In a completely rational world, facts and logic would always win. Your credibility would rest on the content of your argument and the clarity of your expression.
In a completely rational world, people who think they are better than they are or who fake confidence would be immediately exposed, and people who know their stuff but are naturally shy would still rise to the top.
But the world is much messier than that, and that’s why confidence is a key ingredient of personal credibility. There are several reasons for this:
- People don’t make decisions on logic and facts alone
- Proposals and ideas almost always contain some measure of uncertainty and subjectivity
- Higher confidence makes you appear more competent to others
People don’t make decisions on logic and fact alone. Your listeners are using two mental processes simultaneously to decide whether or not to believe you. System 2 involves the active involvement of their logical thinking processes to weigh evidence and form judgments of the probability that what you are saying is true. System 1 involves the rapid and unconscious reading of cues, and the complex and unknown interplay between emotion and intuition. System 2 is hard work, while System 1 is easy and automatic, which is why it carries so much influence in our decisions even when we try to prevent it.
Uncertainty and subjectivity. Although System 2 might seem to be a superior way of making decisions, System 1 is actually essential to good decisions and the proper functioning of organizations. Organizations exist to combine different specialties and competencies under one roof, so you will likely be speaking to people who are not equipped to fully understand your logic and facts, at least not without putting a lot of time into it. That means that they have to take shortcuts and rely on your judgment. Their confidence in your judgment depends heavily on whether they perceive that you have confidence in your own judgment and competence. Since they can’t read your mind, the only way they have of perceiving your confidence is through the behaviors you exhibit.
When I interviewed executives for my book on sales presentations, several admitted that they don’t have the knowledge to fully judge the accuracy of claims that salespeople make when they present highly technical solutions. So one of their favorite tactics is to ask a couple of questions to “scratch beneath the surface” and judge how confidently the salesperson answers. To some extent, even multimillion dollar decisions are being predicated on the decision-maker’s confidence in their own ability to assess others’ confidence!
Confidence adds to perceived competence. Being social animals, humans are exquisitely sensitive to verbal and nonverbal cues that indicate relative levels of status within groups. Those who act more assertively and confidently tend to be accorded higher status, and in general are perceived to be more competent than they actually are.[1] In fact, while it might seem that overconfidence could be dangerous to decision making, the fact is that overconfidence makes you exhibit the behaviors that others find convincing, so – within reason – thinking you’re better than you are actually pays off in terms of higher influence within the group. It’s called “honest overconfidence” and it works. It leads to speaking up more in meetings, appearing calmer and more relaxed, and seeming more confident in your answers.
What does this mean to you as a persuader? Anything you can do to boost your outward confidence will add to your credibility. Of course, the best and most reliable way is to boost your inward confidence by being prepared and thoroughly knowing what you’re talking about. But because that’s not enough, you also need to get comfortable with speaking to groups, and even in some cases, fake it even if you don’t fully feel it.
You might also like:
Should You Fake It ‘Til You Make It?
Book Review: The Confidence Code
Max Cred Factor #4: Confidence
[1] Cameron Anderson, Sebastien Brion, Don A. Moore, and Jessica A. Kennedy, A Status-Enhancement Account of Overconfidence, 2012.
Don’t let them see what’s going on underneath
In their book, The Confidence Code, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay counsel against the popular advice to “fake it ‘til you make it”. They tell us that “Confidence isn’t about pretending, or putting on an act; it springs from genuine accomplishment and work.”[1]
They also go on to say that faking confidence actually makes us feel less secure, and that others will certainly be able to detect the false signals we’re sending.
Let’s deal with these last two points first, and then come back to the first.
There is an entire body of research around what’s called “embodied cognition”, which means that our minds sometimes take cues from our body to determine how we should feel. In a nutshell, adopting a confident pose even when we don’t feel it can actually make us feel more confident.[2]
Will others be able to tell if we feel less confidence than we try to show? It’s not as easy as you might fear. We all think we’re better at detecting deception than we actually are, but one survey of over 200 studies found that people perform only slightly better than chance at detecting when others are not being totally truthful[3]. Even specialized training doesn’t help much, as the Transportation Security Administration found out after spending over $1 billion to train its “behavior detection officers”, with little to show for it.[4] You will probably be the only person in the room who knows the true level of confidence you’re feeling.
The first point is worth addressing at length. It’s true that confidence should ultimately rest on a solid foundation of real competence and compelling content, and in business presentations and sales, outright lying is not only wrong but it’s also stupid. But the problem is that you can have a strong conviction that you are right and still feel a lack of confidence in your ability to get others to buy into your point of view, or you may have pre-speech jitters despite your solid grasp of your material. In cases like that, it does not help your case to be open about your lack of confidence.
In fact, there are often times that faking confidence is not only acceptable, it’s the only right thing to do.
The outstanding historical example of “fake it ‘til you make it” was when Winston Churchill inspired a nation and possibly even deterred another by telling the world that “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” After he closed the speech, he remarked to colleagues, “We shall hit them over the head with broken bottles, because that’s bloody well all we’ve got.”
Churchill did not sugarcoat the grim military situation in the beginning of his speech, but he knew that he had to say something to inspire his countrymen for the hard road ahead. He knew that Britain could eventually resupply itself with weapons, but the one indispensable asset that had to be preserved at all costs was confidence. If he showed any wavering at all, the consequences could have been disastrous.
Does a coach tell his team during a halftime speech that he doesn’t think they can come from behind, because the other team is too good? Does a doctor tell a patient that she doesn’t have confidence that the procedure will work? In situations like this, faking confidence is not only acceptable, it’s the right thing to do for the other party.
There are also times when faking confidence is the right thing to do for your own interests. When you’re in a negotiation, do you openly admit that you’re desperate for the deal, and will cave in if they object?
Life will constantly throw situations at you where you will need to show more confidence than you actually feel; people will not follow an uncertain trumpet. Sometimes you do have to fake it ‘til you make it. It’s called leadership.
[1] P. 164.
[2] Amy J.C. Cuddy and Caroline A. Wilmuth, The Benefit of Power Posing Before a High-Stakes Social Evaluation, Harvard Business School Working Paper, 2012.
[3] Charles F. Bond and Bella M. DePaulo, Accuracy of Deception Judgments, Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2006.
[4] I’m still waiting to land one of those training contracts.
Although we consultants and bloggers like to make things more complicated than they are, sometimes success boils down to very simple things. One excellent example is writing thank-you notes.
I was discussing this idea with my friend, Rick Hertan, who is a recruiter and executive coach, and he told me a story about a candidate he once put in front of a major Midwest-based Fortune 500 company for an EVP position. The candidate was perfect for the job; he interviewed well on the first interview, and afterwards he and his girlfriend were flown out for more interviews as well as dinner with the outgoing EVP and his wife. Things went so well that he was offered the position with a generous compensation package. A week later, the company rescinded the offer, simply because the candidate did not send a thank you note!
Rick tried to rescue the deal, but he was told that they were a family-oriented company who took these types of values very seriously, and had decided that the candidate would not fit their culture. To this day, the candidate tells Rick that was the single costliest mistake he has ever made in his career.
I’m the furthest thing from an etiquette expert, so take the rest of this in that spirit. The first rule should be: write the damn note! I personally think email is fine for business dealings, although a handwritten note or letter is probably a much better idea for a social situation. Of course, it never hurts to pick up the phone and actually give thanks in person.
I’m also not an expert on how to write them. I envy people who seem to have a knack for finding just the right tone of appreciation between the extremes of gushing flattery and cold bland clichés. My best advice, judging from the ones I’ve received and really liked, are to be sincere and be specific. Let them know they are appreciated and tell them specifically how they helped you.
In this age of electronically-powered networking, it’s easy to forget the simple social graces and common courtesies, but they are so easy to do and can mean so much.
Thanks for the story, Rick!
It’s not really that bad
In a class I ran last week, the participants seemed to be having a harder time than usual asking their customers (actually, their colleagues playing the part of customers in role plays) the hard questions. They would ask one or two questions about the customer’s situation, and then fail to probe when the customer’s answer hinted that things may not be as rosy as they claimed. Words like, “issues, struggles, lack of, etc.” zipped unnoticed over their heads like stealth planes.
Instead, the salespeople would listen intently, maybe jot down a note or two, and then when the customer finished their silent pleas for help, launch into their canned pitch about all their “solutions”.
When I tried to figure out what was going on, one of the students told me that they have been conditioned to accentuate the positive, so it seems like a downer to get the customer talking about the problems in their situations. I replied that if doctors acted that way, no one would ever be cured of anything.
Why do so many sales conversations avoid these areas? I don’t know for sure, but I can speculate. It may be a sense that the customer already knows what he needs, so you sound pushy in bringing it out. It could be a lack of knowledge of the customer’s industry, company, or operations. It might even be impatience to talk about the wonderful slick product you have. But mostly I think it’s the fear of upsetting the customer by bringing out unpleasant topics.
The problem with that, is that status quo is extremely powerful. Customers will never buy except to solve a problem, take advantage of an opportunity, adapt to change or mitigate a risk. And even if those are present in their situation, if they don’t talk about them they may be able to fool themselves that they can put off doing something about them. Meanwhile, the consequences and risks pile up because no one has asked the hard questions.
They can only put off action for so long before eventually the need catches up with them, but by then you probably won’t be there to help. The only person who wins when you steer clear of the hard questions is your competitor.
