in the room, you're probably not being talked about when you're out of the room. Matt says there's no point at which boredom is a valuable business asset. I love that. And if you missed our conversations on Tuesday and Wednesday, please go back and listen. She shares some extraordinary stories, including how she helped a brilliant but overlooked television creative person become head of development. But today, I want to take her wisdom, um, and turn it into a little executive presence experiment. We're calling it the boring test. Three questions, three small changes, and no personality change required. So test number one, Are you reporting or revealing? Now, that's a clever word play there. Imagine that you're sitting in a leadership meeting and someone says, we've completed phase two of the implementation, finalized the stakeholder engagement Process and are currently evaluating next step steps. Okay, Are you riveted? Are you sitting on the edge of, uh, your seat? No. You're probably wondering if there's any coffee left. Okay, so imagine that same information said like this. We discovered something during phase two that could save us six months and potentially a million dollars. Well, hello, you have my attention. Same project, same leader, different impact. Here's the distinction Reporting, which is what you've been trained to do, is telling people what happened. Revealing tells people why they should care. And that is what leaders with executive presence do. A lot of high performing leaders are magnificent reporters. Right? We've all had so much experience, you know, since book reports. These people know how to give accurate updates. They cover the details, they make sure that nothing is left out. But that approach makes your audience do all the work of figuring out what is important. And they're busy, everybody's busy. So they don't want to try to excavate your message like some archeologists trying to find that buried treasure. So here's your first challenge before your next important meeting. Look at what you're planning to say and ask yourself, what's the most interesting thing about this? Not the most technically complicated or impressive or not even what took the most work, but what matters most to the people listening? And lead with that test number. Um, two. What would the opposite look like? One of my favorite moments from my conversation with Maz was when she explained how the television show the Weakest Link came to be. So think about traditional quiz shows. We have a cheerful host and the contestants are encouraged and everybody gets applause, and even the losers get a lovely consolation prize. But then somebody had the audacity to ask, well, what if we did the opposite? What if the host didn't smile? What if the contestants were told, quite bluntly, that they were the weakest link? What if losing was not a warm and fuzzy experience and a wildly successful television format came from that? So I'm not suggesting that you go insult people in your next ELT meeting. Do not do that, and certainly don't tell people that I told you to do that. But I'm suggesting, like, we all want to think differently, and that means we need to ask ourselves different questions. What would the opposite look like if everyone starts their presentation with 15 slides of background? What if you started with a recommendation? If the norm is to give a chronological account of the problem, what if you started with a surprising conclusion? What if everybody in the meeting is discussing why something can't be done? What if you asked what would have to be true for this to work. And by the way, that's a great question to put in your toolbox. You don't need to be outrageous. Just stop automatically doing what everybody else does. And here's something that's so important for, um, the most introverted people listening. You do not need to be loud. You don't need to change anything. You need to leverage yourself by finding a more interesting perspective. And that is a different assignment. So test number three. Are you giving people something to repeat? So Maz told a story about a client of hers who was an exceptionally talented creative, but was not getting the recognition that he deserved. And she advised him to start referring to himself as, quote, the creative guy. And to reinforce that identity, she even encouraged him to dress in white so he would be easy to recognize. And long story short, the guy received an award. And on the screen behind him were the three words, the creative guy. And he became head of development. So you don't have to walk into your next meeting and say, as the most strategically brilliant executive in this company, here's what I think. Although that would be funny. People need to remember you, Something about you and what you contribute. Think about your colleagues. What are each of them known for? Maybe calming down an angry client or solving impossible problems, or seeing the big picture. These are reputations. And reputations influence who gets invited to the important conversation, who gets trusted with bigger responsibilities, and who gets considered for promotion. So here's your third question. When your name comes up in a room and you're not in that room, what do you want people to say? What if they said she's the person who can take a complicated problem and make it a clear decision? Or he's the one who sees growth opportunities that everyone else misses. Or she's the one you want in the room when the stakes are high. And this is not creating some fictional version, it is making your genuine strengths easier for other people to recognize, remember, and repeat. Executive presence is not about creating a performance. It's about making your value visible. Your next important meeting, I want you to ask yourself three questions. Am I reporting information or revealing something that matters? What would the opposite of the normal approach look like? What do I want people to remember about my contribution? So just change one of those. Maybe it's your opening sentence. The questions that you ask, the recommendation that you make, and notice to people, lean in. Do you feel like they responded differently? You know, you can feel the difference. You can notice in body language. That's how you get influence. You don't need more information, credentials, more words even. You need to be able to give people a reason to care. If, uh, you haven't heard my two conversations with mods from earlier this week, please go listen. That's episode 648-649. And if you're a senior leader who is tired of being the reliable, hard working person who gets all the assignments but not the recognition, that's exactly the kind of challenge we would tackle in my Executive Presence Mastery System. You'll find the link to set up a chat for you and me to see if this is a good next step for you in the show. Notes Being brilliant is wonderful, but being brilliant and memorable is how you become influential. Have a fantastic day and I'll catch everyone on the next episode.