Last week Yahoo presented their third CEO of the year, former Google employee Marissa Mayer. In fact, Mayer was Google’s 20th employee some 13 years ago, fresh from Stanford, armed with a Masters in computer science.
Clearly a force to be reckoned with; but her crowning glory came when daily searches went from a few thousand to over a billion with her at the helm. She’s been a bench mark leader within the industry, not only because she is a woman in a widely male dominated industry, but perhaps because she presented herself in the right ways to get noticed, always dressing and presenting herself with impact.
Yahoo pursued and poached, with good reason. So how can you create an impact at work and present yourself in the right way to the right people?
Right place, right time, of course has something to do with catching career breaks, as does ability, but we believe there is so much more to it than that. It’s how you present yourself that makes the difference.
Presenting yourself with Impact at Work is a book that delves deep into the world of presentation, asking: what can we do to set ourselves apart? Imagine if the employees within your business were equipped with the kind of skills and expertise that wins certain individuals the top jobs? What kind of difference would that make to targets, revenue, profit and success?
We can’t cover all the points here, but taking a quick look through the YouTube archives of Marissa Mayer in action may give us some clues. In particular there are three key messages from the Presenting yourself with Impact at Work book…
Rapport
To present yourself with impact with highly technical staff, senior managers, clients and other key stakeholders requires the ability to rapidly build rapport with your audience. Someone like Mayer needs to be just as credible with her staff of computer scientists as with Wall Street investors.
All very well, but what does having good rapport with a person actually mean?
It’s widely thought that there are a set of characteristics that are observable when two people converse.
But they were never outlined until the 1960’s when Albert Mehrabian theorised that a large percentage of the meaning of a conversation comes from the facial expressions and body language together with the tonality of the voice. Recent advances in neuroscience have confirmed that unconsciously we pick up meaning from facial expressions and body language.
Interestingly, Mayer smiles a lot and has an infectious laugh that seems to build rapport quickly. Mayer also is consistent and authentic and so builds trust, she never seems to be ‘putting on an act’. Are you aware of the impact of your body language? Are you always authentic?
Energy
On her first day at Yahoo Mayer said "For me work is fun, and fun is work. I am very excited about the big challenges here, and I can't wait to work on them. It's going to be very, very energising." When presenting yourself people pick up on your energy. Mayer radiates energy and so draws people to listen to her. Mayer also appears to be able to deliver keynote speeches without notes and without nerves – controlling her energy positively. How do you manage your energy to engage with people effectively?
Stepping into someone else’s shoes
Finally, having the ability to be able to shift your view point and see things from another’s perspective is a very impressive and strong trait to possess. It gives you the freedom and power to become objective from an outsiders perspective but also allows you to keep to your own agenda. Mayer seems to do this naturally because of her absolute focus in all her work on the ‘user experience’ of her products and how they can ‘touch people’s lives’.
How does this situation relate to you? If you were working on a project which you didn’t see as moving in the right direction, how would you convey this message to your colleagues?
Successful individuals have the patience and foresight to take that step back and become the outsider looking in. Not only understanding how they could be having a positive impact on others, but how they could potentially have a negative impact as well. Becoming that ‘outsider looking in’ you secure a vantage point that enables the managing of potential volatile situations.
These three key tools: rapport, energy and putting yourself in other people shoes are just part of the whole bundle that allows you to create real impact at work. They provide the building blocks that can create the driven and successful power house that so many of us realise we have but fail to unleash.
So, do you utilise these principles at work?
Speak with the Presenting yourself with Impact specialists, Iridium Consulting by clicking here.
The book alone gives deep insights into how people can transform the way they manage situations and present themselves to key stakeholders. You can pick up a copy of the book by clicking here.
