People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Several years ago, a power plant in the Midwest released a small amount of hazardous waste into a local lake. As you can imagine, the incident generated a lot of concern. Hundreds of people live along the lake’s shores. Thousands flock to it during the summer to swim, fish, and water-ski. Local officials, bombarded with calls from residents demanding to know whether they were in any danger, summoned an executive from the utility that owned the plant to a public meeting at the local high school. Let’s call the executive Mr. Malone. They also invited a professor from a nearby university to assess the spill and speak about any potential threat it posed to the community.
That night, several hundred angry, worried, and suspicious people packed the high school auditorium. They didn’t have any reason to trust Mr. Malone. After all, he represented a big, faceless corporation they perceived to be interested only in the bottom line. Beyond those who worked there, few people perceived any tangible benefits from having the plant operate just a few miles from their homes. They lacked any control over the situation, and almost no one understood how the plant operated. They believed that the leak threatened the children who swam in the lake. In other words, nearly every one of the major risk assessment factors we discussed in Chapter 4 drove the crowd to believe that the leak represented an imminent danger.
Mr. Malone faced a very tough situation. He knew the leak was extremely small and posed no threat to people or the environment, but in order to break through and win people over, he knew he had to establish himself as a trustworthy and credible source of information.
The professor spoke first. He spent 30 minutes running through a dizzying array of facts about the situation, including the amount and toxicity of the waste that spilled into the lake, likely dispersal patterns, and potential exposure metrics. He stood behind the podium as he spoke, referring to slides with lots of numbers and complex graphs. He used big, complicated, technical words that few people in the audience understood. By the time he finished, the crowd was even angrier and more worried and suspicious. (This is a good example, by the way, of how the local credibility we discussed in Chapter 2 doesn’t always hold if someone makes too many other mistakes.)
When it was his turn to speak, Mr. Malone took the microphone off the podium and stepped down from the stage so he stood level with the crowd. He began by saying how happy he was to be standing in the auditorium again and how it brought back a lot of fond memories from the days when his three kids attended the school. For the next several minutes, he reminisced about high school plays, proms, and sporting events. He told the audience that while he hadn’t been to the school in a long time, he and his wife still lived just a few blocks away. In fact, he said, he and his wife had walked to the meeting. He explained how they had come early so they could spend a little time catching with old friends. He also told them that he looked forward to reconnecting with the school, because one of his daughters also lived in the neighborhood, and he expected that his young grandchildren would eventually roam its halls as his own children once had.
Only then did Mr. Malone start talking about the spill. For no more than 10 minutes, he explained what had happened, using simple, plain language. He accepted full responsibility for the spill, for cleaning it up, and for making sure it never happened again. He closed with the following statement:
I understand that many of you are concerned about what happened at my plant. I’m concerned, too, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to figure out exactly what happened and fix it and to make sure this is the last time anything like this ever happens again. When it’s fixed, I’ll tell you what we did and why. You know, I live here. And my family lives here. I’ll tell you the same thing I told my daughter when she asked if she should be worried about her family’s safety: the spill was unfortunate, but it was very small. We’ve conducted many tests, including immediately after it happened, and we have been unable to detect any trace of the spill. Which is why I was very comfortable telling my daughter that she and her kids are perfectly safe. So are all of you and your kids.
That’s my main message to you: you and your kids are safe. You can swim in the lake, as my wife and I did just last weekend. You can fish. You can water-ski.
Now I’m sure you have many questions, and I’ll stay as long as it takes to answer them. And I have a stack of my business cards up here with me. When the meeting is over, feel free to come up and talk to me individually and to grab a card so you know how to reach me if you have any questions or concerns after you’ve gone home.
Then he sat down. In less than 15 minutes, Mr. Malone had turned an angry, worried, and suspicious crowd poised to attack him into a relieved, appreciative group of concerned but calm residents. When the moderator opened the floor for Q&A, they pelted the professor with difficult, hostile questions for almost an hour. Mr. Malone barely said another word.
I’m proud to tell you that Mr. Malone succeeded in part because my firm helped him prepare for the meeting. Everything he said and did, from walking to the school to talking about his family to bringing business cards to hand out to people, was designed to prove to the assembled parents that he was trustworthy and credible. He succeeded in winning over the crowd because he employed the right strategies, skills, and techniques.
Learning to succeed as Mr. Malone did begins with understanding how people judge whether you’re a trustworthy and credible person. Research conducted by Dr. Vincent Covello at the Center for Risk Communication has revealed that most people base that judgment on four criteria:
1. Caring and empathy
2. Openness and honesty
3. Dedication and commitment
4. Expertise and competence
Figure 5.1 offers a powerful example.
FIGURE 5.1 World War II Victors—and Great Communicators
Great communicators succeed in large part because they personify the four criteria that people use to judge trust and credibility: caring and empathy, openness and honesty, dedication and commitment, and expertise and competence. Successful politicians are particularly adept at communicating all four. Franklin Roosevelt connected with Americans suffering through the Great Depression and the Second World War by telling caring and empathetic stories that showed he understood what they were going through. Winston Churchill covered all four when he uttered his famous line about the war against Nazi Germany upon becoming prime minister of Great Britain in 1940: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” In 11 words, he showed himself to be caring, honest, committed, and competent.
In normal situations, people don’t judge you at all, so these criteria don’t matter. As we discussed earlier, absent a risk that sparks anger, worry, and suspicion, the vast majority of people with whom you communicate assume you’re a trustworthy and credible person. You don’t have to pay any attention to caring or honesty or dedication, because the people with whom you’re communicating aren’t paying any attention to them.
That all changes in a tough situation. When people perceive a risk and become angry, worried, and suspicious, they immediately and continuously assess and monitor everything you say and do through the filter of these four criteria. People don’t necessarily know that they’re doing it. It happens subconsciously. And that filter causes them to view every signal you send, verbally and otherwise, in the most negative way possible.
Sweating is a good example. Let’s say you have to give a speech to 200 colleagues and peers. Chances are you’re going to be nervous. According to many studies, including one conducted in 2006 by Dr. Paul L. Witt, an assistant professor of communication studies at Texas Christian University, public speaking is the number one fear reported by Americans. It’s the basis of one of Jerry Seinfeld’s most famous jokes: “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
If you’re nervous and anxious, you may start to sweat. That’s perfectly normal. If you have to use a handkerchief to mop your brow during the speech, your colleagues and peers won’t hold it against you. They’ll think, “He’s nervous, just like I would be.” Or they might think the lights are hot. But turn those 200 colleagues and peers into 200 angry, worried, and suspicious members of a community where your company just leaked even a small amount of hazardous waste into a lake, and they won’t give you that benefit of the doubt. They’ll view the fact that you’re sweating through a negative filter. You’re not sweating because you’re nervous. You’re sweating because you don’t want to be there. Or you’re trying to hide something. Or you’re lying. Knowing this has led our firm to give up a lot for our clients (see Figure 5.2).
FIGURE 5.2 Sweating and the Shirts off Our Backs
In 2005, one of the partners in my firm traveled to New Orleans right after Hurricane Katrina came through and devastated the city. He met one of our clients to shoot video of some of the damage. It was hot and muggy, and after a couple of hours, the client, who was narrating the video, sweated right through his shirt. Knowing that in a tough situation, angry, worried, and suspicious people will interpret sweating as a sign of dishonesty, my partner literally gave the client the shirt off his back.
Angry, worried, and suspicious people pay attention not only to what you say but also to what you do with your eyes, hands, posture, clothing, and many other nonverbal cues (more on this in Chapter 6). To win them over, you have to send all the right signals. Then they will be willing to hear what you have to say, believe what you have to say, and ultimately act on what you have to say. If you send any of the wrong signals—just one!—they may decide you are neither trustworthy nor credible. Even if you show that you’re caring, open, and dedicated, you will fail if they don’t perceive you to be an expert. Which means you might as well pack up and go home, because nothing you say will be heard or believed or acted upon.
Now that you see how important these factors are, let’s take a look at each of them in turn, discussing what you need to do to send the right signals and establish yourself as a trustworthy and credible source of information.
Research shows that of the criteria people use to judge trust and credibility, caring and empathy are by far the most important. When people are angry, worried, and suspicious, most will decide whether you’re a caring and empathetic person within 30 seconds of meeting you. And once they have made a decision, it’s nearly impossible to change their minds. That puts a premium on making an immediate impression, which means the first thing out of your mouth in tough situations must be caring and empathetic.
What is caring and empathy? The best and most relevant definition I’ve read comes from the popular book Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most, published in 1999. Here’s how authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen describe empathy (and, in essence, caring as well):
The deepest form of understanding another person is empathy. Empathy involves a shift from my observing how you seem on the outside, to my imagining what it feels like to be you on the inside, wrapped in your skin with your set of experiences and background, looking at the world through your eyes. . . .Psychologists have found that we are each more interested in knowing that the other person is trying to empathize with us—that they are willing to struggle to understand how we feel and see how we see—than we are in believing that they have accomplished that goal.
Caring and empathy come in different forms. Risk communication expert Peter Sandman argues that it’s not enough to acknowledge an audience’s concerns or simply to show we’re paying attention. He believes caring and empathy must be communicated in a respectful, gentle way. In tough situations, the best—and really only—way to do that well is to tell a personal story.
Notice that Mr. Malone didn’t start his speech by trying to explain the spill or why it happened, as the professor did. Instead, he talked about the school and his family. He shared memories and expressed feelings that showed the people in the auditorium that he was just like them, implying that he shared their thoughts and concerns. In his audience’s eyes, he became more than an executive with the company responsible for the spill. He was a husband, a father, and a concerned member of the community. He lived there. So did his daughter, and her children. When he spoke, he didn’t stand behind a podium or talk down to the people in the auditorium from a platform. He stepped down to their level. He put himself in their shoes and showed them in words and in actions that he understood them and their feelings. By demonstrating that he was a caring and empathetic person first and a utility executive second, Mr. Malone went a long way toward establishing trust and credibility with his angry, worried, and suspicious audience.
As it turns out, he went about halfway. Research shows that caring or empathy accounts for about half of the trust and credibility judgment that people will make of you. My firm has organized the four trust and credibility criteria into what we call a “CODE score.” Figure 5.3 lists the criteria and the number of points my firm has assigned to each. As you can see, the caring and empathy criterion accounts for 50 points. Each of the other criteria—openness and honesty, dedication and commitment, and expertise and competence—accounts for 10 to 15 points. Add them all up, and a perfect CODE score is 100. When my firm trains people such as Mr. Malone, we push them hard to earn a perfect score. Anything less, even a 95, means they may fail to establish trust and credibility. And if they fail to establish trust and credibility, they’ll never be able to break through and win people over.
FIGURE 5.3 The CODE Score for Trust and Credibility
Based on four criteria identified by Dr. Vincent Covello at the Center for Risk Communication, my firm developed what we call a CODE score for remembering and measuring success in establishing trust and credibility. By demonstrating that you’re caring, open, dedicated, and expert, you’ll be able to break through and win people over. Any score less than 100 means you may fail, so it’s crucial that you do everything exactly right when your audience is angry, worried, and suspicious.
Barbara Longsworth
It’s not enough simply to tell people that you understand their feelings or share their concerns. You have to prove it to them. That’s what personal stories do. They resonate much more powerfully than simply saying you’re sorry.
In the previous chapter, I mentioned my partner who lost a job early in his career. Here’s what he actually said to one of the employees we had to let go:
This happened to me when I was about your age. It was really hard, but I bounced back from it. In fact, losing that job put me on the track to getting this job, and I’m much happier here. So I have a sense of what you’re feeling right now. I’m sorry you have to go through it, but I know from personal experience that everything will work out just fine.
It immediately defused a potentially tough situation and actually put the employee at ease. It was still a difficult meeting, but my partner’s caring and empathetic story made it much easier for everyone.
When I teach classes on how to win people over in tough situations, people often stop me at this point and ask, “What happens if I don’t have any stories?” My response is always the same: “If you really think about it, you probably have more than you realize. And if you don’t, go get some.” Obviously you can’t lay yourself off if that hasn’t happened to you. But it probably has happened to someone you know and care about—a relative or a friend. If you’re in a position where you may have to let people go, talk to people you know who’ve gone through it. It’s not quite the same as being able to say you’ve been there yourself, but it’s much better than simply saying, “I’m sorry.” For clients who represent their organizations out in the community—whatever community that may be—I encourage them to get out of their offices and talk to people. Walk the factory floor and chat with colleagues. Join a local business group, and get to know your neighbors and peers. You’ll pick up a lot of stories just by walking around and talking to people, which is something you should be doing anyway!
One last note: Caring and empathy must be genuine. While caring and empathy may be the most powerful of the four trust and credibility criteria, the others also are important. It’s not effective, nor is it ethical, to feign caring and empathy in order to manipulate people. If you’re not a caring and empathetic person or don’t feel that way in a particular situation, find someone else to communicate on your behalf.
No matter what, effective communicators must tell the truth. Being deceitful or trying to hide something always backfires, and once you’re caught, you’re done. You’ll never establish trust and credibility. The criterion of openness and honesty accounts for roughly one-fifth of your CODE score, or between 15 and 20 points.
Mr. Malone earned openness and honesty points when he admitted that his company was still trying to figure out exactly why the leak at his plant had occurred. He promised to find out and to share the information with the community as soon as he had it. The same principle applies if you have to explain a mistake to your boss. Don’t beat around the bush. After you’ve expressed caring and empathy, explain exactly what happened and why. Take responsibility, promise to figure out what went wrong, and describe what you’re going to do to prevent it from happening again. The conversation will be much easier, and chances are the ramifications, if any, will be less severe.
This is something politicians never seem to remember. Rather than admitting the truth and accepting responsibility, they too often resort to obfuscation and cover-ups, an approach that rarely works out well. My dad often shares an anecdote about a television interview that George H. W. Bush gave after losing a primary race he had been expected to win during the 1980 presidential election. The reporter asked the future vice president and president why he thought he lost. Bush replied, “I have no idea what happened, but we’d better figure it out, or we’re going to be in big trouble.” With this surprising and disarming candor, Bush earned at least one lifelong fan and supporter—and spent the next 12 years in the White House.
Unlike too many politicians, you, I hope, find it obvious that breaking through and winning people over depends on telling the truth. What may be less obvious is that it also depends on showing the truth. When it comes to openness and honesty, you have to send the right nonverbal messages. We’ll cover this in more detail in the next chapter, but in part that means:
Making good eye contact with your audience. In determining whether or not you are trustworthy and credible, people pay closest attention to what you’re doing with your eyes. Anything other than maximum eye contact sends negative signals that angry, worried, and suspicious people will interpret as being deceptive.
Removing barriers from between you and your audience. Mr. Malone got out from behind the podium on the stage of the high school auditorium in part to send the signal that he had nothing to hide. If you have to discipline an employee, don’t sit behind your desk. Come around and sit in a chair.
Showing your hands when you speak. Hiding your hands in any way—behind your back, in your pockets, or even clasped together—sends the message that you’re holding back or concealing something.
Finally, it’s perfectly acceptable to follow the example set by Mr. Malone and the first President Bush and admit that you don’t know something. The people I teach often worry about not being able to remember an important fact or the answer to an obvious question. If you don’t know, say so—but promise to follow up. Here’s a ready-made response you can use:
That’s a very good question, but the answer escapes me at the moment. Let me have your phone number. I’ll find out the answer and get back to you no later than the end of the day tomorrow.
Make sure you keep your promise to follow up, or you’ll lose dedication and commitment points. You also can’t fall back on this response too often. Otherwise, you’ll undercut the expertise and competence portion of your score.
Whether you’re disciplining an employee, trying to make up after a fight with your significant other, or speaking to a hostile group of people, it’s essential to show them that you’re reaching out and communicating not because you have to, but because you want to. Demonstrating that kind of dedication and commitment to addressing people’s concerns and taking them seriously account for another 15 to 20 percent of your CODE score.
Mr. Malone scored dedication and commitment points in several ways. He and his wife came to the meeting early. They took the opportunity to greet people in the audience ahead of time, which likely defused some of their anger, worry, and suspicion before the meeting formally began. He talked about his roots in the community and made it clear that he was just as determined to figure out what had happened and to fix it as anyone in the room. As he said, he and his family lived there too, after all. He brought personal business cards and invited everyone to take one and to call him directly if they had questions. That may seem like a big time commitment for a busy executive, but I can tell you that no one ever called. Just the fact that Mr. Malone was willing to give out his contact information was enough for the people in the audience. When the meeting ended, Mr. Malone and his wife didn’t rush out the door. They stayed, greeting more people and answering more of what I call quiet questions. People who left right away and looked over their shoulders saw Mr. Malone standing at the front of the auditorium and chatting with people, rather than rushing out. He was sending a very strong signal to everyone: I’m not here because I have to be. I’m here because I want to be.
In tough situations, let your audience decide when the interaction is over, as Al Gore did during his presidential campaign in 2000 (see Figure 5.4). Give them an opportunity to ask as many questions as they want, and make sure they have a way to get in touch with you afterward if they have any additional questions or concerns. Chances are they won’t, but you’ll earn the full 15 to 20 dedication and commitment points of your CODE score.
FIGURE 5.4 Al Gore Stays and Scores
Presidential candidates typically rush from one event to another with little regard for what their late arrivals and early departures do to their CODE scores. They get away with it for two reasons: people expect that kind of behavior from politicians, and, in most cases, they aren’t operating in tough situations where the rules for winning people over apply. Nevertheless, during the 2000 campaign, Vice President Al Gore stayed at a number of campaign town hall meetings until everyone else had left. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to win him the White House, but several papers ran front-page stories on Gore’s dedication to his audiences and his commitment to hearing their concerns and answering their questions.
Many clients with whom I work ask whether it’s appropriate to provide personal contact information. That really depends on the particular situation and your own comfort level. In most cases, a work phone number or e-mail address will suffice, but feel free to go the extra mile if it feels right (and safe).
The good news about the final criterion, expertise and competence, is that these 15 to 20 expertise points are the easiest to earn. Even Mr. Malone, who walked into the high school with very little trust and credibility, began the evening with a CODE score of about 20 points. He needed to work hard to earn his caring, openness, and dedication points, but the angry, worried, and suspicious residents who filled the auditorium that night undoubtedly gave him the benefit of the doubt when it came to his expertise. He was, after all, a top executive with the utility that owned the power plant. He had the experience, competence, and education to attain a high position in his company. Surely he must know what he’s talking about.
Chances are you’ll get the same benefit of the doubt when you step into a tough situation and seek to win people over. Your audience, whether one person or many, will at the very least believe you have a certain level of expertise. What they’ll wonder is whether you’re going to empathize with them, tell them the truth, and commit yourself to addressing their concerns.
The bad news about expertise and competence is that this criterion accounts for only 15 to 20 percent of your CODE score, and, because it’s largely assumed, the only direction to go is down. We already discussed one of the quickest ways to lose expertise points: saying you don’t know too often. Another common mistake is to throw around a lot of jargon. My partners and I work with a lot of very smart people who represent very complicated industries. We often struggle to scrub acronyms and confusing terminology from their vocabulary. They throw these terms around all the time with no trouble when speaking to colleagues and peers. But when you’re communicating with lay people who are angry, concerned, and suspicious of everything you say, jargon comes across not as intelligent but as condescending. Nontechnical people don’t understand technical terms and have a hard time keeping up. That drives down your expertise and competence score. We’ll touch on the jargon trap again in Chapter 9.
Think again about what Mr. Malone said. He was very careful not to repeat the professor’s mistake of using terms like “parts per billion” or “exposure metrics.” He spoke in clear, concise terms. He explained what had happened at the plant and what he was doing to fix it, using simple language that was understandable to the people in his audience, who had no idea how the plant operated. He didn’t try to show how smart he was by using big words. And he didn’t talk down to his listeners. He treated them with respect. As a result, he held on to the 20 expertise and competence points he had brought with him into the auditorium, even as he earned the other 80 caring and empathy, openness and honesty, and dedication and commitment points.
You can employ many other techniques to bolster your CODE scores. Because society perceives men and women differently when it comes to the four CODE criteria, some of these techniques differ depending on whether you’re a man or a woman. In Chapter 7, we’ll delve deeper into what you can do to boost your CODE score based on your gender. But before that, let’s take a close look at an even more powerful determinant of your CODE score: nonverbal messages. How you say something is far more important than what you say when it comes to winning people over when they’re angry, concerned, and suspicious of everything you say.